As I mentioned in my writing update a few weeks ago, I recently reread Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events as a part of trying to crack the secret of writing a strong, distinct narrative voice for Whitman Court. My aim with Whitman Court was to write the stories with a clever, omniscient Narrator …
Continue reading Lessons from Lemony Snicket: Narrative Voice
It had been a while since I last read The Lord of the Rings—just about four and a half years, to be exact. Same with The Hobbit. And, to be honest, I couldn’t give a timeline on when I last read The Silmarillion; I just know it was sometime in high school. Since I’ve been …
Continue reading Rereading the Tolkien Canon (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, & The Lord of the Rings)
This summer, I reread the Harry Potter books for the first time in a decade. I’ve been a fan of Harry Potter since my elementary school days, though my journey through the whole series was slow, as I was too young for the later books when I first started reading them. I still have vivid …
Continue reading Rereading the Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
Unlike my other rereading escapades over the past year or so, Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga wasn’t technically a childhood classic of mine. The Chronicles of Narnia, Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet, The Mysterious Benedict Society--all of those books, I vividly remember reading as a kid. With Wingfeather Saga, it was a little different. I read the …
Continue reading Rereading Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga
After my adventures in Narnia and quest across the universe of Madeleine L’Engle, I ventured back to a (mostly) normal Earth to revisit another childhood favorite of mine: Trenton Lee Stewart’s Mysterious Benedict Society series. Since I read the fourth book when it came out last year, I’ve wanted to reread the whole series. I …
Continue reading Rereading Trenton Lee Stewart’s Mysterious Benedict Society Series
After my return to Narnia this summer, I decided to pick up Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time). Like The Chronicles of Narnia, I haven’t read this series in years, but these five books were definitely among the …
A couple of years ago, I started a series of “Story Studies” that covered some of the most influential childhood stories that shaped my writing. In the process of writing that series, I came to realize something: I don’t remember a lot of the books I would consider my “all-time favorites” and “major influences.” Because …
Since The Rise of Skywalker recently brought the 9-episode Star Wars: Skywalker Saga to an end, I decided to rewatch all of the main films as a study in story during my break from school in May. Though I am extremely familiar with Star Wars, as my dad is a huge fan, I hadn’t seen …
Continue reading Story Study: Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – Part 1
My favorite animal as a child was cats. It comes as no surprise, then, that my favorite book series as a preteen starred all feline characters: Warriors by Erin Hunter. ~ My first encounter: The first three books of the Warriors series were initially bought for my brother. However, my brother isn’t much of a …
By Madelynn Orion 