On July 13, 2022, at 6:46 PM ET, Otto the Poolboy minted a tokenized book.

A tokenized book can be thought of either as an NFT linked to literary content or as a book with blockchain-enhanced features. In the Summer of 2022, the NFT market was on the decline and has since been declared dead, so this case study will take a book-centric approach.

In Web3 publishing, books are “minted” from a smart-contract that serves as a metaphorical printing press. The smart-contract allows an author or publisher to define the conditions under which book-linked tokens can be minted, transferred, or burned. When the proper conditions are met, the minting process forges the first link in a chain of provenance that will follow a tokenized book throughout its lifetime on a ledger that can’t be retroactively changed.

The book Otto minted was token #5561 in what would ultimately become an edition of 14,889 token-gated copies of Bored & Dangerous by Neil Strauss, published by Tally Labs on the Ethereum blockchain.

Web3 publishing smart-contracts can be programmed to release their books in phases, each applying a separate set of rules for a set period of time. Minting rights can be limited to the holders of a mint pass as a way to reward to early supporters, or may be limited to specific wallet holders on an allow-list that includes contest winners.

Otto minted Book #5561 during Bored & Dangerous’s raucous pre-public mint phase, when minting was only available to select insiders, including members of the Jenkins the Valet’s Writers Room, contest winners, and licensors of character IP. Although this phase of the mint was closed to the public, copies started popping up on secondary marketplaces at an initial floor price of around 0.23 ETH (US ~$250) apiece.

Valuation will be a major topic in the unfolding story of Book #5561. Tokenized books, like all things that can be owned, have a value governed by the rules supply and demand. The ultimate purchase price is whatever amount a buyer and seller can agree upon.

Because tokenized book transactions are accounted for on a blockchain, sellers and prospective buyers have equal access to market listings, bids, historical sales, and other data points useful in setting a fair market price. The floor price of a collection is one of these data points, representing the lowest-cost entry point into an edition at any given moment.

The floor price also helps determine the market cap of a collection, which is found by multiplying the floor price by the total number of items in the collection. Market cap is a useful shorthand measure by which the value of entire collections can be compared or tracked over time.

With a floor price of 0.23 ETH, the Bored & Dangerous book collection would have had an initial market cap of around $3.7 million as the full print-run of books was minted.

Another consideration of value for some Web3 books is the presence of a desirable trait. Some Web3 book traits provide metadata about a book’s author, genre, language, publishing date, and other useful information. Other traits may identify variant covers, alternate content, or randomly assigned features with varying levels of rarity.

The cover of each Bored & Dangerous book is an animation of a spinning book against an illustrated background set to one of three music loops determined by a trait. Around 5% of the books minted with the “Jenkins the Vallet” trait and its associated loop, around 20% of the books minted with the “Great Ape Society” trait and loop, and the remaining 75% of the books minted with the “Money Train” trait and loop.

As a “Great Ape Society” variant, Book #5561 could command a premium from a subset of collectors who valued that trait above the collection’s general floor price.

On July 20, 2022, at 10:25AM ET, Otto the Poolboy sold Book #5561 to a user named More Than Ever for 0.579 ETH (US ~$880).

Through the balance of July and into August of 2022, the Bored & Dangerous book collection experienced a steady rise in its floor price amidst heavy trading. Thousands of ETH, representing millions of US Dollars, changed hands. At its peak, the floor price exceeded the ETH equivalent of $1000 per book, with the Bored & Dangerous book collection achieving a market cap of around $15 million, establishing a record for tokenized book collections.

As a Web3 author, I watched these jaw-dropping sales with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, this level of hype and exclusivity wasn’t part of the book future I had been working toward for most of the previous year. My interest was, and still is, in advancing the development and adoption of next-generation publishing. As a practical matter, having to pay four figures to access a novel would price nearly all readers out of the market.

On the other hand, I was glad for the attention Bored & Dangerous was bringing to the nascent Web3 book market. Although blockchain tokens can be linked to all kinds of digitized content, NFTs had become conflated with JEPGs in the public imagination. Tokenized books, representing a greater technical challenge to create, had gotten a later start and were still relegated to an obscure niche.

The Bored & Dangerous book release represented a new hope for the future of Web3 publishing, a rising tide that could lift other book projects and platforms. The success of Bored & Dangerous brought us closer to a world where collectors’ editions might provide a living wage to authors while subsidizing free or nearly free mass-market editions for readers.

The technology that had tokenized Bored & Dangerous books had also tokenized the platform of their creation. Before minting books, TallyLabs had minted shares of a studio. Four tiers of access tokens granted governance votes, royalties, and early minting rights, and token-gated access to Jenkins the Valet’s Writers Room.

Jenkins was an Ape mascot who served as the debut book’s main character. If Tally Labs had aspirations to become a Web3 Disney, Jenkins was to be their Mickey Mouse.

When I first heard about the Jenkins and his Writers Room, entry-level valet tickets had a floor price of a couple hundred dollars apiece. I’d passed on that opportunity, and watched from outside as the project snowballed. Tally Labs secured millions of dollars in VC funds, talent representation for Jenkins, and a top-tier agency to shop film rights around Hollywood. During pre-release development of Bored & Dangerous, which took the best part of a year, the floor price of a valet ticket rose into the thousands of dollars.

