Category: Storytelling

In Defense of Short Stories

7/1/2024

by Courtney R. Hall

Photo by Hyoung-Won Park on Flickr

As a lifelong reader, avid writer, and recent graduate student pursuing a MA in Writing degree ('24), I have a confession to make: I cannot recall reading a short story for my own pleasure prior to attending graduate school. I, of course, had to study short stories throughout primary and high school, but they always seemed to be one-off stories in a textbook rather than part of a cohesive and meticulously curated collection. Craving an escape, my younger self epitomized the stereotypical book-obsessed-child, and this yearning has profoundly shaped my literary journey. It predominantly drew me toward novels and longer works of fiction and nonfiction—a literary habit I didn’t know I possessed until recently.

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Comedic Context and How It Shapes the Jokes We Laugh At

11/1/2023

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by Ellie Cameron

People like to laugh.

We laugh at jokes on our phones, we laugh at characters in sitcoms, and we laugh with our friends telling stories to embarrass each other. I think it’s safe to say that the average person picks up some sense of comedic timing simply by consuming comedy.

As an editor for “R U Joking?,” an online comedy publication edited by Rowan University students, I'm constantly bothering my friends, colleagues, and random strangers on the street to write and submit the stories they find funny. Almost every time, I’m faced with variations on the same responses: “I can be funny in conversation but I can’t write funny,” or “It’s a funny story to tell but not when I write it,” or “Please leave me alone.”

Photo by Call Me Fred on Unsplash

So why do we feel that we can be funny, just not in writing? Is it lack of confidence? Is it lack of skill? Is it the lasting trauma of high school writing classes? Or is it a matter of context?

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Crowds Of Characters Make Storytelling Suffer

5/1/2020

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by Christopher M. Comparri

The appeal of books, movies, television and any sort of story-telling platform can be boiled down to two key components: having a great story and having great characters to fill out said story. As viewers and readers, we often find ourselves rooting for certain characters and despising others to the pits of our very soul. This can be for any number of reasons: rooting for the underdog, finding a character that is relatable, finding one that embodies the essence of what we feel is right or wrong with the world. Finding the handful of characters that you feel strongly about builds an emotional tie between the content produced and the individual consuming it. However, the trend of incorporating huge casts of characters into stories is now having an adverse effect. People are finding too many characters to like or hate in passing. These characters are being masked as huge markers in a story, but the reality is quite different. In literature, sometimes less is more.

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In Defense of Short Stories

Comedic Context and How It Shapes the Jokes We Laugh At

Crowds Of Characters Make Storytelling Suffer

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