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Posts tagged: prose

During the act of reading engaging fiction, we can lose all sense of time. By the final chapter of the right book, we feel changed in our own lives, even if what we’ve read is entirely made up.

Research says that’s because while you’re engaged in fiction—unlike nonfiction—you’re given a safe arena to experience emotions without the need for self-protection. Since the events you’re reading about do not follow you into your own life, you can feel strong emotions freely.

[…]

The key metric the researchers used is “emotionally transported,” or how deeply connected we are to the story. Previous research has shown that when we read stories about people experiencing specific emotions or events it triggers activity in our brains as if we were right there in the thick of the action.

New study by Dutch researchers confirms previous theories that reading fiction makes you a better person by expanding your capacity for empathy.

Also see how storytelling makes us human.

(via explore-blog)

I would be interested in seeing a similar study done with other narrative media. Graphic novels, manga, and comic books, seem to follow the description of an empathic work that does not follow your life and allows you to experience the emotions of others.“ And it is still a reading experience. But I feel like taking it further into television and movies might be bordering on poor scholarship. By the same token, what of short stories? Short short stories? Flash fiction? Fan fiction drabbles? (For the purposes of fiction prose, a fan fiction that is 200k words would, I assume, be no different than original fiction of the same sort…)

I would be really interested to see this kind of work replicated with video games - particularly video games of different levels of linearity and plot. Does having your choices impacting the story change the level of empathy or immersion? In which direction? Certainly even a running around and chasing butterflies in skyrim or building houses in the Sims can make us "lose all sense of time,” but what of the claim of empathy?

I feel like the study almost demands to be done with different types of games, what with the claims out there in the news that video games cause the opposite of empathetic growth.

I just worry about researchers outside of the gaming community lumping something relatively freeform, or prized for its freeform play with a more story and character driven game.

I suppose I am similarly curious if the study found the increase in empathy for fiction to be true regardless of the material. Does Lolita and American Psycho produce the same increased empathic skills as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or even something more mainstream like Harry Potter?

If we are going to apply something designed for precision like the scientific method to something as vague and hand-wavy as “fiction” and “empathy” then we might as well go all the way, no?

As one of those weirdo’s not in the Harry Potter maelstrom, I am confused.

Has someone explained Death of the Author to this supposedly great writer of our (postmodern) time?

Because I am getting a serious Night of the Living Dead vibe from this. As in maybe (figurative) shotguns should be more involved.

wish fulfillment is publicly recanting your published novel plot years later

And yes I know Dickens tried to do it in Great Expectations, but does anyone remember how that worked out? Badly. It worked out badly and was not taken well.

fishingboatproceeds:

undocumentedny:

theysayimpsychodiaries:

beyonceremix:

Chimamanda Adichie - The Danger of a Single Story (TED Talks 2009)

Tell me again, what did you say about representation not being important?

This gifset goes perfectly with an article I just read. This is why media representation is so important. Because it brainwashes our children to not even see themselves in their OWN stories.

Just read Adichie’s new novel Americanah, which I highly recommend. Great book, and not too much weather in it.

My 5-year-old insists that Bilbo Baggins is a girl.

The first time she made this claim, I protested. Part of the fun of reading to your kids, after all, is in sharing the stories you loved as a child. And in the story I knew, Bilbo was a boy. A boy hobbit. (Whatever that entails.)

But my daughter was determined. She liked the story pretty well so far, but Bilbo was definitely a girl. So would I please start reading the book the right way? I hesitated. I imagined Tolkien spinning in his grave. I imagined mean letters from his testy estate. I imagined the story getting as lost in gender distinctions as dwarves in the Mirkwood.

Then I thought: What the hell, it’s just a pronoun. My daughter wants Bilbo to be a girl, so a girl she will be. And you know what? The switch was easy. Bilbo, it turns out, makes a terrific heroine. She’s tough, resourceful, humble, funny, and uses her wits to make off with a spectacular piece of jewelry. Perhaps most importantly, she never makes an issue of her gender—and neither does anyone else.