All the Right Notes: Monsters University

...or, an alternative title: Monsters University and "safe" storytelling

In the wake of Cars 2 (decidedly disappointing) and Brave (a lot of merit but also carries its own issues), I think a lot of people--animation fans and moviegoers alike--have been waiting for Pixar to "redeem" itself.  "Has Pixar lost its magic?" some ask.

So as Pixar began to pump out awesome advertising and trailers for their prequel to Monsters, Inc., there was a lot of hope that Monsters University would act as the catalyst to renew our trust in the successful animation studio.  Much like Brave, I was just as excited for Monsters U as everyone else.

And then the reviews came out.  All right, they seemed to say.  Better, but still not showing that "edge" of previous films like Up and Wall-E that puts Pixar's movies heads and shoulders above the rest.

"Too safe" seemed to be the words I saw over and over again.

Too safe.

And I wondered, what does that even mean?  What is "too safe" in a Pixar movie?  So, of course, I went to see it myself (with my dad, who loves animated films but can only see them with me because otherwise he feels weird at the theater--I'm certainly all too happy to oblige!).

After seeing Monsters U myself, I was--and still am--boggled by these average reviews which cite this "too safe" angle (if that is even a legitimate argument) as the movie's downfall.  Now, perhaps I'm simply too much of a sissy who enjoys her safety (that was sarcasm), but I believe that people who use this argument fail to see the timely and poignant message that MU offers not only its audiences, but the passionate and well-loved characters of its other movies.

What is that message?  Read on to find out!

Creative Writing Exercise: Hemingway and POV

So I'm taking a creative writing course this semester, and in our most recent class we did a point of view activity that I really enjoyed.  We took a section from Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" and rewrote it from one of the character's point of views.  I haven't actually read the entire short story, but from the section we were given, we determined that Hemingway was writing from the third person objective POV.

In the section of "Hills Like White Elephants" we read, there are three characters: "The American and the girl with him" and "a woman."  They have no names, and the narration is very distant from them, really only relating their dialogue and basic actions.

After we did the exercise, we partnered up and read each other's writing.  It was very interesting to read someone else's re-interpretation, because of course everyone writes very differently.  The exercise was a lot of fun, and definitely encouraged me to try playing around with different POV's when I write!

I chose to re-tell the scene from the POV of the girl.  We were only given about five minutes to complete the exercise, so of course it's very rough, but I was actually kind of pleased with my final product, so I thought (with a few little touches here and there to fix some syntax) I'd go ahead and post it.

Just for reference, here is the original Hemingway we were given to work with, from his short story "Hills Like White Elephants":

The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.

‘What should we drink?’ the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.

‘It’s pretty hot,’ the man said.

‘Let’s drink beer.’

‘Dos cervezas,’ the man said into the curtain.

‘Big ones?’ a woman asked from the doorway.

‘Yes. Two big ones.’

The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer 

glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills. 

They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.

And here is my re-interpretation from the POV of the girl:

Thankful for the shade, the girl slowly removed her hat, patting down stay wisps of hair.  She set the hat down delicately, slowly.  She wanted to sink down into one of the chairs, but the American was watching her.  Better not to show how wilted she felt in the oppressive Spanish heat.

Swallowing, the girl trilled, "What should we drink?"  Something to take her mind off the heat for a few minutes.  The train was still forty minutes out.  Her anxiety to sit was growing, but the man was still standing, so she remained stationary, drooping, hand languid on the back of the chair.

"It's pretty hot," he observed.  The girl tried not to let a flash of worry pass over her face--was her make-up running? was she sweating? or had it been simply a candid observation?

"Let's drink beer," she suggested, and was rewarded with a satisfied nod from the man as he finally pulled out a chair and sat down.  The girl sunk into her chair, suppressing a sigh of relief.

"Dos cervezas," the man said into the curtain.

"Big ones?" the woman asked.  The man's attention momentarily diverted, the girl slipped out her pocket mirror to check her face.  She quickly ran her hands over her cheeks, where the blush had smudged slightly from the wind and heat, before returning the mirror to her small handbag just as the man turned back to face her.

The drinks were brought in a moment.  The girl stared enviously at the cool sides of the glass bottles, glistening with crystal sweat in the heat.  She would have rather had water.

Rory's Story Cube Adventures: The Arrow

Recently, I acquired a really awesome little game called Rory's Story Cubes.  I was at a game store in Washington, DC., and after playing one game with them immediately knew I had to buy them.

You can check out the website, but basically you roll dice with various pictures on them, and use whatever pictures come up to make a story.  (I have the basic pack and the Actions expansion pack; there is a new expansion pack called Voyages, but I don't think it's available in the US yet.)

Playing with these story cubes is an insane amount of fun, and actually surprisingly challenging.  The basic set-up has you creating a story from nine rolled dice, which lends itself to three dice for the beginning, middle, and end of the story, while also bearing in mind that classic English class chart of Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement.

