Hyba Is Writing

Mega-Update: The Black Hare

2026-04-19T00:13:00.003+00:00

I've been updating my tumblr blog regularly, with a focus on my interactive fiction, The Black Hare - but I've been lax about cross-posting those same updates to this blog. So, without further ado, here are all of the updates that I have made, to date, in one big post, from oldest to most recent:

Weather System - 28/03/2026

I’ve been thinking about this all night and the idea of a weather system is looking increasingly attractive to me. I’m already working on a day/night cycle, but adding a weather cycle adds another layer of vibrancy to the city and the story experience. Playing around with the code for that right now.

My thoughts at the moment are mostly about how different locations and the NPCs/interactions that can be found in those locations change based on the weather. This also extends to your character’s skillset - which skills are impacted by these weather conditions, and how.

I’m still playing around with potential “temporary” clues that could disappear with different weather conditions, like something written in the dust on a window could disappear after heavy rain. Under heavy fog, something you might have seen remains hidden from view.

And, because I’ve got two traits/skills that relate to the idea of fortune/luck and superstition, I’m also planning on exploring an Omens mechanic, which could impact a character’s fortune for that particular day.

So many ideas, so little time… Guess I’d better get started.

Passage Bloat and Trap Doors - 31/03/2026

Continuing on with more Black Hare updates, I’ve spent the weekend wrestling with my "passage bloat" demons.

The first draft of The Black Hare prologue has this issue in spades, with one card game alone using more than 50 passages. It's time to start tightening up the screws, if not for a smoother experience, then for my own sanity.

I'm shifting to a "screen"-based approach. Instead of 20+ passages for the Marketplace and all of its shops and the choices found within those shops, I'm aiming for one master passage that holds the entire set in one screen. It works for this IF because of how much independent exploration and discovery is encouraged. That being said, I doubt it will work for every element in the game, but minimizing whatever number of passages I can will still result in a much more manageable blueprint.

I'm considering how best to approach the merging of routes and the "master screen" together. I think I can fit all of the information into one passage, but I wonder how finicky that might make the layout and structure from the reader's perspective. Already spacing issues are a headache to go back and fix.

This new approach also allows me to weave in all the variables I’ve been obsessing over: time of day, skills/core traits, money, the weather system (+omens), and even an AP system. I have a more detailed update coming up on how these gears mesh, but the short of it is that I've decided to go for it and apply as many of these fun features as I can.

This undoubtedly means more "oh no" moments and many more late nights scouring GitHub for macros and Twine/IF forums to ultimately frankenstein together a range of solutions for my very specific problems. But the liveliness and the layers this will add to Talesmoth and the story at large is worth the trouble.

I do occasionally worry that I’m building an RPG under the guise of interactive fiction, but that's only a concern because from my perspective I can see all of the gears and wires and cogs. For the reader/player, it will feel like any other IF, just with a few more surprises hidden in the shadows.

I regret that I don't have a prologue to share with everyone like I originally intended, but the shape of a potential demo is forming within the heavy fog. Summer is coming and I hope that that will be a time of great productivity on this project. Until then, I'll bluster on in sporadic weekend bursts.

A trap door has opened:

Some quests or events happen on specific days, and the weather/time of day/location mechanics can make players lose time (ex. Being injured). The issue I’m thinking about will be the rare soft lock, where a player gets injured, loses two days of being able to use a skill they need for the quest they’re on, and therefore is unable to progress.I’m wondering if there’s an n+1 type of solution to apply, wherein the quest deadlines and events don’t necessarily have a preset time, but rather wait for the player to reach a certain place in the game before setting that particular event to, say, the next day, or only if a variable has been set to true - maybe a combination of the two. 🤔
I should anyway be able to completely circumvent this issue because with different skills and traits, I need multiple ways to complete a quest to be made available to players, so that should usually take care of this kind of soft lock. The issue there is that the different paths to progression are often a function of character specific traits/skills, so they won’t all show up to all players… That being said, since I group core trait skills and background skills differently, I can make sure that even if a player is locked out of using a core trait skill to progress, they can use a background skill.
This also means that I now have to ensure a specific path to progression for each skill… which could end up being a lot more work. Will end up being a lot more work.

Decisions, decisions.

Marigold's Pawns - Part 1 - 05/04/2026

Okay, here’s a little bit of progress in an otherwise draining time of year that has unleashed a turbulent storm in my mind: I present to you Marigold’s Pawns (also known around town as The Pawnery, because I couldn’t stick to one name, and I liked the oddness of the word “pawnery”).

This is one of the locations you can visit in Talesmoth. Functionally, it’s mostly just a shop where you can find random items for sale, some common and some rare, and a few which you may need in order to complete certain puzzles/story quests if you are otherwise unable to procure them. (In this way, it can also help me to minimize that soft lock problem I was considering in my previous post about the weather system and how it interacts with your character’s skills and traits). It’s also where you can sell any superfluous or unnecessary items that you’ve picked up throughout the story to make a little more coin. (A wise traveler knows the value of a heavy purse in a city of many hidden secrets.)

Marigold’s Pawns is not a case of “What you see is what you get.” There’s more to this place - and its owner - than you will see at first glance. Chatting with Marigold may reveal a few threads you can pick at and unravel, and perhaps - if all the stars align - there’s something more than just friendship to be found amongst these cluttered shelves.

Below you can see what it looks like with the new approach of only having one screen (one passage) per location. Here’s what it looks like when you enter the pawn shop:

There’s still a little tinkering to do, but the bare bones of it are solid. I now need to populate the shop with actual items to purchase, and these items need to be a mish-mash of rare and common items, as well as items that you might need and items that you don’t really need for the main game story. Maybe - in case some readers are so inclined to leave more good behind - I can also include items that, while not needed to progress the story or the routes, can help NPCs around Talesmoth to solve their problems. But that would be a last, last-layer type thing. Right now, I’m focusing on the essentials.

Finally, a note on a somewhat ambitious idea that I’ve been playing around with: Of course, the story’s interior design is something I’ll work on at the end, to ensure the overall architecture of the game also embodies the steampunk/Victorian/gothic aesthetics I’m going for, but apart from that, I want to do something more. I want to create pixel art portraits of the NPCs, and a pixel art portrait of the (customizable) player character as well.

Why is this ambitious? Well, for one thing, I’m no pixel artist. And for another thing, I’m no pixel artist. I’ve dabbled slightly, ‘tis true, but it seems I’ll have to put on my gloves and learn another skill for this interactive fiction project.

Marigold's Pawns - Part 2 - 06/04/2026

The name Marigold’s Pawns also has another meaning - the idea of pawns on a chess board. It connects with the character of Marigold and her position in Talesmothian society. There is a game being played on a much larger board, and maybe - just maybe - you’re one of the pawns being moved without even realizing it.

But I’d rather not elaborate more on that since Marigold herself is still a work in progress and I don’t actually think that most routes would be able to figure out who she is in the Big Scheme of Things in Talesmoth.

In fact, only one specific set of conditions, or one specific character identity, would be able to unlock her full story, and that’s 1 out of 100+ possible character identities…

Hold on! That’s not all! You also have to make 1-2 very critical choices that relate to Marigold to unlock her full story - and her secret ending. This is where the chance of it happening becomes more difficult to measure. You will have to choose the right responses when talking to her, and you may also have to bring her a specific item in order to trigger the required conversation in the first place.

And Marigold isn’t the only NPC in Talesmoth who’s got secrets locked away behind odds like that. I really want The Black Hare to reward exploration and re-plays, where each playthrough reveals something different about the world that you hadn’t noticed before.

This unique, fated alignment of the stars that transforms a normal shopkeeper into something much more is just one of the ways that I’m doing that.

The Resistance Leader - 08/04/2026

Once more, I come bearing updates. I am enjoying this flurry of activity while it lasts. Today's update tells of the fabled Resistance, a political activism group which is headquartered somewhere in Talesmoth, though few people know where, exactly. And you, dear reader, have the chance to uncover it!

The Resistance, which is what I'm currently calling the location as well as the group (very Equilibrium of me, I must say), is run by a man whose name I refuse to share because it might give him away when you play the game. Nevertheless, he, much like the titular Marigold of Marigold's Pawns fame, has a story and a secret ending that you can delve into, given that the stars align in your favor.

Interestingly enough, the conditions to so do - those stars that need to be aligned - are perhaps not what you'd expect. And, unlike Marigold's storyline, this character's storyline requires you to complete certain quests, which prove your undying loyalty to the cause, and - perhaps - inadvertently - his growing loyalty to you.

But not all of these NPCs whose stories and endings can be unlocked will be of the romantic ilk. I'm playing around with other concepts - of friendships forged which withstand the test of time, of mentors found in the unlikeliest of places, and of family recovered when all had been thought lost. Some will have happy endings, and others, tragic ones. There is a multitude of differing experiences to be found in life, and so, too, in The Black Hare, you will find a small, tiny sampling of that life which is so varied, unpredictable, and strange.

I wish that I could work faster, so that I might share this with you sooner rather than later, but I hope that when the time is right and this interactive fiction is finally finished and ready to be experienced, you'll be able to play all sorts of different routes and live all kinds of different lives to your heart's content.

In light of this, I’m switching things up. Rather than focus on the coding and Twine project itself, I’m exhuming my writing notebooks. I’ll be writing little notes and scenes and transcribing them into documents before I can finally add them in the game. It removes the clutter of the Twine passages and the little voice in my mind that whispers, “After all, why shouldn’t I code it now?” I’m no hobbit, but I too, am stricken by the dark whispers of my shadowy desires. Anyway, to get the sheer volume of writing done, I’m rolling up my sleeves, getting rid of my bracelets (because wow they’re annoying to write with) and getting down to the honestly joyful and lovely business of writing.

The Lighthouse Keeper - 10/04/2026

Added a new location today - the Lighthouse. And, of course, every lighthouse needs a Lighthouse Keeper. Lonely and saddled with yearning, the Lighthouse Keeper is not only physically isolated but also socially isolated. He keeps to himself and does his job, but all the while, he dreams of something different. Something more.

And along you come, disturbing the stagnant air of his musty cottage and disrupting his sickening solitude. It's time the Lighthouse Keeper reconsidered life as he knows it. Does he have the courage to shake off the salt-encrusted uniform and set out on a voyage of his own, and can he trust others to guide him? Or will he forever remain guarded, in his tower, unable to trust, heart steeped in a torturous desire for more?

