This page is a loose collection of side notes explaining recurring elements I use in my posts here, it’ll be updated infrequently as I think of things that I’d rather not explain every time I use them.
The ‘Story Spine’
This is a game that is a useful introduction to shared improvised storytelling, and the structure is used frequently when performing an improvised play to keep the story from stalling. It distills the story down to seven sentences with the following form:
Once upon a time, there was a... And every day... Until one day... And because of that... And because of that... And because of that... Until finally... And ever since that day...
I also find it is quite useful as a way of summarizing a plot quickly without giving too much away, so in reviews you will see me use this a lot.
‘From the Archives’
I have been blogging about music, art, social issues, media, and sharing personal stories for years and years. Even before my first actual ‘blog’ in college, I wrote editorials and news stories for my High School newspaper and little columns for my personal website (oh the cringe.) Some of the stuff I’ve done since college has been in various blogs and sites in the past, but as I’ve moved on from those things, I have kept some of the highlights around for later revisiting and republishing.
Anything you see with this little tag is one of them, something I think belongs with the content here. Primarily, I’ve reformatted them for this site, but also cleaned up the copy, and tried to better articulate things. In some cases, an archives post may even be a completely new thing which I knitted together from a few older sources, or some in-progress thing I shelved long ago and picked back up.