Tally Labs built a community around their writer’s open studio, where members could provide input and peek in on the drafting process. To tell the story of Jenkins, Tally Labs had enlisted ten-time New York Times bestselling author Neil Strauss. Although not known as a novelist, Strauss had already become a legend in the Web3 publishing world for the 2021 release of Survive All Apocalypses, also known as LIT Project One, which was held in high esteem by prominent collectors. No other author had stronger publishing credentials combined with such a demonstrated commitment to Web3 publishing.

In addition to securing Strauss as an author, Tally Labs had licensed some of Jenkins the Valet’s fellow characters from the iconic Bored Ape Yacht Club. The Web3 twist was that this intellectual property wasn’t licensed from that project’s creator, but from individual holders who had been granted rights to any characters derived from the unique images they held. The process ensured a book that leveraged one of the most widely recognized brands in the NFT space while securing the active participation of BAYC community members.

I’m one of those people who see Bored Apes as irredeemably ugly and cartoonish, but tastes are subjective and many people seem to enjoy the collection’s simian aesthetic. A talented enough author could definitely craft even this lot into a stable of compelling characters. Was Neil Strass a talented enough author? The book was gated, accessible only to token-holders, so only they could know for sure.

Aside from its fiscal performance, iconic branding, and presumptive literary merits, the Bored & Dangerous collection also represented a historic advance in technical innovation. Its smart-contract provided holders with a choice between keeping their books or irrevocably “burning” them to buy into the next project in the Tally Labs pipeline, Azurbala, which would license original characters called Azurians for an upcoming multimedia franchise.

Although a “book burning” evokes hateful events in history, burning is the common term for a transaction that takes blockchain tokens out of circulation, making these book burnings a demonstration of self-sacrifice rather than one of censorship. Passage to Azurbala required an act of faith, permanently destroying a finished work of exceptional value in order to receive a stake in an unfinished and untested project that was being built from the ground up.

Each Bored & Dangerous token provided a gateway to the finished novel, but could now be traded for what lay behind Door Number 2, a second gateway to what might someday become a massive franchise.

Most holders opted for Door Number 2. During the burn period, the number of ownable Bored & Dangerous books fell from 14,889 to just 5,225. This not only provided momentum for the next project but, with all other market forces held constant, constrained supply and sustained demand should have sent the value of Bored & Dangerous on an upward spiral into the stratosphere.

Except that the surrounding crypto climate was already in decline, rocked by scams, scandals, and regulatory uncertainty. The NFT market was already slipping by the Summer of ’22, and was heading for a prolonged crash. Overall trading volumes, floor prices, and enthusiasm across the Web3 space fell by orders of magnitude as a stubborn bear market stretched from late 2022 into 2023.

On January 22, 2023, at 10:19AM ET, a user named MacxD bought Book #5561 for 0.11 ETH (US ~$175).

As values trend downward in a bear market, a collection’s floor price may experience a race to the bottom. Holders who want to jettison their assets undercut other listings and the floor shifts from being a cost of entry to a salvage value for sellers.

Buyers become increasingly discerning, bargain-hunting in major collections while letting minor collections languish. If a collection has no buyers for an extended period of time, market listings will expire until none are left, giving the collection an effective floor price of zero.

A September 2023 report by research group dappGambl found that of 73,257 NFT collections identified by the authors, 95% had become essentially worthless. Even among the top 8,850 NFT projects tracked by CoinMarketCap, the functional equivalent of an NFT market index, 18% had a floor price of zero.

In many corners of the media, NFTs were officially declared dead, but things may not actually be as bleak as they may appear.

For example, the NFT crash had at least one silver lining for tokenized books. As the overall NFT market declined, Bored & Dangerous values plunged into a range that ordinary folks would consider reasonable for a book that’s actually meant to be read and enjoyed for its content.

On September 25, 2023, at 11:25PM ET, I bought Book #5561 for 0.013 ETH (US ~$20).

I’m thrilled to have picked Book #5561 off the floor for the price of an ordinary hardcover. Since then, the floor price in Ethereum has slipped even further and may very well drop to zero in the near future. But whatever its price and whatever its literary merits, this book’s place in literary history makes it a treasure.

Bored & Dangerous could only ever have been written and published in a very narrow window of time that it uniquely embodies.

The recent floor price for the Bored & Dangerous collection has been hovering around 0.01 ETH (US ~$18).

Tally Labs’s Azurbala project seems to have gone into hibernation, despite the development of a next-generation writers room. Out of 9,656 copies of Bored & Dangerous that were burned to become Azur Roots, only 5,196 have so far been minted into Azurians that might yet become characters in an upcoming project.

A second-hand Azurian can currently be had for about $27, a price that’s up from a month ago, but which may also drop to zero.

Despite the death of NFTs, the tools and platforms that underlie blockchain technology have continued to evolve toward lower transaction fees, better security, more regulation, and environmental sustainability. New book formats are still being developed with the potential to benefit authors and their reader communities.

That story is still being written.

The post Book #5561: A Case Study appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

In their most favorable format, the upcoming generation of ebooks promises to be censorship- and piracy-resistant while providing a more equitable platform for diverse voices and new opportunities for collaborative storytelling.