I had originally set up the Lighthouse Keeper as an NPC whose specific story and ending can be unlocked by a player who, among other conditions, has Integrity as their core trait, but as I continue to develop his story and watch as this character begins to take shape from a nebulous fog, I'm thinking that he might, actually, be more suited for a player with a Risktaker trait. Someone who can pull his soul out of its dormant state and show him the thrilling world that lies beyond that horizon he's memorized.

I'm not certain that I want this to be a romantic path. I would prefer it was something different - that it reinforced the idea that yearning isn't always solved by finding a person, but rather by filling your soul with that which nourishes it.

On a more technical note, I have been testing the new approach which I found online; it's very finicky in a way that I hadn't expected. The way that this method works is that I create links that refer back to functions, and these functions have to be set up in the JavaScript, which in turn calls upon entire chunks of text/content that are assigned variables and are set up in the StoryInit passage.

I remember reading somewhere that the more stuff is contained in the StoryInit passage, the longer the interactive fiction can take to load. Right now, the StoryInit passage is already very cluttered, with well over a hundred variables (I'm sure there's some variable bloat to take care of, too), and I've only included 3 locations' content. I wonder what will happen when I finish entering the rest of it - the 50+ other locations and their content.

Obviously, the StoryInit passage is for initializing certain information or conditions for the game; I don't believe it was ever meant as a storage-heavy passage. And there are other practical issues with this approach, which perhaps was only ever meant as a solution to 1 or 2 specific cases in an IF (I can't think of any other reason this might be practical to use otherwise). I'm considering just how annoying it is now to have to scroll through what I have in StoryInit to get to a specific location-content variable. Or any variable, really. So thinking about how much worse that'll get if I continue on...

Ergo, new adjustment:

Rather than work on the StoryInit passage, I can have content passages that hold all of the information or text related to a specific character/location. This saves me from worrying about the StoryInit passage and potential lag, though it does mean creating more passages in general, and if you remember my previous post about passage bloat, I'm really trying to keep it down. I'm considering having a passage per "neighbourhood" or group of locations. It'll be a big passage for each grouping, but at least it would be organized and allow for some kind of easier navigation compared to dumping them all in the StoryInit passage and scrolling for hours to find one tiny typo - a surefire recipe for insanity.

Add tags to the mix, and I think I'm on to something here. This may be a good middle-ground. While I won't completely be rid of additional passages like I'd hoped, I still won't have to deal with as many passages as I otherwise would. Some of this might be par for the course for seasoned IF writers, but as someone who is still very much exploring the limits of Twine and other IF engines, all of these hurdles are new challenges that I must tackle and find my own solutions to.

Aside from this, and as an added silly little gift for those who make it this far, I've been playing around with putting together a pixel art portrait for Kane. Again, I'm no pixel artist, and while I'm not truly satisfied with how I'm leaving the portrait tonight, I think it's a good first try, and we'll see how things develop moving forward. My main goal is to continue practicing, get the general process down (especially as it pertains to shading and highlights, as well as smaller details), and have something that feels like it belongs in the world of The Black Hare as I imagine it in my mind.

The Hourglass is Empty - 12/04/2026

We’ve come back full-circle. After much experimentation and adjustment, I’ve decided that the lag isn’t that much of an issue for me anyway, given that I don’t believe I’ll reach the sheer number of variables required for that to become an issue. I have made another decision which I believe will not only help with minimizing any potential lag, but will also emphasize the themes and atmosphere of The Black Hare.

In the steampunk gothic world of Talesmoth, there is no going back. What happened was fated to happen; this is a strong thread which connects the various events in the story. Thus, we must live with the consequences of our choices and our actions - and I believe removing the ability to go back is a clear way to reinforce this theme.

Now, because I know that many IF players like the safety of being able to go back to a certain place in the story where they feel they maybe made a mistake (which we can also do by making multiple save games), I’ve introduced a new mechanic: The Hourglass.

This is essentially a checkpoint-based “auto-saving” system. Certain locations or areas in the game will be marked as Checkpoints (“Places in Time” is the current thematically-aligned title). These Places in Time can be revisited using the Hourglass, which will take you back in time to one of these set moments in your journey - important locations or events that were unlocked, and if it is an event that is your chosen Place in Time, then it will be the start of that event - meaning, you can make different decisions in that important event as well, if needed.

The game will include a simple scrollable list of all of the Places in Time that are included in the story, though you will only see those which you have unlocked.

Nevertheless, the Hourglass itself can only be used a limited number of times (perhaps up to 3 or 5 times throughout your entire gameplay). Since the Hourglass is an object which you must find early in the game, I do enjoy the idea of including an obscure mini side-story or side-quest which allows the reader/player to “refill” their Hourglass. However, the narrative implications - where it could fit alongside the story itself - is something I am still considering.

And now, we arrive at the question of the Price to be Paid. The idea of the Hourglass is a magical one, and in the world of Talesmoth, magic is not good. In fact, all magic is “dark arts” and greatly forbidden. Therefore, the Hourglass is not a friendly item, but at times perhaps a necessary item. I believe that it would make much sense for the player to lose something - to pay a cost - in order to return to a Place in Time using the Hourglass.

The question becomes: What is that cost? What will they lose or sacrifice in order to return?

The cosmic horror enthusiast in me entertains thoughts of insanity - an insanity filter which grows stronger the more you use the Hourglass and travel where no human was ever meant to travel. Things that are not there, shadows in the darkness, watching you, following you - whispers in your ear from unknown sources - and mysterious physical ailments that can only mean one thing: an impending doom, despite your best efforts to hold on to your sanity and your life.

That sand which you have used in your travels back in time is replaced with tiny, swirling fragments of your soul. And the more you use, the more of yourself you lose. Intrinsically intertwined, the soul and mind alike shatter a little more every time you make the jump.

Do you dare?

Getting Some Style - 18/04/2026

This week, I completed the first hand-drawn portrait of a minor character - so much better than the pixel art attempts of yore. I'll keep practicing with my NPCs, working my way up to my main support characters (Kane, Genevieve, Lavender, and Reed).

My final boss battle will be the player character. I'll need to create different combinations based on players' choices, so I'll have to be very careful with how I draw the base and then the additional customizable elements (such as hair type, accessories, clothes, etc.). Colors can be done digitally, and the rest of it I'll manage somehow by hand, hopefully.

I'm also tackling a different beast: as I move my work from the previous Twine project to the new one, I'm re-evaluating my use of variables in the StoryInit passage, consolidating and grouping them wherever possible, and finding solutions to minimize the number of active variables the game needs to consider at any point in time. Doing that now is probably going to save me a big headache later.

I'm also simultaneously streamlining my introduction in the prologue, currently working on taking a set of 5 passages and merging them into one. As an additional little slice of fun, I've been messing around with the UI. This is what it looks like at the moment:

As you can see, I'm really trying my best to use the same passage for as much as possible. What you're seeing above is actually about ELEVEN passages in one long trenchcoat. The choices you make reveal more text. Like peeling an onion.

I'm thinking one passage per scene, unless it's a particularly dense or heavy scene. In any case, I've been hearing the restless cries of my desire to have a pretty prototype to test with, and for now they've fallen silent, and I can return to the craft of weaving my story.

2026-04-17T07:30:00.000+00:00

Pages From My Journal - 003: Simple Joy

I opened Twine today for the first time since October of 2025. I decided to play The Black Hare to see how far I'd gotten. I chose the Vigilante Route, and followed along, going through two of the three main portions in the prologue: the breakfast, and the exploration of the train.

Every time I made a choice that personalized my character - name, sex, background, skintone, travel clothes, etc. - a little green box popped up to tell me. It added it to my Profile, which I could access from the menu, and when I opened it up, I could see everything I needed to know about the character I was building in my playthrough. I found some newspaper articles I liked, and clipped and added them to my Journal, to keep in case they come in handy later on. Things I'd forgotten that I'd even included in my game.

It gave me a burst of happiness as I went through the game, and found myself actually enjoying it as a player. Sure, it's my creation, but I'd given myself distance enough from it that for once, I was able to play through it and really see it as a player, not as a developer or writer.

I took stock of my game and tried to figure out what needed to be done to have that promised prologue finally finished. At 276 passages, and only about 1/5 of the way complete, it feels an almost overwhelming task. And yet, I know that when I do, I'll feel just as proud, if not prouder, to have done so.

The best part is the feeling of having already tackled large projects - projects that took me months and years to finish - and knowing that if I've done it once, twice, thrice, then I can certainly do it again. So what if this is a behemoth? I have a whole resource that talks about eating elephants. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and do just that.

I haven't felt so creatively motivated in a very long time. It brings me joy to feel it again. I've missed this. Through the burnouts and the long winters of creativity, I've truly missed this.

I hope this time it sticks around for a long while.

Writer's Archive - #002 - 20/03/2026

2026-04-09T07:30:00.002+00:00

Writer's Archive - #002 - 20/03/2026

With four chapters scheduled and two more on the way, I'm confident about my ability to keep this story alive and bring it to a satisfying end. New chapters of Murder in Heliopolis are now being released weekly on Royal Road— which is a deliberate shift in my publishing strategy.

Rather than a singular daily burst of chapters followed by a long silence of about five weeks, this allows readers to consume the story at a pace that's better aligned with my own ability to write it, even as I deal with my intensive teaching cycles. A more comfortable pace means less stress, which is the point. I want to enjoy writing again.

In reviewing my archives from the last few years of editing, I’ve rediscovered a series of worldbuilding 'bonus' chapters. I’m currently reworking these to integrate them into my new release schedule.

Thankfully, Royal Road’s Volumes feature will allow me to house these in their own dedicated space within the same project, so readers aren't bothered by them as they read the story itself. This creates a perfect environment for me to dive deeper into the lore of Murder in Heliopolis and provide thoughtful, detailed responses to the questions readers shared in the comments.

Here are a few questions that were asked, which I will be answering in upcoming worldbuilding chapters:

Does PATET make moral judgements?
Since it is responsible for crime prevention, does it report abusers or con-artists, where the damage might not be obvious at first glance? If PATET does not make such decisions or follow up after such crimes, who does?
Do the ruling political party/entity have any control over PATET? Can they change its tax rates or the way loans are given? Can they also make changes to its electoral systems?
Are there any emergency measures in case PATET is critically compromised for some reason, like a virus or even the destruction of the physical servers holding PATET's data?

