Fanfiction follow-up

After posting my short story to Fanfiction, I wanted to share what my experience was. It's always a scary thing to share my writing, but Fanfiction's anonymity is something that really encouraged me. Besides Natashya's comment on my story (which I appreciated), I also received one review on my story on Fanfiction:

not dragon
2011-04-10 . chapter 1

very nice. Games to be played, not a shrew tamed. Thought provoking indeed.

Although the comment is really short, it was just nice to know that someone had read my work and taken the time to tell me their thoughts about it. It was a really fun way to creatively share what I'd been learning this semester with people outside the class. This, along with my Twitter experiment earlier in the semester, has helped reach outside of my comfort zone, something I've really appreciated about this class. If anyone has done a creative project, I definitely recommend sharing it in some way, whether it be writing, making a cake, or putting together a production.

Shakespeare literary imitation

So I took a shot at creatively engaging Shakespeare this weekend by writing a short story about Kate from The Tempest. I wanted at first to actually imitate Shakespeare's language, but that proved very difficult, so I ended up just writing part of the last scene from Kate's point of view. It turned out to be really fun to try and delve into the character's mind. It may not be the best writing, but I enjoyed getting to know this play better.

Here ya go! Constructive criticism is more than welcome!

Literary Imitation

As I mentioned previously, to fulfill the learning outcome of creatively engaging Shakespeare through literary imitation, I want to write a short story from an alternate perspective. Right now I'm considering Katharina from The Taming of the Shrew (the final scene) or possibly Ophelia from Hamlet (either the scene with her singing and flowers or her drowning). I'm trying to focus on women characters since that's the focus of my blog.

Right now, I'd really like people's opinions on these two possibilities, or maybe even a suggestion for a different character. I obviously haven't read all of Shakespeare's plays, so if there are strong female characters that would make for an interesting short story, I would love any advice!

Also, besides writing my short story, just suggestions of independent and witty female characters would be very helpful for the next step of my research, which includes analysis of women in Shakespeare's plays. Thanks!

Fanfiction: a new digital mediation for Shakespeare

I decided to take a break from my serious research for this post and share my experiences with Fanfiction to take a shot at analyzing digital mediations. For those of you unfamiliar with Fanfiction, it's a website where you can post your own writing that you based on other books, plays, movies, TV shows, or even comics. Generally, you post in sections, or chapters, and other readers can leave reviews with helpful criticism or encouragement. There are thousands of writers on this site, and so you can imagine exactly how many reviews and new stories are being posted every day. Just as an example, the Harry Potter section has over 500,000 stories. These range from short stories, poetry, and even epics that literally take years to write.

When in middle school and high school, I have to admit that I was pretty obsessed with Fanfiction. I would spend hours reading other's stories, and then eventually writing my own. This was a major part of why I wanted to be a English major and then go on to be an editor or writer. It was amazing to be able to write and get feedback, as well as help others improve their own writing.

I decided that although I usually spent most of my time in the Harry Potter or Ella Enchanted sections (dorky, I know, but I loved it), I wanted to see what Fanfiction could offer fans of Shakespeare. I followed the links from Plays to Shakespeare, where the Bard has a respectable following of 1,762 stories (this is in comparison to Les Mis, 121, and Oedipus the King, 4). Just glancing through the first page of stories, I saw some really interesting ideas for creatively imitating Shakespeare. For example, one author puts a pirate theme on a female version on Hamlet:

 Hamletta » by Jenna Cassie Herdz

Her father dead, her uncle takes the title of Pirate King aboard the ship the Denmark. But when she finds out how her father really died, revenge fills her heart and mind.

Although this writer probably isn't the next Shakespeare, it's clear that she is very familiar with the text of Hamlet, and has creatively changed the setting and plot to make it her own. Fanfiction is awesome!

This has really inspired me to try and fulfill one of my other learning outcomes, literary imitation. In the next couple weeks, I'm going to write a short story about one of Shakespeare's characters, possibly from a unique point of view, and then post it on Fanfiction and see what kind of response I get. I think this will be a really fun way to creatively engage Shakespeare while also sharing my work with people outside our class. I know that lots of people in this class are doing some sort of literary imitation, and I think this would be an extremely effective way to share besides on our blogs.

Flash mobbing is so much fun!

I never thought I would be the type to do it, but being a part of the flash mob performing Romeo and Juliet was a blast! I've always liked performance-type things (I've been in choir, violin groups, plays), but nothing like this before. It was so different than the normal. Although I still had to memorize lines, it was more stressful to remember because I knew people would possibly be looking at me like I was a crazy person. Also, although we practiced enough to get the hang of it, you simply cannot practice a flash mob in the actual setting, so it was a bit of an adventure improvising.

All in all, although it was NOT the way Shakespeare would have performed it (on a stage with every detail worked out and not at a mall with a surprise audience) it was really a fun way to share the Bard's words with the people around us. Although some people still might think we're crazy (ahem, my husband), I really enjoyed performing and would not shy away from doing this again. Kudos to Max and Whitney for putting it on, they did a great job!

Showcase Shakespeare

Shakespeare's work has been analyzed to death. There's no getting around that. So how do I approach him from a new perspective and gain new insights? Well, this blog is part of the answer. Hopefully by communicating with people in this new digital age, I can start thinking outside the box. The rest of the answer is by thinking outside of the classroom. As an English major, I'm used to finding sources solely from academic books, articles, and reviews. 

This blog, however (at the risk of sounding Disney-ish), has opened up a whole new world. For example Blogging Shakespeare is exactly the kind of thing that we should be looking for. It's what people are saying about Shakespeare right now. There's articles, links to other blogs, and even current events about the Shakespeare world. 

However, most importantly, there is a way for all your hard work to be seen by other people than you classmates! Since a lot of the focus of our class is creatively engaging Shakespeare, you might be interested in Showcase Shakespeare, where you can submit any kind of creative work about Shakespeare for BloggingShakespeare to showcase on their new website. Here's a video introducing the showcase:

And you can go here to submit a work.

Hopefully, (because we are so very inventive and artistic) we can represent BYU in this. I think it would be a great way to expand our horizons!