Or it could all go horribly wrong, magnifying all of publishing’s existing problems while introducing new ones. A subset of these technologies enabled the NFT hype bubble, cryptocurrency speculation, and sketchy practices from some unscrupulous scammers. There are environmental concerns, although the best blockchains are orders of magnitude better than the worst, and are becoming incrementally more sustainable over time. There are many cautionary tales to learn from and reminders that the same tools, in different hands, can be used to build or to demolish.

In an attempt to guide the nascent Web3 publishing industry in a positive direction, I believe authors and readers need to get involved now, in these earliest days of Web3, and demand solutions that will lead to the best possible future.

In that spirit, with publishing partners Cent and Cryptoversal Books, I’ve been blockchain-publishing Wordler Village, named for the primary settlement in a REALM that’s been cursed by a Word Wizard. To stave off total destruction, the villagers must select a Wordler each morning to quest for the five-letter Word of Protection that will give their land one more day of peace.

Wordler Village is not a middle-grade series per se, in that I’m not writing it with middle-grade readers in mind, but as a middle-grade author, I naturally tend toward light-hearted fun amid the exploration of serious issues. And incidentally, the pool of five-letter words I’m using to generate the protagonists of each day’s adventure come from a familiar source that’s widely available.

Story episodes of Wordler Village are available online. They’re always free to read and, for a limited time, in limited quantities, they’re free to collect. The revolutionary Web3-publishing part is that when you add an episode to your collection, you own the story token, just like you might own a physical book.

The story token can be moved from your online account to another storage space like you might move a book from one shelf to another. The story token can be given away. It can be traded. It can be sold. Each move is recorded to a ledger that proves authenticity, links to authorized and unaltered content, and belongs only to you.

Wordler Village has succeeded as a proof-of-concept, putting thousands of story tokens into the hands of thousands of readers. The project has proven that Web3 stories can be put into the world in a sustainable and responsible way, on an energy-efficient blockchain, using carbon offsets, with a focus on readers instead of investors.

Once Web3 makes it possible for digital stories to be owned and verified, the magic can really begin. Story tokens can provide admission to events or communities. Smart-contracts can personalize story content to each reader’s preferences. Tokens can link to licenses allowing collaboration on derivative stories. The ledger of token owners can provide a way for authors to reward their loyal readers with ongoing bonus content.

Today’s tokens have unlimited potential, but only if we speak up now to demand Web3 standards that protect author rights and provide new reader experiences. Up next on my personal to-do list is to incorporate AI artwork, provide character stats to make the story into a game, and link story tokens to licenses to allow readers to become co-authors.

The current storyline of Wordler Village is wrapping up this week. The NIGHTfall storyline deals with the aftermath of a Wordle that I failed to solve—I mean, of a Wordler who failed to locate a Word of Protection by the end of her assigned day.

This week’s episodes will remain available into next month. I’d be honored if they were the first Web3 stories in your collection. They’re free, they’re intended to last forever, and I’m hopeful that they can be the start of something beneficial to everyone. I’m also happy to answer any questions about this format and what we may be able to shape it into.

The post Early Steps into Web3 Publishing appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

Drumroll please…

I am so excited for this chance to present a cover reveal and preview of Amy Herrick’s upcoming book, The Tiltersmith, which promises supernatural overtones that allude to the works of Susan Cooper and Madeleine L’Engle.

Spring is late coming to Brooklyn, NY, and while climate change might have something to do with the chaotic weather patterns bringing late snow and even a tornado to the city, there may be supernatural elements at work, too. A curious character named the Tiltersmith —Superintendent Tiltersmith, he claims — shows up at the kids’ school, in search of the tools that will bring Spring to life. But the Tiltersmith is trying to collect them himself and use them to keep the Lady of spring underground and in his power. Unbeknownst to Edward, Feenix, Danton, and Brigit, the tools have been entrusted to them, but competing forces are working to lead and mis-lead them. If the quartet can protect and use the tools properly, spring will arrive. But if the Tiltersmith has his way, as the underworld teems with life, our world will be trapped in an eternal winter.

The cover features a tight grouping of four young heroes surrounded by a maelstrom of colors. Lightning bolts strike leaves from the trees, hinting at the story’s chaotic weather themes. The kids are layered in brightly colored outerwear, arms akimbo, with hair and jewelry chains flying as if we’ve caught them in the middle of a dance.

And you’ll see it soon.

But first, an excerpt…

Edward Finds a Cocoon

Edward was dreaming. He was trying to pick something up with a spoon. The thing, which was going to lead him to a brilliant scientific discovery, kept sliding away like a piece of spaghetti. Then, just as he thought he’d finally got it, there was a tremendous kaboooooom! and he woke up.

He found himself in the deep middle of the night. A thunderbolt lit the sky outside his window, and in its brief flash of light, he saw that it was snowing again. Seriously? It was March 21. Enough already with the snow.

He lay there counting. Ten seconds and kaboooooom! This meant, he knew, that the storm was about two miles away. He waited for the next flash of lightning, which came quickly. It tore out of the clouds and shot down behind the houses beyond Ninth Street. Snow swirled madly through the air. This time the kaboooooom! came only five seconds later.