If there are corners of the Heliopolis lore you’ve been curious about, the archives are open. If you are new to the mystery, you can begin your journey on Royal Road.

Pages From My Journal - 002: Fragility

2026-04-08T07:30:00.002+00:00

Pages From My Journal - 002: Fragility

Spring has revived me, and I feel that I am emerging from a long winter's hibernation. Finally, I have the desire, the urge, to write. I know myself; these moments are often followed by deep, immersive, intensive sessions - days and days of non-stop writing and creative work, only to exhaust myself and once again fall into a silence.

This moment is fragile. I am trying to handle it with care - not to allow the frenzy to take over, but rather to pace myself, to keep myself disciplined. Focused. Step by step - a marathon - not a race.

And yet I can feel myself slipping at times, and I know that I can't keep a slow and steady pace forever. I've never been able to. It's all-in, or nothing at all, and everything that's meant to be in-between is so very difficult to force.

Even now, as I write this, I have, in the past two days, written over 4,000 words. More than I have written in the last seven months combined.

What's the solution? How do I move forward from here? Do I allow myself the indulgence, and accept the silence that comes after, waiting patiently for the next hurricane, as I always have?

READING LOG #001.2 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

2026-04-07T07:30:00.001+00:00

READING LOG #001.2 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

And so we finally meet the man who will, I think, be the love interest in the story, the pirate who sleeps in Dona’s bed when she’s not there, and who seems to have completely mesmerized her from their first meeting with his amusing charm and most probably the forbidden element that he represents. She’s one of the crew now, and I’m still not sure how that happened. Bored aristocrats will do almost anything for a thrill, I suppose, and Dona didn’t even have to think about it when he asked her to sign her name and “join his ship’s company”. It’s almost unreal, a dream - and du Maurier herself makes that note when the men kiss Dona’s hand. Did she know how outlandish the whole thing would seem to readers? Then again, that’s the point: to be outlandishly indulgent.

And, of course, the seductive, understanding pirate who truly sees her also happens to be honorable, stealing only from the wealthy. And thank God he doesn’t wear those powdered wigs! Listening to this in audiobook format, I found all of these pieces amusing. He's the very definition of the perfect gentleman - except he's not, really, is he? It's fascinating to experience, but regardless of his character, his importance in the story is more so that he represents Dona's agency.

I can respect Dona’s desire to be free. She finds herself in a gilded cage, at a time when women had little prospects. Married young, she seems at times childish. I can see how these elements could influence her.

Writer's Archive - #001 - 18/03/2026

2026-04-05T07:30:00.002+00:00

Writer's Archive - #001 - 18/03/2026

I woke up last Saturday with a scene in my mind. It was of Laith, my protagonist for Murder in Heliopolis, waking from his coma. It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to write.

I opened up my mystery journal, where I work on most of my mystery projects, and started to scribble away. I wrote ten pages in one sitting, and I had a small revelation. I opened up my old, glitchy-screened laptop, got on Royal Road, and finally scheduled two new chapters. I’m currently working on the third.

The revelation I mentioned was a simple one. I wrote Murder in Heliopolis for the 2021 RR Writathon. The idea, at the time, was that it was going to be a short, standalone novel. Since then, I’ve been dragging its weight around, and mentally, I’ve become tired of it.

But I also don’t want to leave it incomplete. It deserves an ending. A real ending. That’s why I’ve decided that come what may, even if it’s not the perfect manuscript that I had tried for so long to make it into, I’m going to enjoy wrapping up the story that I started writing for fun one November in 2021. It’s not that serious, and I need to move on.

Pages From My Journal - 001: Burnout

2026-04-04T07:30:00.001+00:00

Pages From My Journal - 001: Burnout

Somewhere along the way, I decided that what I'd really like to do - the job that would suit me perfectly - is to be an elementary school teacher. Or a high school teacher. Never a middle school teacher. But elementary school, high school - yeah. That's more my speed.

Of course, I'd always considered owning my own school and crafting my own K-12 curriculum. I've actually worked on the latter extensively over the past several years, but nevertheless, or perhaps as a natural consequence of my interest in curriculum development, being a teacher always attracted me.

And now, I'm there. I'm an elementary school teacher. Something I didn't think was possible, after two non-teaching degrees. I'm here, I'm a teacher, and I am both developing and teaching a hybrid ESL-ELA curriculum across all of my grade levels - of which there are six.

The fact that I'm able to do something so cool and very much aligned with what I've wanted to do for a long time now almost eclipses the fact that I'm lifting the weight of six grade levels on my own. Almost.

Lately, I've been really feeling that weight. My muscles are aching, shaking, and it's time I put everything down for a little while. Sharing the weight doesn't seem to be an option. Working through the weekends, working as soon as I get home, working through the holidays - it's just not something I can maintain. Nor should it be.

I know this because I've been here before. Not too long ago, I burned out. Hard. I was out of the game for about a year, if not two, and I never truly recovered. I am still paralyzed as a writer, stuck in some deep self-imposed coma, a hibernation of sorts that I can't seem to wake myself from. Sometimes, I can feel moments of wakefulness - a sentence here, a couplet there - but most of the time, the very thought of writing has me frozen.

So I know this feeling very well. I've lived it for a while now, and I don't know why I didn't expect it when I was rolling up my sleeves back in August. Six grade levels, starting for scratch. I should have seen it coming. But I didn't.

And now it's back. An old friend, a loan shark, here to collect.

READING LOG #001.1 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

2026-04-03T07:30:00.001+00:00

READING LOG #001.1 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

Currently on Chapter 4. I’m enjoying the story, despite being able to guess where it’s going so far. The hints are placed there for that very reason, though, so I’m hoping that du Maurier will surprise me as the story progresses. As it stands, I can tell that William’s “late master” is probably our male lead, who we’ve seen only through William’s perspective in memory so far, but whose character is already so well-defined in the story that there it feels like a puzzle missing a piece the size of this character. I’m hoping we’ll get introduced to him soon. My suspicion is that he is the one who has been using Dona’s bedroom, and who has left the book and the tobacco, and that William lets him stay there to lay low after certain crimes take place. We’ll see if I’m on the right track. I’m glad I went into this completely blind. I was told this is a romance, but I am hoping there’s more to it, and I’m happy to be reading this author again. Her style has always been an inspiration for me.

"In fact, I will withdraw my command about visitors, William. Should your late master ever call, I will not feign illness or madness or any other disease, I will receive him."

Speaking of style, and the choices authors make which make up so much of their style, it's come to my attention that the copy I have of this book has modernized du Maurier's writing somewhat, changing her language in subtle but distinct ways.

One example is linked to that same quote I shared above. Rather than use "any other disease", the original used "distemper". The official explanation is that it's simply not something we say anymore, because it was a word that generalized a broad range of mental conditions, and which is, in today's language, mostly reserved for dogs. From a historical perspective, it seems that the word was used often in the understanding of the balance of the Four Humors; an imbalance could have been referred to as "distemper." It really just meant that you were angry, or grumpy, or irritated.

It's interesting how much language changes with the times, and what changes publishers feel necessary to make. I know that much has already been said about this topic, especially around the time that Roald Dahl's works underwent the editing that they did (I recently faced these changes when reading Fantastic Mr. Fox with my student and realizing his brand new copy had significantly different language from mine). Nevertheless, it remains an interesting subject, because it presents a live evolution of language, and I find that intriguing.

It's understandable, of course, to not want to connect our protagonist with a dog, or even to use a word which was used as an umbrella term for a range of different psychological conditions. The connotations would be highly negative today. However, I do wonder, for example, if most people would pick up on the modern interpretation of this word, which seems somewhat lesser-known, or if, like me, they would simply intuit from the etymology of the word that Dona (du Maurier) meant anger - a distemper of the spirit, so to speak.

2026-04-02T07:30:00.002+00:00

Following up from my last post, here is what you can expect from this blog moving forward, in more detail. The new segments include:

Writer's Archive a process archive dedicated to my writing and my creative projects, sharing everything from snippets to reflections.
Reading Log a concise reading log where I record my progress and thoughts on a story I am currently reading.
Pages From My Journal a place to share more personal updates and thoughts, most often when they can't fit neatly into any of the other categories.
Notes on Teaching a place to share observations, challenges, resources, and general thoughts on teaching as I continue my teaching journey.

Each segment is going to have a bit more of a notebook/journal/scrapbook style of aesthetic, with different flares here and there. My hope is that altogether, they will look coherent... Ideally, I'd be able to take all of these posts (or at least my favourites) and put them together to create a nice big PDF (or mayhaps a book?) at the end of each year. I think that'd be nice.

Additionally, there are other segments I would like to include but which I have yet to prepare for - by which I mean I can't figure out how to fold them into the scrapbook/journal aesthetic - including:

Developer's Diary where I share updates on interactive fictions, visual novels, or any other development-adjacent projects.
Gallery where I share graphics, images, photos, and other pieces (heavy visual element) related to my projects.

These segments should just about cover everything that I want to do with this blog, but you might be thinking: this seems a bit one-way.

What about interacting with other blogs?

Each of these segments can be used to interact with other blogs. For example, if I'm tagged in a writing game, I would make the post for that tag game in the style of Writer's Archive posts.

I do have side-blogs that I have historically used for reblogging other art and writing (@artblrcabinetofwonders and @writeblrcabinetofwonders). I've been meaning to revive them and I think this is a good time for that as well.

I understand that for some this may not be ideal, and as a long-time member of the writeblr community, I can understand that, but my primary focus is my own health and development as both a teacher and a writer. When I started this blog, I was insanely active, but I was less busy then - a student who had a lot more time on her hands. Now, my life looks very different.

In short, I'll still be interacting, reblogging, and boosting the works of others, not just on this blog, but on my two side-blogs as well - just in my own way. However, as with my own posts, I may be a bit slow. Between my highly demanding job, my own personal pursuits, and the range of other potential projects pulling me every which way, it's hard to find the time to sit down and work on my passions, let alone post about them.

Why so many segments and categories?

