Hats, Boots, & Chocolate

    Okay, welcome back to my blog post duology about storytelling mediums! Let's jump right in, shall we?     The first of the more uncommon mediums I've seen is video games.     No, I'm not talking about the video game itself, though developers can and certainly do tell plenty of stories through this medium. (I'd put this in its own category, as with stage plays and performance art, but I don't play enough story-based video games to have a recommendation so I'll leave it to someone else to talk about the advantages video games have over other mediums.) Rather, I'm talking about people who tell stories through the gameplay.     Take, for example, the Empires SMP. This is, actually, my favorite example of this medium, so here's the recommendation right now, but Empires  is basically a TV series, created by 12-15 different YouTube creators at once , that uses Minecraft to tell its integral story. Each creator roleplays as a different character ...

    There are many methods and mediums to tell a story, and each has its pros and cons. There's a lot of discussion on the Internet about Comics Vs. Prose, Books Vs. Television, or Movies Vs. TV Series. I'm not going to get into all that today.     Instead, today's post is meant to be an exploration of different ways to tell story, from books to visual media of all kinds. Since the post quickly became too long, I'm going to start with a summary of the more common storytelling mediums, and then I'll write a second one about some of the more unusual methods I've seen.     My favorite way to consume story is via books. If they're well-written, clean in their content, and original in their concept, I'll read them, enjoy them, and read them again. Remove one of those elements and it's a one-off book--one I'll read once and call it good.     To subdivide books into two broad categories of mediums, we have prose books (including non-fiction, fantasy for...

    Win Condition: A set of circumstances in a piece of media (book, game, television show, etc.) that determines which side, if any, wins the central conflict.     I was looking at a bunch of my novel ideas this morning, trying to figure out which one I want to work on next. In case you weren't aware or hadn't figured it out by my long absence and the lack of number updating for my current projects on the "My Books" page, my writing has pretty well stalled since the end of April, and I'm trying to kick it back into gear with something fresh.     You see, at this point, I've been working on The Noble Thief  so long that I think my brain has forgotten how to work on anything else. I've been in the revisions phase for what feels like forever, and I'm ready to set the project aside and let it rest for a while (a long, long  while) while I go and explore something new.     So I was looking at a list of ideas for a bunch of unwritten novels I...

    Where I'm from, it's traditional to recite our nation's "Pledge of Allegiance" at or near the start of every school day. Being home-schooled, I actually didn't know about this tradition until I started taking Concurrent Enrollment classes at my local high school, and I have since decided that I don't like it very much.     Don't get me wrong, I'm all for pride in and loyalty to one's country--but I don't think America's current Pledge does a very good job.     In case you're unfamiliar, here's how our Pledge goes:     'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'     This is a nice, one-sentence declaration of loyalty--but to what? I feel like this Pledge is really esoteric, and the way we say it every day at school doesn't fit what I think it's actually saying. I don't think ...