The storm was headed right this way.

Edward forced himself out of bed with his blanket around his shoulders. He stood in front of the window, scanning the sky. He wanted to see another bolt up close.

Perhaps thirty seconds later, the next strike happened, right up the street. This time the lightning appeared to burst out of the ground like an enormous electrified finger. It was met almost simultaneously by a bolt from the sky, followed by an enormous concussive baaadoooooom! The whole house shook, and the windows rattled. Peering into the darkness and the snow, Edward saw a round metal disk go flying through the air. It landed with a great crumpling noise on top of a nearby car. The roof of the car folded upward like a piece of origami paper. The disk then slid off the car and came to a stop balanced against its side.

A manhole cover! That was what it had to be. He’d read all about how these things happened. Between the flammable gases that could build up underground and the old and frayed electrical wiring down there, sometimes all it took was a little spark to cause an explosion and—boooom!—a manhole cover would go flying off.

His theory was confirmed when a long tongue of fire shot up from what he could see was an open hole in the middle of the street. All the streetlamps went out like the candles on a birthday cake as the tongue of flame reached higher and higher and slowly died back. He was surprised at what a short time it took before the fire department and then Con Edison began to arrive.

A few minutes later, Edward’s aunt Kit knocked on the door and came in without waiting for an invitation. She was barefoot and wearing her flannel pajamas. The storm had already begun to move slowly off. She joined him at the window. “Well, did you see it?” she asked.

“Did I see what? Could you be a little more specific?” Her vagueness often drove him crazy.

“The part where the lightning shot up out of the ground.”

“Well, yes, I did. That was pretty cool. But it’s common, you know. There’s a positive electrical charge on the ground, and it shoots upward to meet the negative electrical charge coming from the clouds. Happens all the time.”

“Does it, now? Well, that’s an interesting explanation.” “Isn’t it?” he said and hoped she wasn’t going to give him one of her crazy alternative theories.

She didn’t. Instead, she said, “Well, in any case, the timing is amazing, isn’t it?”

He didn’t like to encourage her, but he couldn’t help asking her what this meant.

“I mean with tomorrow being what it is.” “What’s tomorrow?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. Well, you’ll remember in the morning. We’d better get to bed. We’re going to need our sleep.”

Science and supernatural weirdness in a middle-grade novel that starts on a dark and stormy night… If you liked A Wrinkle in Time, this book will hook you for sure.

And now, the big reveal

The Tiltersmith releases on April 5, 2022 from Algonquin Young Readers.

About Amy Herrick:

Amy Herrick grew up in Queens, New York, and attended SUNY Binghamton and the University of Iowa. She lives in Brooklyn, where she has raised two sons, taught pre-K and grade school, written books, and kept company with her husband and numerous pets. A retired teacher, she loves traveling, learning Spanish, and above all reducing her carbon footprint.

The post Cover Reveal: THE TILTERSMITH by Amy Herrick appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

My daughter chose to interview her older sister.

“I remember back when I was in first grade, six years ago, we went to school in a building that wasn’t our own house. Some kids got dropped off by their parents, and others got there in a big yellow bus.”

“That’s crazy!”

“And we didn’t use iPads, like, at all.”

“How could you see the teacher?”

“The teacher wasn’t on a screen. The teacher was in the room.”

“No way!”

“In gym, we got to play games and run around, and sometimes we went outside.”

“With the iPad?”

“There was no iPad.”

“Now you’re just making stuff up.”

“I’m not! And when we ate our lunch in the cafeteria, we sat at huge tables with all the other kids in our class.”

“That’s impossible! Also, what’s a cafeteria?”

“It’s like a restaurant, but just for the school.”

“With curbside service? Or was it a drive-through?”

“Neither. It was like one of those old-timey restaurants where you could eat indoors. Like you see sometimes on TV.”

“But you had to stay six feet apart from everyone and wear a mask, right?”

“There. Were. No. Masks.”

“What-what? School in the olden days sounds dangerous! You’re lucky you survived.”

* * *

Some kids went to school in person for at least part of last year, but many students this fall haven’t been inside a school building since mid-March of 2020. Some can barely remember what in-person learning was like.

These are challenging times for sure.

Stay strong, teachers.

The post Back to School in the Olden Days appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

Sanderson’s Laws are popular guides to writing in the fantasy genre. Sanderson distinguishes between hard magic systems and soft magic systems, with most applications of fictional magic falling somewhere in between. On the harder side of the spectrum, magic has strict rules that can’t be broken. On the softer side, anything goes and new rules seem to be created on the fly.

Sanderson’s Laws aren’t about those laws of magic, but offer guidance to authors on how to incorporate systems of magic into their storytelling.

Among the examples Sanderson uses to apply his rules are the fantasy systems in Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and…superheroes. In fact, he writes an extensive analysis of the laws of a universe that would allow Superman to exist.

We don’t often think about superhero worlds as fantasy, as they are usually grounded in our own reality, but they offer settings in which potions, spells, and monsters are replaced by mutation, lab accidents, and aliens. These worlds offer impossible events that operate within a system that can be described in terms of magic.

Currently, I’m working on a story inspired by Greek mythology and set in a Bronze Age society where the gods of Olympus are active and real. In this world, the magic system is made of gods. It operates just like any other fantasy work except that the magic system is sentient and made up of interlocking parts with clashing personalities beyond human control.