I'm trying to be more methodical and more professional about my approach to what I honestly feel has developed from a simple hobby to something I take quite seriously. The areas of interest that I share about on this space are all equally important to me. Because of that, I feel it's only right that I give it the respect that it requires: time, effort, and (hopefully) a strong polish.

This also has something to do with self-discipline, and my own personal growth journey. As I approach 30, I'm looking around and realizing that there's a lot I'd like to change about how I approach my work, my personal projects, myself, my surroundings, and my loved ones. Some of these segments - like the reading log, for example - are meant to help me stay on track and disciplined, re-growing my concentration muscles and strengthening my patience.

That wraps up this post. Tomorrow, the first post of the new blog segments will be shared: my first Reading Log, with general thoughts about the first four chapters of Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier. From there, I'll try to have a new post every 1-3 days. As always, my ask box is open.

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Welcome back

2026-04-01T07:30:00.001+00:00

For those who have followed and supported my creative work - writeblr mutuals, fellow writers, and readers - and who still remain on this platform: thank you for waiting through my long, often unpredictable silences.

A lot has changed since I was last "here." I have changed. It seems every day I learn something new about myself that I didn't know before, and this era of self-discovery has led me to the realization that I want to change things up in this blog. If you look back, past the long buffer of inspiring and artistic reblogs, you’ll find this fragmented, all-over-the-place person that I was (and, in many ways, still am; it's a work in progress). But I've finally come to a decision regarding the future of this blog, and while this space is evolving, I want to reassure you: the core of the blog remains.

I will always be a storyteller. I will always be intrigued by the stories we discover and the experiences we share. Even when I am the busiest I have ever been, I gravitate back towards these creative endeavours. However, a new passion has emerged alongside my creative work. As some of you may have sensed with the release of my horror storytelling course and a variety of writing resources before that, I have, over the years, become more deeply immersed in the world of education than ever before.

And I want to share that passion on this blog, too - expanding what it encompasses and exploring the intersections of storytelling and learning (of which there are many). I also want to explore more teaching-focused ideas and document my journey as an educator. Everything from daily challenges and resource management, to curriculum development and the nuances of a multilingual classroom.

This post - as well as a few of the posts I recently shared because I was too impatient to wait - serves as the barrier between the old and the new. From here on out, it's a fresh start.

My updates will be slow and purposeful. I'm still shaking off the fog of a heavy burnout, but at the same time, I want to take the time to think through what I post (to the best of my ability anyway). Every post will be a part of a segment - a part of the whole that you can either follow or ignore using the tags that I will share with you. To learn more about what these segments will be, and what you can expect to find in them, keep an eye out for the next post.

And please, be patient with me as I work to nail down the kind of aesthetic that I want to recreate on this blog. It has been a while, and my skills need a refresher. For now, I'm mainly customizing templates to keep things simple, and I certainly don't think I'll be changing my blog theme. I hope that you'll let me know your thoughts about the new look and feel of this place.

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The Black Hare Log #6

2026-03-28T14:00:00.001+00:00

The Black Hare Log #6

The Black Hare is perhaps my biggest and most ambitious interactive fiction project yet. Given that I haven't worked on many others and certainly haven't shared the ones I have worked on with players (save for a few short ones for game jams, under a separate account), that may not be saying much. But there's a personal joy in working on this interactive fiction, with its routes and little features.

And, as spring would have it, I come bearing more little features.

Current Status

Completed a quick sketch map of Talesmoth, a sprawling city with over 50 locations to explore.
Heavily editing the previously completed Vigilante Route Prologue.
Completed plot overview for each route.
Playtested, identified areas for improvement in the coding for better player experience.

The Map

Before I sat down and created the map of Talesmoth, it was a fragmented idea of a city in my mind. And when I started making the map, I had no particular concept of what I wanted it to look like, apart from some steampunk and gothic elements. Thankfully, that issue is no more. I took an hour to sketch out a basic idea of the map that I needed, and color-coded the buildings while mentally considering which quests would lead the player to which areas of the map.

Given that the game is an IF that won't have an interactive visual map (probably; we'll see 👀), I think the map I've created is more than suitable enough for the purposes of my game design. Having something I can look at and refer to helps me figure out how to help the story proceed.

I want to note that I've been considering the fantasy elements in this story, and am teetering on the line between choosing to keep it its own separate entity or setting it in the same world as A Cure for Happiness, which has a very lush and vibrant fantasy setting. I am leaning more towards the former, but I've not made a decision yet either way. I think it would suit the steampunk/gothic/almost Victorian vibe of the game quite well.

Prologue Edits

After taking the time to playtest and see the game with a fresher set of eyes, I've decided to include a few more puzzles or clues in the Prologue than originally intended. The Prologue, which is meant to serve as a tasting tray of all the different features found in the game, is perhaps a 20 minute experience. It includes an introduction to your journey and a choice of Main Route, followed by breakfast with one of two supporting characters (either Kane/Genevieve, or Lavender/Reed), after which you are free to explore the train as you please and interact with the other passengers and activities you can do on the train. Finally, there is a late evening meeting with one support character, and a good-bye scene at the Talesmoth Train Station where you usually end up making plans to meet the support character again at a later point.

All of the activities must be completed thoroughly to ensure that players have explored all of the important elements of the game. In a way, it's like a tutorial for the game, letting you get a feel for the experience. From card games in the player's lounge to chatting with different characters in the vista car - or perhaps even snooping through guests' rooms - there are a lot of things to explore in the Prologue, and you're encouraged to explore it all, without leaving anything behind. Also, there are a few important clues that will come in handy later on in the game.

Because of this, I want to make sure that the Prologue is fun to play in all of its different moments, and right now, I'm not convinced that the scenes, as they stand, are all that interesting or engaging for readers/players. So, I'm revamping them slightly to give them more bounce, more life. And by slightly I actually mean significantly.

I'm completely changing the way the evening meeting works across all routes/paths, I'm adding and changing elements in the breakfast scene, and while I'm happy with the train exploration elements, I would like to add a few more Core Trait-focused options (like how if you have a certain Core Trait, you can sneak into guest's rooms and explore).

Ironing Out the Plot Framework

The plot finally has a general structure to it! For every single route/path that is taken, the general progression of the game will look like this:

Prologue - introduction to the game, your journey, core character personalization, support character, and game features
Chapter 1 - you help your chosen support character with their first quest while exploring Talesmoth and trying to learn more about The Black Hare on your own
Chapter 2 - you help your chosen support character with their second quest while exploring Talesmoth and learning more about The Black Hare - often finding some odd overlaps and coincidences to do with your support character
Chapter 3 - you help your chosen support character with their third quest - things are starting to look a lot more suspicious now, but you can feel yourself getting closer to The Black Hare
Chapter 4 - you attend the grand gala event, where, if you play your cards right, you find what you seek, but at what cost?
Chapter 5 - the final showdown, where you face a dilemma; a choice must be made, but what choice will you make in the end?
Epilogue - the aftermath + any unlocked secret endings

The Framing of Horror

2026-03-24T16:00:00.003+00:00

Villainizing a Moral Genre

Horror gets a bad reputation; we all know it. A genre that trades in the business of fear and the macabre, it's often relegated to the category of cheap fiction - B-movies, hollow gore-fests, and unnecessary jumpscares. As though the genre itself could be done away with. What would a world without horror be like?

The truth is, we couldn't do away with the genre any more than we could do away with the human need for society and order. Among all of the gimmicks of horror, there remains one truth at the core of the spooky stories we share with one another, and that is the fact that they mirror our own moral and ethical frameworks, which, at their most basic, are often based on our deepest fears as humans.

Horror Reveals Our Transgressions

Horror is a mirror you sit in front of. It shows you visions that are difficult to look at, but beyond the scary and oft-times repulsive surface, they ask questions that cut deep into our needs, our desires, and the limits we face as humans.

Horror demands we look at our transgressions and question our boundaries. What is right, and what is wrong? Why? What happens if we decide to set morality aside and give into the darkness that whispers to all of us, poison dripping in our ears?

It's one of the reasons horror is one of my favourite genres to explore, to analyze, and to simply enjoy. It's why we often go to watch that scary movie, knowing that we'll be staying up late all night thinking about it, listening to sounds in the darkness, reaching for comforts.

Horror Challenges Misused Amana

I've been considering horror from a religious perspective, too. Whether it’s the hubris of a scientist playing Creator or the greed of a traveler ignoring a warning, horror is the genre that deals with Amana—of moral responsibility, that which we are entrusted with. Horror poses a simple question: What happens when we fail to be good stewards of the power we hold?

Most sins are sins because they erode the trust we have in ourselves and in one another, and by extension erode our ability to form the coherent social structures with which most of us would not survive. The monsters under our beds are rarely monsters at all. They're representations of our own misdeeds, our own sins. Sins against ourselves. Sins against others. They're the personification - the manifestation - of a debt now due.

And then the monster comes to collect... That's a warning, bearing its teeth, sharpening its claws. It may not be a monster that punishes your own real transgression, but make no mistake: there is a punishment. It is inevitable.

Horror Fosters Courage

We protect our children from so much, for they would not be able to handle that which we ourselves would struggle to handle, let alone much of the weight that we do bear. And yet there are lessons that even children must learn.

Despite its reputation, horror is a safe space to explore our fears, explore different scenarios, and consider our own perspectives and actions. In short, horror is the training ground in which the soul to practices courage. As I've explored in my horror writing course, horror gives us the chance to face the 'Unseen' from the comfort of our sofas, through the barrier of our screens, and extends to us an invitation to test our internal compass against hypothetical terrors.

Much like the rest of storytelling at large, through all of its media and genres, horror remains a testing ground for the values and beliefs we hold, allowing us to re-examine them and better prepare ourselves for the complexities of the world around us. For it has monsters, too - monsters of a different ilk, but evil all the same - and we will need to stand before them and face their terror with courage and an unshakeable moral conviction.

An Illusionist's Toolbox

2026-03-23T21:52:00.002+00:00

Agency in Interactive Fiction

We talk about agency a lot as writers, especially in the realm of interactive fiction, but it's important to remember that what we're truly producing for players isn't real agency. The agency that players and readers experience is an illusion; it's not really there. But in that illusion we find the art - the craft - of balancing the player’s freedom against our own sanity as writers.

