Stepmother’s Prison – The title for this Storybook made it
immediately obvious that this was a story about after the
happily-ever-after. The introduction
starts with “Once upon a time,” like the traditional tales, but quickly takes a
darker twist. The author has the story
begin with criminals being taken to prison.
The introduction doesn’t do much to tell you who the inmates are, but it
does leave off on a bit of a cliff hanger, asking “So… what are you in for?” That last sentence really hooked me. The layout of the story is actually really
simple, but the color scheme works really well to produce the dark, dreary
feeling a prison would have. The
navigation is also simple.
Demigod Daycare – Once again, the title is very
accurate. This is a story about a
daycare exclusively for demigods and demigoddesses. The author starts out with a scene that it
incredible easy to picture and builds from there. The images that the story creates are very
vivid. Also, using the muses to tell the
stories was a really neat idea. Also,
having the demigods be children makes the story that much more fun and
interesting. The first thing that I
noticed about this Storybook was the font.
The author did an amazing job picking out a font that went well with the
story. The layout is also light and
happy, much like the way a daycare would be.
The navigation is simple, but done in a way that goes well with the rest
of the layout.
Devil May Care – The title of this Storybook really struck
me when I saw it. The author took a well
known phrase and gave it meaning and significance within the context of the
story. The introduction is
interesting. It’s like the reader is
there with the devil and is interacting.
It was a very engaging writing style.
It also takes on the subject of good and evil and whether the devil
falls flatly into one category. I like
the background that the author used. It
went well with the story. The only issue
I had was the title image. It seemed a
little too cheesy.
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| Fireplace of the Elements by Alanise, source: deviantart |
Oh, you picked some really good ones to look at here, Nicole — as you can see, there are so many ingenious ways that people invent to tie the stories together. That Stepmother Prison project was from last semester, so it is one of the new ones on the list; I hope it will inspire some other prison-type tales because that is a really powerful storytelling set-up. Of course, for a Storybook you can do a collection just as a collection, one story after another, with stories on a similar theme while also standing alone... but it is really engaged and memorable when there is some kind of frametale so that one story is linked to another. If you read Ovid, you will see that he was a master of this kind of story linking, and also nested stories: within stories within stories. That's what really keeps the stories alive: not just the plots and characters, but the storytellers themselves, who find all these ingenious ways to tell the stories in their own new ways! Which is what makes this class fun too, because you all get to do the same thing, retelling the stories in your own ways. :-)
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