In Greek mythology, the rules of magic are defined by the personalities of the gods. The more strictly delineated the gods are, and the less likely the gods are to deviate from their standard behaviors, the more the system moves toward the harder side of Sanderson’s soft-magic to hard-magic spectrum.

The body of Greek mythology as a whole is a fairly soft magic system. The gods are fickle, unpredictable, inconsistent over multiple works, and are often constrained by the Fates. In such a system, one god or another can show up at any time to resolve any conflict, becoming a literal deus ex machina. For example, Athena showing up at the end of Homer’s Odyssey to end the cycle of vendetta between Odysseus and the families of all the people he killed.

The challenge within a specific work of mythic fantasy is to harden the magic system by providing more specific motivations and realms for each god, and better defining the extent to which the gods are willing or able to intervene in mortal affairs. In Homer’s Iliad, Zeus doesn’t just refrain from saving the life of Sarpedon. He defines a rule for all of the other gods to follow regarding the deaths of their own favored mortals.

I’m using this in my story by giving gods predictable personalities and sets of rules in which they operate. This makes their interventions in the mortal world seem more natural to the story, reducing the problem of deus ex machina plotting.

If Sanderson’s Laws of magic can by applies to superheroes and mythology, where else might they be applied outside the traditional realms of fantasy?

The speculative technology in a work of science fiction could be viewed, not just as an extension of current technology, but as a system in itself with elements that operate by a set of predictable laws. That way, a new program, process, or device will have a more natural introduction and will more naturally fit into the setting.

The landscape in a speculative political thriller can be viewed as a system under which the outcomes can be explained.

Or in a spy thriller, where the hero is reliant upon a set of gadgets to survive. As much as I enjoy the James Bond franchise, it always annoyed me that Q would gear Bond up before every mission with exactly the gadgets he would need in specific situations that couldn’t possibly have been foreseen by the scope of the assignment. By thinking of spy gadgets generally as a kind of magic system, they could be employed more realistically.

Spy writers, mythologists, and the writers of political thrillers may not dip into the critical analysis of works in the fantasy genre, but they should. This is just one example of how authors who write in one genre can benefit by examining the rules that seem, on the surface, to apply only to a different genre. No matter the genre, we’re all just telling stories.

The post Magic Systems for Non-Magicians appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Mythoversal Newsletter.

The Status Quo

I grew up on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and imprinted on the Hero’s Journey as the definitive storytelling template, but my enthusiasm has been tempered lately by mythologists and folklorists who absolutely loathe this theory.

The monomyth has been called sexist, racist, colonialist, and harmful to the expression and appreciation of world cultures. But why? And is there any hope for rehabilitating the monomyth as a tool for creating and understanding stories in the context of our 21st Century world?

The Catalyst

I was six when I saw the original Star Wars movie, and I was hooked. From then on, I measured all other stories using Star Wars as my personal yardstick.

Acceptance and Action

I began to notice that a wide variety of stories would often start with a Luke Skywalker character called to an adventure by a Ben Kenobi character. The Luke Skywalker character would often undertake a quest to save a Princess Leia Organa character from a Darth Vader character, often with help from a Han Solo character and one or two C3P0 and R2D2 characters. I filled notebooks with every example I could find and engaged friends with my evolving theory that Star Wars could explain the story structure underlying a huge portion of the movies and books we all enjoyed.

Encounter with the Guru

What I’d independently reconstructed was the monomyth theory of Joseph Campbell, building upon the archetypal figures of Carl Jung, as adapted and applied by George Lucas and other filmmakers who sought to emulate his success.

Trials and Tribulations

Campbell summarized the monomyth as:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

Campbell’s theory was that this story template resonated with the human psyche, and had been present in the storytelling of diverse world cultures from humanity’s earliest days.

Friends and Foes

The monomyth theory was presented in The Hero with A Thousand Faces, Campbell’s 1949 book on comparative mythology. In the 1980s, with the success of the monomyth-fueled Star Wars original trilogy, PBS aired a discussion between Campbell and Bill Moyers in a program called The Power of Myth, which brought the monomyth to an even greater level of notoriety. Since then, Christopher Vogler, Blake Snyder, and others have refined the monomyth and extended it to the novel-writing and screenwriting process.

The Edge of the Abyss

At a workshop during the 2021 Arisia conference in January, I joined fellow panelists in a discussion of the more troubling aspects of Campbell’s work. These fell into four main categories:

First, while there are many myths that generally fit into the model proposed by Campbell, there are as many or more that do not, including such foundational stories as the myths of Gilgamesh and Beowulf. Therefore, the monomyth should always be presented with a caveat that it is not as universal as Campbell claimed it to be.

Second, the Heroine’s Journey is not accounted for. The Hero’s Journey has been called a masculine myth, based on traditional stories of male protagonists, generating new stories that best fit male protagonists, and appealing more strongly to male audiences. Other templates are required for more feminine storytelling. These include 45 Master Characters, a writing guide by Victoria Lynn Schmidt based on the theories of Campbellian psychotherapist Maureen Murdoch.