I've spoken about this before, but given that I've disappeared as a writer from this space for quite some time, and given that my work on The Black Hare has me further exploring this concept, I thought I'd have another crack at it.

Why are we interested in agency at all?

An interactive fiction without any agency is a novel. In short, it defeats the point of having an interactive fiction, because without agency - the reader's/player's ability to make choices that somehow impact the way they experience the story - then really it's just one set, non-interactive text. The story only ever goes one way, regardless, and the experience is only ever one kind of experience. Given that players/readers who seek out interactive fiction usually do so because they desire that agency, let's talk about what that actually translates into in your I.F.

The Mirage of Surface-Level Choices

Surface-level choices (sometimes called false choices) can create an experience where the player thinks that they're making choices that will have some impact, but they don't really - not beyond customization of the player character's looks/personality and perhaps that of others. This is a perfectly valid I.F. approach; all some readers are looking for is a fun I.F. story where they get to make their character in their image, and that's fine. But there are a lot of players who would also like to see that the choices they make do lead them down diverging story paths, that those choices do have consequences that their character has to deal with later on in the story.

The choices that do actually do that are consequential or meaningful choices. These choices can keep readers/players intrigued and invested. Knowing that there are other routes to take and avenues to go down in the story, the player may even decide to replay the story several times in an attempt to find all of the different endings.

Surface-level choices are fun to include in the I.F.; they add flavour and a personal touch. They're also less work. If you have surface-level choices only in your IF, then the story goes in a pre-set direction (or limited set of directions) that allows you to reduce scope crawl for your game and make something ultimately more manageable as a writer. Instead of writing 2-3 branches that diverge into a set of 24 possible endings, you can write 1-3 branches that diverge into a set of 3-5 possible endings. All the while, what you've written is laden with call-backs to surface level choices that the player made throughout the story (ex: He points the gun at you, and you close your green eyes. This calls back to the choice the player made where they decided their character has green eyes. It adds a personalized touch, proving that the game does remember what you chose and who you are specifically, but it doesn't change the fact that he's pointing the gun at you, and no choice that you ever made previously could have changed that, either. At least, not in this example.)

At times, the "surface-level" choices can also include relationship meters - who you choose to fall in love with, who you choose to make an enemy, and so on - that also don't do anything to change the story's direction, either. Perhaps they add another paragraph to the ending, showing that you ended up with the character you chose to romance, or that you somehow got your revenge on that one character you butted heads with. The core plot remains the same, however.

There's a sense of predestination to an I.F. that deals mainly in surface-level choices. It's a fatalistic experience that, to me, seems to work best when the story leads to a bittersweet, tragic, or mysterious end. But that's strictly my personal opinion.

All of that said, however, you'll see in the next section why it's so important to have surface-level choices, because meaningful choices alone cannot a successful I.F. make. Thus, our job as illusionists becomes inherent to the genre, and our true challenge is found in the balance.

The Weight of Meaningful Choices

Meaningful choices will be a lot more work. When you include meaningful choices in your I.F., you recognize that those choices will have significant consequences on the game's plot. Meaningful choices are usually the choices your player makes that result in a branching out of the story, in the unlocking/barring of specific routes, and in the summary of the ending as a whole (what will and won't be included, as it relates to the core plot). They may even lead to completely separate and different scenarios. But knowing this, it means that every time you put a meaningful choice in your game, there's a lot of writing that goes along with it. If a meaningful choice leads to another branch in your narrative, then that's a whole new branch you need to write. It's a lot more work than simply continuing on the same path and sprinkling call-backs to choices the player made earlier on.

And speaking of those surface-level choice examples I provided earlier, they don't necessarily have to be surface-level. Your I.F. could include a world where a character who has brown hair is rare, and in some areas of your game, perhaps even demonized by certain social groups. This could have an actual impact on your gameplay and the story itself. It could force the story onto a route that the player would then have to navigate. The same kind of thing can be attributed to different cosmetic choices, and you can also have personality choices that also affect the way the story reacts to your player.

For example, in The Black Hare, I've included three core personality traits and three background options, each of which comes with a set of three unique skills. That's a total of 6 unique skills your character can have. A character with one skill may be able to get to a location that another character without that skill can't. A character who has a certain personality trait may not be able to get information out of an NPC that other characters without that personality trait could. These can have resounding effects on the story your player experiences. Instead of getting that information from an NPC, for example, they may have to use their skills to get that same information by entering a location only they could enter.

The balance here is important. When you're dealing with "unique" meaningful choices that apply to specific traits a reader/player has chosen for themselves, you have to keep in mind that they aren't "generalized" meaningful choices - as in, you have to ensure that each character, with any combination of traits, can get through different stages of your story even if they can't all use the same approach to do so. And yes - that's also much more work, and a heck of a lot more writing.

It's why most I.F. writers disguise surface-level choices as true agency in the game. While it may not change the storyline, it gives readers/players a reason to interact with the I.F., keeping them engaged until the next meaningful choice comes along. If an I.F. only had meaningful choices, the reader would come across perhaps five choices in their whole game. More than that would probably destroy a solo I.F. writer's sanity. But that would also mean that the player/reader, who came to the I.F. seeking agency, would only find it once every 20 or so passages, if that. Again: balance is key.

The Tangibility of Mechanical Choices

There's a third secret kind of agency. Okay, so it's not a secret, but I left it until last for a reason. Not all writers of I.F.s include many game systems or mechanics in their games, but those who do would benefit from knowing about mechanical choices, easily the most concrete and least illusory of the lot.

Mechanical choices are choices you make that change the "math" of the game's systems. Choices like deciding to buy a bagel, deciding to work an extra shift, or deciding to store/remove something in your inventory. These can have impacts on the plot - at times you're locked out of progressing in the story if you don't have an item or enough money. But they don't have an impact on the branching of the narrative itself. A single bagel doesn't change the destiny of the world, but the habit of buying that bagel contributes to the flavor of the player's experience in your game.

These choices are only there to manage the mechanics and system of the game, and in some cases, to make sure players can't get through the game in ten minutes flat.

Mechanical choices can be linked to surface-level choices. For example, in my I.F. The Black Hare, you can choose to keep every single document you come across in the game in your Journal. But do you need every single document in the game? No. Most of them are irrelevant. Do you know which are relevant and which aren't? Not at first, but you can identify that later. You can get rid of all of the irrelevant ones as you go along. Does that mean that you will? Maybe not. Maybe you decide to keep every single document and clipping and letter because your character is a hoarder. That's a surface-level choice - it changes nothing about the story itself or the branches of it, just your personal approach to the game.

Mechanical choices are also linked to what are called operational choices, which is just how you decide to manage your resources; your own strategic approach. I put it all under the term "mechanical choices", but there are times when perhaps making that differentiation is important, so I leave this note here just in case.

A Return to the Why

In a novel, what awaits the reader is inevitable. Nothing they do will change what is to come. In an I.F., that which awaits them - whether it is disaster or success - is earned. Whether through a meaningful branch or a mechanical failure to manage resources, the player must feel that the 'Game Over' screen was a consequence of their own hand - and yes, we definitely should include what are called "bad endings" or "game over" scenarios. Agency in the game, much like in our real world, should provide the opportunity of failure. While failure is not always fun in the real world, in the illusions of our fictions, it becomes a valid and entertaining possibility, because right around the corner, a do-over is always there. That is the true philosophy of agency: not just the power to win, but the permission to fail.

And shrouding it all - that mirage that we work so hard to create, founded on the fragile balance of choices that lead, inevitably, to the destinations we have already built for them.

The Hero, the Student, and the Map

2026-03-22T15:56:00.002+00:00

Narrative Inquiry in the Classroom

While I've mentioned that I've got a bit of a blog "re-brand" coming up, potentially this April - and I use the term re-brand so loosely it's fluttering in the wind - there are a lot of topics I want to talk about right now. I was recently talking to a penpal and we brought up the importance of storytelling in education but also in creating our own personal narratives which lend meaning to our lives.

I began thinking about how, exactly, I have used and plan to use storytelling as a medium of teaching in my elementary classroom. In the world of teaching, this alignment—where the lesson mirrors a story arc—is often explored through narrative pedagogy. It’s the art of treating the learning process as a lived story. Aside from the natural correspondence of the greater journey of learning that a student experiences to that of a reader as they embark on their own journey through a new world, there is a more localized analogy to be made. Planning a lesson and plotting a good story arc are much the same thing: your ultimate goal is to keep your audience as engaged and invested as possible in the world you are offering them.

The blueprints of a good lesson and a good story are, in many ways, very similar. You can even think of it as a student working through a Hero's Journey of their own. Here's how that works:

In a story, a character’s world is disrupted. In a classroom, a student’s understanding of the world around them should be disrupted by a question they can't yet answer. We want to hook our audience, whether it's in our books or in our lessons. We want to call to their attention a problem that needs solving, and to invest them in the journey towards solving that problem. We can't simply give them the answer right away - if you start a lesson with all of the solutions, it's the same as starting a story with its ending and resolution. There is no mystery, no intrigue, no investment, no engagement. Ultimately, the brain has to ask itself: What's the point of remembering this? We'll come back to this particular element later.
The student (and the reader, through the perspective of the characters) has to go through various steps in order to solve their problem. This is the perfect place for student-led inquiry, and for the astute reader, this is where they start to pick up on clues - elements of world-building, off-hand comments characters have made, and so on - in order to solve the problem before the story presents them with the solution. It's a time of creativity, critical thinking, and applying problem-solving skills. Not including this time - these crucial steps in your lessons - deprives students (and, analogously, readers) of an opportunity to engage with your story/lesson in meaningful ways.
Keeping it contained is also something we do as both authors and teachers. Of course, we have sprawling worlds to let our audience explore. We could write volumes and volumes about our world-building, about how other things in our world work, about what else there is to explore. But in this lesson, in this specific story, there is one concept that is at the heart of it all. And, therefore, we have to set the borders. We have to give students some kind of map, and within that map, there are limits they cannot go beyond. The teacher, like the author - or even like the open-game world developer - builds the walls so the student can find the gate. True agency isn't total freedom; it’s the freedom to struggle within a meaningful structure.
Speaking of agency, we're always talking about character-driven stories and how much more powerful they are. The same is found here, within this approach to teaching: the student's agency is reflected in their ability to investigate through various means and find the solution which best fits the problem. Maybe there is more than one solution. Maybe solutions come with a cost, and they have to decide - that ultimate final dilemma - on what they're willing to sacrifice or what cost they're willing to pay for the solution they need. We see it all the time in stories - characters finally getting what they wanted and needed, but often at an unforeseen cost. In any case, giving students agency to explore the world makes them take ownership of their learning, just like allowing a character to have agency in their world helps the audience feel like they're seeing the journey through the eyes of a character they can truly relate to.
I'm harping on about agency, but here's the bottom line: A plot where things just "happen" to a hero is boring. A lesson where a student just "receives" information is forgettable. For our students, the 'Aha!' moment is the climax of the narrative. The satisfaction of solving something on their own, or finding the answer - even if it is through a research-based discovery - cements the learning journey and provides a powerful incentive for learners to not only engage in the next lesson, but in remembering this lesson for the rest of their lives.
And then there's the wrap-up. In the Hero's Journey, there's a return to the beginning, only things have changed for the world and the main character in some important, significant way. In a classroom setting, the resolution isn't just finishing the worksheet, or getting a good grade on a later quiz to show that they've memorized the information. It’s the moment the student looks at the world and realizes they now have more tools to explore, analyze, and maybe even change it. They return to the status quo, just as we do in the Hero's Journey, but they are no longer an ordinary observer, and their understanding of the world around them has fundamentally changed. Perhaps they've added another tool to their inventory - something that they can apply in other lessons, to solve other problems, and uncover more about their world. That's our denouement, and that's how we keep students engaged in their learning - because now that they know that's something they can do, learning becomes a whole more more engaging, more interesting, more fun. And that's really what it's all about, in the end: cultivating a passion for learning. For the pursuit of knowledge.

