Ben Hoare - Storytelling & Serial Autobiography

Storytelling Archive

Alternative versions

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

One of the things I love about cover versions, remakes and adaptations is that they represent a different way of telling the same story.  Often, it's amazing to see how similar elements can give rise to such different stories. At the moment, I'm enjoying a playful retelling of the King Arthur ...

Scenes from ‘A Cadence’

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Today I want to show you something really exciting. It's a series of pictures showing scenes from my story, 'A Cadence'. Some of my friends did this as a surprise, and I'm excited not only because they've so successfully visualised my story in a way I never could, but also because ...

Five functions of fantasy

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

I recently mentioned escapism as one of the possible functions of fantasy, and have been meaning for some time to elaborate on this by outlining its other functions, as I see them. These functions are not necessarily mutually exclusive - a fantasy can perform more than one function at the same ...

Intrusive narrators

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

I love intrusive narrators. The more garrulous, interfering, self-conscious, the better. Intrusive narrators remind us that someone is telling this story, that the story does not exist without the telling.  It's like the classic distinction between 'showing' and 'telling' in narrative. The narrator who shows is invisible, letting ...

The sheep-lion

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Recently Bridget McNulty - an author whose blog I like - decided to re-tell 'The Tale of the Sheep-Lion', a story I don't remember hearing before, but which seems to be quite well-known.  Other tellings can be found here and here. Everyone agrees on the basic elements of this ...