Third, the monomyth has been described as a hammer in search of a nail. Some stories and characters can be mangled into the stations and archetypes of a Hero’s Journey only at the cost of better understanding the essential distinctions that make them unique and special. An overreliance on monomyth-inspired movies has made it harder for audiences and critics to appreciate the stories that don’t fit into that mold, increasing and perpetuating the dominance of the monomyth to the detriment of other forms of storytelling.

And fourth, the adaptation of non-European mythologies to a Eurocentric lens has been seen as a form of cultural appropriation or cultural colonization. The Hero’s Journey is based on those Jungian archetypes closest to the surface in the collective consciousness of Western cultures, while other world cultures may emphasize different archetypes. When we remove a story from the culture that created it and view that story through a Eurocentric lens, or even through a lens that falsely purports to be “universal,” we shortchange the story’s culture of origin.

The Way Through

So is there any hope for rehabilitating the monomyth as a tool for writers in our 21st Century world?

I’d like to think so, but only by first recognizing that the monomyth is just one tool of many in a storyteller’s toolbox. The monomyth can be used to build and analyze story structures, but how much better could it be if we were using the entire toolbox, and looking at our stories through all available lenses?

Return to the Normal World

I still use the Hero’s Journey in my writing, but with an awareness of its problems and limitations. But perhaps the real Hero’s Journey requires throwing away all of our preconceived maps entirely and following each story wherever it leads.

The post The Myth of the Monomyth appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

I went on a series of job interviews, back in December and January. I told the interviewers that what I wanted most was a shorter commute and to be able to spend more time with my family. Now, my entire family is working and learning from home and my commute is a stroll down the hall in my bedroom slippers.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a superhero. I thought it would be cool to walk around town with a mask on. Now, people look at me funny if I’m not wearing a mask. And by washing my hands, staying six feet away from other people, and not leaving the house, I’m helping to save lives. Like Batman, without the gadgets.

I’ve often imagined what it would be like to be an astronaut. Stuck inside a confined space for weeks or months, only venturing outside the vessel for emergencies. Now I know a lot better what that’s like, down to the sensation of not always knowing which way is up.

I’ve often wondered how it would feel to make a YouTube video that looked as polished and professional as a late-night talk show. Now, with talk show hosts broadcasting from their attics, that goal is within reach.

When I was a kid, I used to watch a local PBS show called Zoom. I wanted to be on Zoom back then, and now I can honestly say that I’m on a Zoom broadcast five days a week.

It hasn’t been an entirely pleasant pandemic, but it has made a good half-dozen of my wishes come true. Off the top of my head, two entire magic lamps’ worth of ironic wishes!

I don’t mean to minimize the pandemic. Families around the world are dealing with tragic deaths, prolonged illness, lost jobs, failing businesses, and an uncertain future. It’s all too easy to fall into despair. Which is why, more than ever, we need to stay positive and keep our spirits up. More than ever, we need to look for any silver lining we can find.

Has the pandemic given you more time to read? More time to write? Some interesting experiences? A good excuse to pick up new skills? Game nights with your children? Time to try out some new recipes? Did you spend $19.99 to watch Scooby Doo and Blue Falcon team up against Dick Dastardly and Captain Caveman in a pay-per-view brawl on your own television? On a Saturday morning? With a big bowl of sugary breakfast cereal? Because I can totally recommend that.

And also, more than ever, we need stories. Whether you’re writing stories, reading stories, or placing stories in front of a reader in your life, know that you are doing your part to guide the world back into the light.

What is your wish come true? Leave your silver lining in the comments, and thanks again for all you do.

My Quarantine Thoughts:

From last month, which already seems like a decade ago.

My Quarantine Project, Mythology in Verse:

A poem each week. Well, at least one.

From Mythology in Verse.

My Latest Quarantine Meme:

Because, among their other duties, Artemis and Apollo were gods of plague.

The post Coronavirus is a wish your heart makes appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

Books!

At the top of the list, since authors are readers too, you can’t go wrong with something of the printed variety, preferably delivered with the following message: “I got this for you from a local independent bookseller.”

• Reference Materials – How about a nice leatherbound dictionary? Or a dictionary/thesaurus set? For a style guide, many people swear by Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, while others prefer the gold standard that is Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage.
• Books About Writing – The usual suspects include On Writing by Stephen King, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, as well as the long-awaited Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody, based on the screenwriting books of Blake Snyder.
• Professional Development – The current year’s Writer’s Market is a definitive guide for finding a book publisher. Also available from Writer’s Digest Books is the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, Poet’s Market, and Guide to Literary Agents.

• Guilty Pleasures – That rare out-of-print edition from their childhood, a signed edition from a favorite author, or an ARC from a promising upcoming title. For author/readers who love Star Wars like I do, Wrapped In A Ribbon has a great list of gift ideas from a galaxy far, far away.

Book Accessories

• Bookends – Just the thing to keep reference materials at your author’s fingertips on the desk as they work.

• Bookmarks – Because dog-earing the corners of a book is a sacrilege.
• Booklights – Authors have many special powers, but seeing in the dark is usually not one of them.

Office Embellishments

• Mini-Fridge – Dorm style!
• Electric kettle or mug warmer – For a beverage that won’t go cold.