I couldn't wait to share these thoughts, so I wrote them down and I'm throwing them out there in case they help anyone. In the meantime, like I said, a more official change will take place starting in April. But honestly? The short and skinny of it is: expect more posts like this, alongside some more general thoughts and scrapbooky feels.

Thoughts on Runaways by Etta Grace: Exploring Music, Family, and Evil

2025-11-09T12:00:00.088+00:00

Thoughts on Runaways by Etta Grace: Exploring Family, Music, and Evil

If you haven't already devoured Etta Grace's Runaways, the YA fantasy novel about a girl trying to find her missing sister in the magical woods beyond their home, then you need to. Not only is it a charming, cozy autumn read, it's also a wonderful adventure that is at once nostalgic and timeless.

You can grab your copy of Runaways here.

Check out this gorgeous hand-drawn cover, too!

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I read Runaways in 2024, as one of a handful of lucky beta readers, and I was also fortunate enough to get an ARC copy for the preparation of both this article and the accompanying podcast interview with Etta Grace. A lot of what I say here is meant to supplement that, so make sure to give that a listen, too, because we delve into a whole lot more than these three themes, and there's a lot said there that I don't touch upon here, and vice-versa. I already had a lot to say about the book back when I was beta reading it, but after having a long discussion with Etta, I've had some more thoughts, so grab a cup of hot cocoa and your copy of Runaways, and let's get down to business.

[Before you go any further, keep in mind that there are minor spoilers in what you're about to read. I've tried to avoid spoiling as much as possible, but if you want to experience Runaways for the first time yourself (as honestly you should) and form your own ideas and understandings of it before I bare my thoughts to you, then do that first (and then come back!).]

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We begin with family...

There are a handful of themes that run through this fantastical tale of resilience, inner strength, perseverance, and - ultimately - love. Perhaps the most central of all themes is that of family, and specifically what it means to be family. Is family only defined by blood? Is it defined by shared experience and time knowing each other - caring for each other? Is it characterized by absolutes - lines which, when crossed, invalidate one's belonging in the family? How far can someone go, and still be called family?

These are questions that the story asks. It goes beyond unending loyalty, and travels further into the more challenging realms of understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. What struck me as I read the story was how forgiving the protagonist, Hannah, is throughout the entire story. It isn't just with her sister Cecilia, whose disappearance triggers the entire adventure into the woods, and into the worlds of the Seelie and Useelie - and whose big reveal leaves Hannah reeling for quite some time. She also forgives the Taken, who, throughout the course of the story, ferociously attacks Hannah and her friends. It's interesting to consider how far forgiveness can go, and how it changes as we age. Perhaps it's her young age that makes it easier for her to forgive, and perhaps there's something we can learn from the innocence of young children, who often forgive so easily and brush away the burden of anger and hatred from their hearts.

The Piper, on the other hand, is a character that represents an absolute evil. There is no compassion to be found there, no forgiveness to give. His deeds have painted his soul black, and there is no turning back, for the delight he gains from the pain he inflicts is now a core part of who he is, unlike those who he takes, like the Taken, who are forced to do his bidding or suffer terrible pain and horrible fates. (We'll talk more about the Piper and the concept of absolute evil in just a bit.)

Forgiveness leads us to the question of whether or not you can forgive your family everything. There's something to be said about the connections that Hannah builds with both Cecilia and the Taken. Both of these characters are (here come the spoilers) related to Hannah by either blood or an entire sibling history. Cecilia, the Changeling, is the one who replaced the Taken, Hannah's true blood sister. But neither of them is favored over the other.

Even with Hannah's shared history with Cecilia and the Taken's horrible attacks against them, Hannah is able to be fair to both her sisters. She forgives them both - for things which they had very little control over, and which can also lead us into a discussion of how people behave based on their situations and environments. Hannah sees past their deeds, understands the circumstances which made them behave a certain way, and through her compassion forgives them.

Of course, this is also a great model to have for children. As young teens and young adults read stories that model these kinds of conflicts - which naturally occur in all tight-knit groups, whether families or friend groups - they can also see how these conflicts can be resolved. I've always talked about how important it is that fiction teaches and educates; it's not simple entertainment. Runaways teaches a great deal, and one of those lessons is that of moving past a conflict so that you salvage your relationships and the good that you have with people, not burn the bridges and leave them behind in a moment of anger and pride.

What's in a family name?

As an aside, there is also a big theme that underlies this novel - that of names and naming, and choosing your name - and this is something that I feel ties in wonderfully with the theme of family as well. In particular, I enjoyed the discussion the book seemed to have that explained the power that names and titles have, and how using the true name of something gives it back its power - a recognition of the other that gives them back agency and individuality and, most importantly, free will as a person who deserves to take hold of their own destiny.

At some point in the story (pg. 389), Hannah tells Cecelia that she can choose her own name, but offers to call her Teagan in the meantime. It is one of two times (at least) that Hannah uses their family name to remind Cecelia that she will always have a place in their family, regardless of what happens or who she learns she truly is. The other time, that I could find, was where Hannah reminds her that she is still part of her family, telling her that she's still "a Teagan" (pg. 344). Whatever Cecilia chooses, she will always be a Teagan, and that is an identity she can keep forever, an anchor that she can use when the waters get turbulent and she's unsure of her place in the world.

It's been a while since I've read a story that made me feel warm and hopeful - a story that cuts through all of the commercialized noise and offers a simplicity that delves into the goodness of human nature and makes it take center-stage. There are no distracting harried romantic sub-plots that take up all the space that would otherwise go to more meaningful explorations of human nature, or other superfluous content that otherwise plays no role in the story at large. Everything is presented for a reason, and that reason always stays true to what I feel is the main theme of the book: the strength and resilience of family.

Etta Grace says in her book that her own family "is at the core of everything" she writes, and I think that it's evident from the powerful and beautiful portrayal of family - and the resilience and forgiveness of family - that permeates through this novel.

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When you hear the music...

Another big theme in the book is that of music - its ability to change us, to mold us, and to be used by others as a tool for both good and evil. In the story, music becomes a form of magic, because it has power over people, and as Etta Grace explains in the podcast interview, "it can be used for good and evil, but the magic itself is a tool." This is an interesting topic for me, both from a religious perspective and from a scientific perspective, so my bias will definitely color a lot of what I have to say here.

For one thing, I do think that - outside of the story's constraints, in our real world - music is a tool, and it can be used for both good and evil. Music can be extremely powerful - something that changes and influences your emotions and thoughts. The music you submerge yourself in daily has an impact - they are words that you hear, day in and day out. They are emotions that you are influenced to feel, day in and day out. It's highly unlikely, in my opinion, to say that something that so clearly permeates so much of people's everyday existence would have no implications at all on their characters, their choices, their experiences, or even their mental states.

Results of a recent university study showed that because music activates the areas of your brain responsible for memory, and because memories can be somewhat malleable, music can change the way you think of your own past memories and experiences. Obviously, it isn't to the extent that we see with the Pied Piper, but there's something to be said there about how the Pied Piper uses music as a tool to change the minds of people - to fill them with fear and anxiety, to have them turn against others, to poison their thoughts and have them doubt what they know so that they feel the only option available to them is to join his ranks and be loyal to him alone.

For a long time, we have recognized that music is a power that takes hold of us. Our folktales and myths tell stories of songs that hypnotize, that put people under a spell, and have them behave a certain way. Think of the Sirens, luring sailors to their doom with their hypnotic songs, or Orpheus, whose magical musical abilities could change the minds of man and beast, among many others.

The story of the Pied Piper is one of those examples - the infamous revenge he takes on the town that would not pay by using his music to march their children into a cavern from which they are never again seen. This evil character holds on to this power in Etta Grace's Runaways, where we get a glimpse into the horrors of just how he uses his music, and what he has done with the people he takes with his music. In the story, the Piper has a great many powers - like the power to turn poor souls into rats that do his bidding.

I think there's something to be said here about the music we consume today - the music we use on ourselves, and how those decisions impact our lives and those of others around us. When you listen to sad music, you plunge into a sadness. When you listen to upbeat music, you benefit from a boost of energy and motivation. When you listen to romantic songs, you yearn. When you listen to angry songs, you burn. And so it goes. The almost drug-induced-like state of the characters in our stories might seem like a stretch, but literature serves to emphasize our issues to make them more easily visible to us. Is there maybe not some modicum of truth to that scene of one leading the masses into a hypnotic daze that leaves them blind and deaf to what happens around them - to their own impending doom?