I've decided to start a new sort of series on this blog called "Rory's Story Cube Adventures."  Anytime I happen to play with Rory's Story Cubes, if I come up with a story I find amusing or neat in some way, I'll post it for you all to enjoy!

These dice are also fantastic, I think, for writers who are perhaps experiencing writer's block and just need something to push their mind out of the box or rut they're currently in.  As an artist, I've found one of the best ways to overcome artist's block is to completely change up my style via different color palettes, canvas sizes, subject matters, etc., and such practices would likely work for writers as well!

So let's get on to my first story in "Rory's Story Cube Adventures" that I have entitled "The Arrow."

In future segments, if possible I'll include what pictures I used to come up with the story, but I didn't think of it in time for this one.

----

The Arrow
by Annamarie C. Mickey
Created with Rory's Story Cubes (Basic and Action packs)

Once upon a time, there was a young man who was very depressed.  His life just didn't seem to be going anywhere, and he wasn't sure what he wanted to pursue.  One day, while he was walking to his very regular and very boring day job, he was suddenly stopped by a strange creature--a strange creature coming out of his shadow!  The creature introduced himself as Alan and said that he had been accused of a crime of which he was innocent in his world.  Alan continued to explain that the young man had been chosen to testify at his court hearing.  Before the young man could protest, he was suddenly (and painfully) yanked out of his world in a flash of bright light.

When the young man could see again, he was in a vast room.  Strange symbols were written all across the floors and walls.  In front of him, sitting behind a very high desk, was a distinguished and wise-looking creature.  The creature--presumably a judge of some sort--told the young man that he had been chosen to rule on the guilt or innocence of Alan.  He explained that, in their world, such matters were decided by outsiders who had no knowledge of the people, circumstances, or situation, because it was only through such pure unbiased minds that the truth could be discerned.

The wise creature told the young man to pick up the bow and arrow that laid at his feet.  Far across the wide room, down two long rows of creatures sitting and watching attentively, was a faraway target.  The judge explained that the young man's arrow would determine Alan's fate; a bulls-eye would signify innocence, whereas anything else would signify guilt.

Taking a breath, the young man took up the bow and arrow.  Although his fingers shook slightly, he found it was easy to string the arrow, although he had never used a bow in his life.  In a long moment, he slowly pulled back the arrow.  Gazing at the target, Alan felt the arrow fly from his fingers.  It soared straight and true down the aisle, embedding itself squarely in the center of the target.

Amongst the cheers and shouts of the creatures, the young man heard the judge cry, "It has been decided!  Alan is innocent!"  In the next moment, the world suddenly dissipated, and before he could catch his breath, the young man was back on the sidewalk in his own world, the bow gone from his hands.

He could never explain why, but somehow the ordeal changed the young man.  For once in his life, he felt that he knew where he wanted to go and who he wanted to become.  And eventually, after much study and hard work, he earned a reputation as one of the finest defense attorneys ever to grace the court system.

The End

The spoken word?: The English Language

As new generations are raised on the Internet, the claim that English is steadily becoming a ruined language has become a popular one.  The idea of the English language dying in the face of colloquialisms and moronic speech is not new, however.  Authors such as C.S. Lewis and Mark Twain were also concerned about the status and quality f the English language as a whole.  As quality and scholarship falls, vocabulary is stifled and limited.  Sentences are poorly structured, arguments merely a tangle of unrelated words that say a lot and yet nothing at all.

"It would be very difficult to find a really clever 'situation' in Cooper's books, and still more difficult to find one of any kind which has failed to render absurd by his handling of it."

- Mark Twain, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" (1895)

One of my favorite essays; it is uproariously funny and beautifully written.

Check out the rest of the article after the break!

Some kids just won't leave the nest: Pippin!

One of my favorite aspects of storytelling is undoubtedly character creation.  From the moment I picked up my first pencil and started doodling, I was creating characters and stories to immerse those characters in (I'm fairly certain that a lot of these old "books" I wrote/drew still exist somewhere in my house, probably under my bed).  My love of character creation really blossomed, however, when I joined Neopets around the age of twelve.  From there, I took up role-playing, and for several happy years my friends and I developed countless fantastic characters and stories.

Though I'm older now and I've mostly retired from role-playing, I still look fondly at the vast spectrum of characters I hold close to my heart.  I've no regrets about my role-playing; thanks to it, I learned a lot about creating well-rounded, believable characters that can truly touch someone.  If you go on my deviantART, you can actually find a link on my Journal that will take you to a Freewebs page that basically lists all my "canon" characters.  Although I do not draw or write about these characters anymore, I still like to remember they exist (which is why I have yet to retire that page from the public eye, I suppose).

There are other characters, however, that refuse to be simply set aside with fondness.  There are some that just somehow take hold of your attention and, no matter what you do, won't leave you alone.

Continue reading after the break!