• Screen wipes – Because monitors tend to smudge when you bang your forehead against them.
• Wireless keyboard/mouse – Because sometimes you just need to cut the cord.
• Second monitor – Because Facebook and Twitter are less distracting if they have their own space.
• Inspirational Calendar

• Printer/Ink – Those CMYK ink cartridges that are always running out make a practical gift.
• Typewriter – Fun, personal, classy, antique typewriters can still be found in working condition. They are amazing to type on and inspiring to even just gaze upon.
• Wall Art – Whether an inspirational poster or a framed cover, book page, or shadow-boxed paperback.

On the Go

• Notebooks – Big ones, small ones, sketch pads, and a waterproof notebook for ideas that strike in the shower or bath!

• Pens – Fountain pens, gel pens, quill & ink, waterproof, or the huge box of ballpoints that everyone needs.

• Headphones or speakers – If your author compiles a book soundtrack or has a preferred channel of writing music, noise-canceling headphones are a must.
• Laptop stickers – To personalize their writing tools.
• Fidget Spinners – Because for some people, ideas flow best when their hands are distracted.

Software

• Scrivener – A word processing, formating, brainstorming, outlining, and ebook rendering program.
• World Anvil – A browser-based world-building service.

Educational

• MasterClass – I’ve heard good things about the class by Neil Gaiman. Other lecturers include Margaret Atwood, R.L. Stein, Judy Blume, James Patterson…

Ergonomics!

• Comfy Chair
• Bright Lamp
• Footrest
• Standing Desk
• Lumbar Support Cushion
• Carpal Tunnel Supportive Wristpad

Wearables!

• Book-Themed Shirts – I like the designs at Threadless, but there are many others.

• Book-Themed Scarf – This one has text from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and can be found at storiarts.com

• Book-Themed Jewelry – Lots of fun stuff on Etsy.

• Book-Themed Skirt – One such as can be found at ModCloth.
• Book-Themed Socks – As can be found at Out of Print.

• These Fingerless Gloves Called “Wristies” Which My Critique-Mate Swears By.

Swag!

• Buttons – With their book cover on them
• Stickers – With their book cover on them
• Bookmarks – With their book cover on them
• Business Cards – In a fancy box or card holder? Yes!

Charitable Donation

• A list of book-themed charities compiled by Caroline Bologna includes organizations that promote childhood literacy, make books available to children and communities in need, and bring families together to bond over books. A donation in your author’s name would be a gift that does good.

The post A Gift Giving Guide for Authors appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

My five-year-old knows phonics and lives in a word-saturated environment. This leads to such frustrations as trying to sound out “CVSPharmacy,” a word that, despite its appearance, begins with an “S” sound and has no “P,” “H,” or “hard C” sounds in it at all. This led her to the revelation that the letter “C” itself starts with an “S” sound, while the letter “S” starts with an “E” sound.

“’S’ should be spelled ‘see’ and ‘E’ should be spelled ‘ess!’”

I then explained that the letter “F” in “farm” is an unvoiced letter “V” that got its shape warped by hanging around with the letter “E,” while the letters “P” and “H” in “pharmacy” are filling in for a letter “Φ” that got left behind in Ancient Greece.

“English is dumb,” she concluded.

“Dumb with a ‘Silent B,’” I agreed. But what else would you expect from a language that developed on an island of Celts who got successively invaded by Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Romans, Normans, and Vikings?

The five-year-old is drawn to letters, but she emojis. These symbols are colorful, fun, and offer no barriers to a five-year-old’s level of understanding–except perhaps for , which too closely resembles chocolate soft-serve.

Emojis add emotion and emphasis to casual texts, can replace words or entire sentences, and have become a necessary part of functional literacy in the digital age. Importantly, emojis are more accessible and easier to decipher than the rule-breaking glyphs and phenomes of English.

When you think about it, it’s a wonder that anyone ever learns how to read and write in English. It seems almost inconceivable that anyone would opt to learn English as a second language, especially if their native language actually spells things the way they are pronounced.

English is infected with weird idioms and slang, exceptions that swallow every rule, words like sheep and deer that can be both singular and plural, people saying things “literally” when they really mean them “figuratively,” and armed camps that will fight to the death over the Oxford comma.

Emojis, in contrast, offer lower levels of drama:

= Singular

= Plural

= Using the Oxford comma

= Deleting the Oxford comma

The traditionalist in me wouldn’t trade the challenge of English for all the emojis in the . The English toolbox of 26 letters can express every a human can have. No language is more versatile. Or, if another language’s word offers a nuanced shade of meaning that English doesn’t yet have, English will steal that word.

English wasn’t designed to be versatile and nuanced. English became versatile and nuanced after centuries of borrowing from other languages. Which makes it logical to assume that English will eventually begin incorporating emojis.

As English readers become more comfortable mixing text and symbols on their phones, will we start seeing incorporated into more formal communications?

becoming an expected part of advertising?

having a legal meaning in contracts?

becoming a common name?

How long before and are included in the dictionary?

Will there be a time when we start teaching emojis in school alongside the alphabet?

Will future Sesame Street episodes be brought to us by , , and by the number 7?

your in the comments .