And, from a religious perspective, the metaphorical "leading astray" of people is something that the devil is most well-known for - and, interestingly enough, there are countless stories there, too, of a devil using music. (Here, too, I would say in Runaways, family plays a large role in certain characters who have been led astray finding their way back onto the right path again.) It's almost as though we're very, very much aware of the effect music has on us, and our responsibility to ourselves when it comes to using it for good rather than evil.

Speaking of evil - that takes us to the next and final theme I wanted to talk about.

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The horrors of evil...

We've introduced the concept of evil, of unforgivable and irredeemable evil in particular, and of the devil. I think we're primed now for a talk on how Runaways handles the theme of absolute evil. In the story, it's easy to say that the Pied Piper is the Big Evil, the main Bad Guy that needs to be overcome - but there's actually a whole range of evil characters who we only get a glimpse into in one or two scenes in the book: Queen Mab, in particular, seems to rule over them as their leader. The Pied Piper is the main Bad Guy for Hannah's story - the one she must contend with to get her sister back - but he's only one of many Big Evils in the world of the Seelie and Unseelie.

The book has the overall uplifting and hopeful theme of good ultimately prevailing over evil, but there are some other thoughts that I have about the evil part of that equation in particular.

There's an interesting conversation here about choice and free will. The Pied Piper, like the other Big Evils of this world, is absolutely evil. He's evil to the core, and there are no redeeming qualities. There's no background story that explains his evil, like we're used to seeing more of these days - so no morally grey characterization for this guy. There's nothing to humanize the Pied Piper in Runaways, because he is meant to be an unequivocal evil. Whether he chose to be this way or was made this way isn't explored in the story, and I think this represents that there are absolute evils in the world, and they must be overcome, regardless of their so-called origin stories.

But then there are characters like the Taken, who is one of many children that the Piper has taken and forced to do his bidding. They are evil not by choice - they must survive in the terrible, horrific world of the Piper, and in order to do so are forced to commit horrible deeds. Unlike the Piper, who is evil by choice and revels in the misery he causes, the Taken are evil by force, and have no choice but to do what they are told to in order to make it through another day and not be turned into rats. In this way, they are not absolutely evil, and as we see with the Taken, they can still be brought back into the goodness of the world if they can be removed from the Piper's hold.

Still, there are those who decide that that is the path they will take. Quercu's sister, for example, has decided that she wants to continue serving the evils of the world, and thus has no desire to return to the good, and go back to her sister and their lives before. This is an interesting outlier, it seems, because for the most part, while all who were Taken do believe that there is nothing left for them in the world but to do as the Piper says and survive, they would still want to leave the Piper if they could. If they saw that as a viable option, these trapped souls would leave - but they're too scared to. Quercu's sister, on the other hand, seems to have had a very different character development arc, whereby she has decided that she wants to continue being this agent of evil, despite several chances that have arisen where she could have potentially been saved.

As an aside, I think it's worth mentioning here that family plays a huge role in bringing someone back onto the path of good and taking them away from the path of evil. This shows another underlying theme of the book: the importance of belonging, and the importance of family - whether it's blood relatives or found family - because these are the people who decide that you belong with them, and these are the people who will do whatever they can to make sure you do not fall into evil. They're also the people who will stop at nothing to save you if you do - just like Hannah does with her sister, and just like Quercu does with hers (even if, for Quercu, it's a much longer and more complicated fight). Sometimes we need the help of others, even if we don't think we do - and having people who will recognize that you need help and will continue to fight for you is both a huge privilege and a gift that we often take for granted.

These different shades of evil are interesting. We have those who are absolutely evil, like the Piper and the others (Queen Mab, the Monster, etc. - who seem to have become absolute evil due to a centuries-long reinforcement of that choice through sacrifices to Hell for the powers it gives them, as Grace explains in the interview), we have those who are forced to be evil and have no choice in the matter, and we have those who choose to be evil. Three different paths - and all of them equally fascinating to the reader.

What stays constant, however, is that for the humans and beings who have free will in the story, there remains a choice. They were not born evil, and therefore their desire to continue being evil has to be a choice they make.

We also mentioned the element of nature vs nurture in the podcast interview, in particular for the Pied Piper, so if you're looking for more on these themes, you can check out that podcast episode right here on the blog or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts.

Final Notes

Overall, I have to say that this was one of the warmest fall-themed adventures that I have experienced in a while, and I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this story. The attention to detail, the wonderful themes at the heart of it, and the lessons which persist beyond it shows the love and care with which the story was crafted, and I hope to read many more stories from Etta Grace in the near future.

Oh - and if all of this didn't quite scratch enough of that lit analysis itch, Etta Grace has Runaways Companion Guides ready for you to dive into, along with a lot of other Runaways goodies over on her website!

If you've read this far without reading the book and now you're thinking it's time to right the errors of your ways, you can still grab your copy of Runaways here.

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Card Games and Board Games as an ELL Resource

2025-11-01T16:21:00.002+00:00

Card Games and Board Games as an ELL Resource

We're two months into the new academic year and I have slowly been introducing a few card games to my lower elementary classes. Most of the students in these classes are ELLs at a beginner level, so my goal is combining ESL and ELA instruction. The children really enjoy these card games, and I've also noticed that these games elicit more spoken language from them as well - even the students who are hesitant to speak in English.

The most important thing is that you don't actually have to go out and buy a whole bunch of games to create a range of fun and engaging games for your students. In fact, most of the time, you can use your usual classroom resources - like flashcards - and turn them into games.

While I don't have pictures of my card games or board games, I'll use this placeholder. But photos are incoming!

One Resource, Many Games

Vocabulary, Phonics, and Phrases with "Alphabet Go Fish"

If you have letter flashcards, this is a great game to use with students who still struggle with letter recognition, but also for students who don't know how to say the names of the letters in English or who still mix up certain sounds. In my case, my French-speaking students get confused between G/J, A/I, E/I, U/W, and a couple of others. My Grade 1 students played an alphabet form of Go Fish a number of times, which not only allowed them to practice the letter names in English, but also had them modeling a specific kind of phrase:

Do you have [letter]?

No, I don't. Go fish! / Yes, I do.

This game alone reinforces a range of different skills, and you can easily modify it for other target skill acquisition objectives. For example, you could have students make the sound that the letter they want makes rather than asking for the letter itself. In this way, you can also check for phonological awareness.

A more complex version may require them to read the vocabulary word on the card that starts with that letter, or recall a word that you've learned that starts with that letter, and ask for that instead. (For context, our cards have the letter accompanied by a word underneath that starts with that letter, as well as a little image of that word. Ex: U, umbrella, image of an umbrella.)

I've also been using this as a remedial tool for students who, at a Grade 2 level, still never learned letter recognition (in any language) or any kind of phonological awareness. This is a unique challenge that I have this year, with almost half of my class facing this issue (due to a perfect storm of different histories and reasons). Making the learning into a game makes it easier for them to feel more confident about their learning while having fun.

Phonics with Letter Blocks

Another game we've been playing for our Phonics segment is a CVC / CCVC / CVCC word formation game, with up to 4 players at a time. I made a set of phonics flashcards and printed and laminated them for use in class, and then realized they could be used for this kind of game as well.

Students have a deck of cards with the target phonics words (focusing on the phonics lessons you've been working on), face down in the middle of the table. They each have a set of 4 wooden blocks with different letters on each side. One of them flips over the first card, reads out the word, and they create the word with the blocks. As I have some students who still struggle with letter recognition, this is a good way to reinforce that for them.

For students who don't struggle with letter recognition, we turn it into a race - who can make the word first? A modified version removes the card deck; I say the word, and they create it based on the sounds they hear. I've noticed that the children naturally say the word out loud a few times by the time they're done making it, which helps strengthen their phonemic awareness skills.

If you don't have blocks, you can use Scrabble tiles or just print out and laminate letter squares, giving each student their own set (just make sure they have enough of the letters they need to make the word so they don't get stuck without a letter that they need - like two Es instead of just one). Of course, you can also use this kind of a setup with vocabulary words, which I sometimes do as a form of early-bird activity for students who come to school early.

Vocabulary, Grammar, and Phrases with Themed Flashcards

And then there are the games that I create using vocabulary flashcards that we have. For example, I have 2 sets of antonym flashcards. While we're still learning the vocabulary words, we play one of two games with them: a memory game, where they have to match the same words (for example, quiet and quiet), and a simple card game that follows the basic rules of Ronda. The cards come with images, and the students read them out loud when they turn them over. Like sight words, the more they see these words, the more easily they recall them, including the shapes and spellings of the words.

For more advanced learners, I'll have them play one of the two games, but looking for the antonym rather than the same word repeated (ex: matching quiet with loud, or winning a card with its antonym in Ronda).

This is why having playing-card-sized flashcards can be so helpful, too. Say you are teaching your students a set of themed vocabulary. For example, you're working on the words for different items in their pencil cases (eraser, ruler, sharpener, pencil, pen, marker, etc.). Expanding from my first example, you can play a Go Fish style game which reinforces the same kinds of phrases. "Do you have a sharpener?" "No, I don't. Go fish!"

If you're learning, for example, sports vocabulary, you might have the students ask each other "Do you play basketball?" rather than "Do you have a basketball?", and if they do have a card that says "basketball" in their hands, they reply with "Yes, I do." or "Yes, I play basketball." before handing over their card.

You can also make it more complex depending on what your students are learning. For example, if you're learning about pronouns as well, you can have students pair up into teams while playing this version of Go Fish, and have one team ask one person from another team if their partner has a card. It would look something like this:

Lily and Daniel are in one team. James and Fiona are in another team.

Lily, asking Fiona: Does he have a sharpener?

Fiona, after looking at James's cards: No, he doesn't have a sharpener. Go fish!

There are varying levels of complexities that you can add to each of these basic games, but keep in mind that making a game more complex may not make it fun for students anymore, so you have to balance the fun with the learning to keep your students engaged.

Using the same kind of game, with the same kind of rules, but changing out the cards and target language for different units or lessons, allows students to not need to do the double work of learning the rules and practicing what might be a new and potentially confusing target language skill at the same time (especially as it pertains to grammar).

Textbooks, Workbooks, and Other Resources

Make sure you double-check the books and resources you use with your students to find out if there are any games included in them. For example, the workbook that we use with students has a Guess Who? style card game at the back of the book that they students can cut out and ask each other questions, eliminating each card until only one remains. This is a fun way of making them practice "Do you have..." and "Do you [verb]..." question structures.