The post A B 😉: Emojis and the alphabet appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

In my last article, I blogged about some notable writing advice from 19th Century Russian author and playwright, Anton Chekhov:

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If a rifle hangs on the wall during the first act, it absolutely must go off in the second or third act. If the riffle isn’t going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

In this installment, we’ll be expanding our arsenal to include a variety of other narrative tools that look like Chekhov’s Gun but operate in different ways and in different contexts.

Chekhov’s Gun is a story element introduced to build anticipation, create narrative tension, or offer an explanation for events that happen later in the story.

As a reminder, Chekhov’s Gun doesn’t have to be a physical object, as in Chekhov’s example. It can also be a character trait, an aspect of culture, a setting, a relationship, or any other story element that’s introduced early in a story to create a narrative tension that pays off later in the story.

Red Herring

A Red Herring is a story element that offers an intentionally misleading promise to build anticipation, sends narrative tension in an intentionally misleading direction, or offers an intentionally misleading explanation for events that happen later in the story.

English journalist William Cobbett, in the early 19th Century, wrote about a boy who used a red herring to mislead the hounds who were following his trail. The Red Herring soon became a literary metaphor for intentional misdirection.

The Red Herring looks like a Chekhov’s Gun, and therefore evokes a reader’s expectation that it will resolve like a Chekhov’s Gun in a later part of the story–except that it instead leads elsewhere or fails to resolve at all, providing a satisfying misdirection for the author’s actual intent. Often, characters are “fooled” into following the Red Herring into a narrative cul-de-sac, bringing the reader along for the ride. The Red Herring is famously employed in mystery novels, but can be used anywhere to great effect.

Think of the Red Herring as a magic trick. We enjoy being fooled by a magician’s slight of hand. We enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out how the magician plans to fool us. We even enjoy knowing exactly how the trick works, while appreciating the skill it takes to pull off. 

Deus ex Machina

A Deus ex Machina is a story element that resolves narrative tension or offers an explanation for story events without being previously introduced.

In Ancient Greek theatrical tradition, an otherwise unresolvable plot could be neatly wrapped up by one of the gods, represented by a lifesized statue that would be lowered onto the stage by a mechanism from above.

The Deus ex Machina resolves narrative tension, much like a Chekhov’s Gun, but appears where and when it is needed without any advance warning. This device has fallen into disfavor, with many readers finding it to be an unsatisfying “cheat” on the author’s part.

All is not lost if you find a Deus ex Machina is your story. Planting a hint and suggestion earlier in the story can easily convert this element into a proper Chekhov’s Gun.

McGuffin

A McGuffin is a story element introduced to advance the plot, but which could be easily replaced by another generic item with little change to the story. Not to be confused with the fast-food sandwich that could be easily replaced by an actual breakfast.

At a 1939 lecture at Columbia University, English film director Alfred Hitchcock described a term used by his studio for an object that only exists to advance the plot. It’s the necklace in a crime story, which exists only to give a thief has something to steal, or the papers in a spy story, which exist only to give the two sides have something to fight over.

The difference between the McGuffin and a Chekhov’s Gun is that the Chekhov’s Gun has some inherent quality that creates narrative tension. In the classic example, Chekhov’s Gun is a weapon, creating a tension as to whether a shooting will occur. If the gun is used gets stolen and must be recovered by the protagonist, it has become a McGuffin.

McGuffins are necessary to drive a plot forward, but just because they can be switched out for other objects doesn’t mean they have to be entirely generic. The McGuffin can be magical, powerful, and memorable. Entire stories can revolve around them, and are often named after them, such as The Maltese Falcon or Raiders of the Lost Ark. While any old book or thumb drive can carry a cry for help from the captured princess to a retired general by way of a humble farmboy, we remember R2D2–so yes, characters can serve as McGuffins as well.

The Callback

A Callback is a story element from an early scene that reappears unexpectedly, without tension or anticipation, to link two scenes together, often used in humor or as a thematic symbol.

The Callback is distinguished from a Chekhov’s Gun because its first appearance doesn’t create anticipation that we’ll ever see it again. It’s intentionally planted by an author, like Chekhov’s Gun, but in a way that doesn’t necessarily draw attention to itself.

The power in the Callback is that we recognize it, and are surprised by it because we weren’t necessarily expecting to see it pop up again in another context. In humor, the Callback can be a joke that gets a larger and larger laugh with each unexpected repetition or variant. But it can also be a message of inspiration that a mentor character plants early, which pays off when it’s remembered by a character in need.

The Easter Egg

Easter Eggs are story elements that allude to people or events in the real world, or in other stories, and are included as gifts for an attentive reader to find.

Video game developer Steve Wright used the term “Easter Egg” in referring to secret elements planted in a game for players. In the Atari 2600 game Adventure, a signature screen could be accessed by navigating the maze in a certain way.

Unlike a Chekhov’s Gun, the Easter Egg doesn’t impact the plot and may go unremarked upon by the characters, but exists for a diligent reader to discover and enjoy.

Conclusion

As useful as Chekhov’s Gun can be as a narrative tool, it’s important to distinguish it from similar narrative tools. And, having multiple narrative tools available, a writer can move a plot forward, manage reader expectation, create tension, provide humor and inspiration, or leave clever connections for the most diligent readers to find.

The post Chekhov’s Arsenal, Reloaded appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.