Use the resources that you have to their full extent, to make sure that you're always giving students a range of different and fun options when learning new target language. After all, we learn best when we enjoy what we're learning.

As an aside, if there's only one kind of game with one kind of topic, see if there's a way for you to recreate the game using other topics or themes. For example, the students enjoyed the Guess Who? style game so much that I've made it a goal to try and create a similar one for at least a few more themes (for example, professions, or perhaps family members).

Print and Play Board Games and Card Games

Now we come to something a little different. While the games that I've spoken about already are more DIY games using the usual suspects when its comes to the resources we tend to have in our classrooms, these games that are made by companies or individuals whose goals were not necessarily educational, bur which can still be used in your classroom to reinforce language learning and other target objects - including math.

I've personally been on the lookout for print and play games, so that I can print out multiple copies, get them laminated, and have enough for all of my students to play. It also allows for the flexibility of preparing additional elements or adjusting certain parts of the games to be more level-appropriate and target-language focused for my students.

My students are big football (soccer) fans, so I'm excited to get them to play True Soccer Hero with me, a game by Jason Sondoh that has them play a grid-like football match (and do some minor math in the process). This is a great way to introduce them to words like up/down/left/right, and phrases like "kick the ball" or "score a goal", among others. The objective for me is to have them use that language while they play, so I might tell them that when they score, they have to say "I score a goal!", and when they reach the ball, they have to say "I kick the ball [number] spaces." When they roll the dice, they can say, "I move [up/down/left/right] [number] spaces." This way, we focus on some sports language, keep things within the present tense framework to support the grammar objectives we're working on, and practice direction words.

Other games that look interesting for my Grades 1-4 include 1,000 Year Beard, which has addition and subtraction within the hundreds (great for Grade 3 and Grade 4 math reinforcement), Squirrel Squabble, which is a good way to practice some autumn-themed vocabulary with the students, and a few more like Washing Lines or Otto the Octopus. A couple of these games, as well as games like Bear Went Over the Mountain, may be good options for me to try with my KG students as well.

Board games can also be easy to make yourself. Anything from a simple chess board to an empty, printable game board can be transformed into a simple game designed specifically for a specific activity, without too much effort on your part.

Need tokens? Use your math manipulatives, or water bottle caps. You could even have the kids make their own with air-dry clay.
Need images? Google is your friend! You could also scribble a quick doodle; kids aren't picky. Or, you can do what I did: have the students make part of it themselves. I had my students create their own vocabulary flashcards for one of the units with a card game in mind.
Need a big game board? Print it in four parts and stick it all together. Or get a big piece of construction paper and some markers, and make it by hand.
Need playtesters? Try it out on your household first, or let the students themselves be the playtesters for your game. Invite them to check it out at recess and see how smoothly it plays.

There's no issue that can't be solved with a simple and practical solution. And the great thing about working with children is that perfection isn't something they're necessarily bothered by. You can try your best, give them something fun, and they'll be delighted, even if your doodles aren't the most artistic or the most proportionate. Even better if they join in on the artsy fun by decorating the game board together.

Self-Made Games and Activities

I spoke about how we can turn our own resources into games for the students to play and enjoy - all the while, learning. A lot of the resources I use are resources that I downloaded from online, and a lot of them I made myself. But not only cards!

One thing that I made early on in the year, and which we still use and probably will continue to use throughout the rest of the year, are Build-A-Sentence Mats that I had laminated. There are amazing resources like this that you can purchase, and they're probably extremely good quality, but given my budget, I made them by hand on A3 papers and laminated them.

One mat is a simple Who-What-Where sentence-building mat, and another has the parts of speech. Students have different decks (color-coded for ease), and they can create silly sentences using these decks. Then, they draw them on their whiteboards or on pieces of paper, and this allows me to check if the students understood what the sentences said.

Final Thoughts

To wrap things up, there's a lot that we can do to create activities for students that they can find enjoyable, and which take away the pressure of learning. Placing kids in groups to play a game together, and getting them used to a set number of games with rules that are easy to understand, will help them reinforce learning independently and cooperatively, and will help you in the long run, too.

A lot of the games that I've mentioned here may feel more receptive in nature, but there are a bunch of different ways that you can make the games focus on productive skills, too. For example, I might ask students to write down the sentence they create in the Who-What-Where sentence-building mat using their cards. I might ask them to keep a written log of game events once we start working on the past tense (ex: Jenny won the first round with 3 points. Max won the second round with 5 points.). If students are able to, I could ask them to write down what happened in their game after the game session is over, or I might ask them to write about whether or not they liked the game. For a more analytical take, I might ask them what they might want to change about the game to make it better, or if they found any problems in the game that need to be fixed, and how they might fix them.

There are a range of different activities you can attach to game sessions, and it's never a lost opportunity or wasted time - so long as you have your objectives set and have a solid idea for how you're going to go about getting to them.

Board games and card games where students have to actually say a specific set of phrases are going to be my go-to for my students when I see that they're reluctant to speak in class, because of the success that I've seen already. They're also the perfect way to review and practice language skills taught in class, whether for ESL or ELA. They're adaptable, allow for flexibility, and - perhaps the most important thing of all, as this will free you up to help students who are struggling more in your class - they provide students with an activity they can do independently and/or cooperatively. You won't need to be present every single time they play it; introduce it to them, play a few sessions with them, and check in every now and again.

When it comes to a game, kids will pick everything up really fast.

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This kind of content is newer to my blog, but as I currently work in education and it's such a large part of my daily life now, I've been getting the urge to write a little more about my experiences as a teacher. That being said, I definitely have plans to merge my educational experiences with my storytelling goals for these rare blog posts, and I hope that my readers will enjoy what I have in store!

The Theme as a Seed: The How of the Theme, part 1

2025-10-01T07:00:00.001+00:00

The Theme as a Seed: The How of the Theme, part 1

Last time, I told you about how important it is to have a theme to guide your storytelling efforts. Assuming that you agree and that you're excited to work on your theme-building, this time, I'll be telling you how to use a theme as a starting point. If you haven't listened to the last podcast episode, I do get into it a little at the end of the episode, if that's something you're interested in checking out. Otherwise, let's jump right in.

First and foremost, you have to have a theme. If you don't have a theme - a message, lesson, warning, or question for your readers - then think of one first. What subject or topic is important or of interest to you? Once you have one, we can begin.

Let's say that my theme is: Introducing AI to the masses without regulation is dangerous.

That's my little seed. Now, to grow a story.

We'll set the story in 2025. AI has been introduced to the masses, before any regulations could be placed on it. The online virtual landscape has become a cesspool of AI-generated images, articles, videos, music, and voices, used in part for entertainment purposes, but also used in large part as a weapon of personal destruction. Scammers, libelers, and other criminals are leveraging this New Wild West to take, take, and take some more. Children and adults alike are unable to differentiate truth from fiction.

Yikes. Imagine living in that kind of a dystopia, am I right? 😬

Okay, so that's my setting. In this setting, we'll choose a high-school girl as the main character. Her and her family will each face some kind of evil at the hands of this new AI scourge. Our main character is being bullied at school; her classmates use AI to create a range of upsetting videos using her likeness. At home, she has no respite; her mother has just been scammed out of a great big sum of money at the hands of an AI-generated voice over the phone, her father is in the middle of a legal dispute regarding the unauthorized use of his art in AI-generated images, and her younger brother is unable to do simple problem-solving or use critical thinking without the use of an AI companion.

Wow, this just keeps getting worse and worse. So glad we don't live in this timeline. Hold on...

So, we've got our characters, our conflicts, and now we can start thinking of a plot. Remember that whatever decisions you make about plot or character actions should often, if not always, link back to the theme at hand. If, for example, my main character decides that she's going to fight fire with fire, she can create her own upsetting videos featuring her bullies and take revenge, only to have things quickly spiral out of control as the situation becomes more heated and perhaps violent. This development would show how important it is for AI to be regulated, for there to be limitations to what one is allowed to use the AI for - and for the enforcement of ethical AI use. Perhaps, at the end of the story, the staff at the school decide that the students all need to be taught AI Ethics and that personal electronics are restricted in school.

As it pertains to character development, we can consider the different ways in which unethical AI use (which the story could argue is bound to happen so long as there is no regulation) can harm a person in social, emotional, and psychological ways. Through the MC's family members, who are side-characters in this regard with small sub-plots, we can show other ways in which AI can be harmful - a real-world threat with a digital and often anonymous source.

And voila!

I've thought up a theme, and I've used it to brainstorm a story.

Now, we can think of more minute details. Things like, for example, symbols. What kinds of symbols can we use to help us drive our theme home? Well, because the story deals with how damaging AI can be to an individual through the use of identity-eroding tools, a consistent use of a mirror could be helpful; as the story progresses, how the main character sees herself in the mirror changes drastically. If we want it to feel a lot more virtual, instead of a mirror, it can be a selfie camera, to really drive home that idea of being stuck in a virtual reality, where we can never really escape the virtual world, even when we're not actually in it. There are many, many more symbols and motifs that we can find to work with.

Setting can also play a more dynamic role. I can contrast the main character's home and the outside world, such that when she walks through the threshold of her front door, she is almost walking through a portal into a virtual reality, where the advertisements that she sees, the music that she hears, the videos that people are watching on the bus - everything is AI-generated and AI-driven. At school, students use AI for almost all of their academic work. A fancy new update to the school's security system features AI video analytics tools. And so on, and so forth.

As the story progresses, this AI-infected outer world can start creeping into the main character's inner sanctum - into her home, through the issues that her family are having, and into her bedroom, as more and more videos using her likeness are shared with her, and news reports about deepfakes of celebrities and political figures become more consistent on the TV, and as more and more of her mental space is taken up by the noise of this AI scourge.

If I want to be more ambitious, I can make this story a lot more scattered by exploring the home lives and perspectives of the main character's bullies, too, so that we can begin to understand why unfettered access to AI tools can easily lead to them being misused and abused.

And there you have it. Obviously, the thoughts I've shared here are not exhaustive, and I'd probably want to go into more detail as I continue to flesh out the story and dive deeper into the theme and the different ways that I can represent it. I'd have to make decisions about the ways that I want to represent the theme, too - there's no way I'd be able to do every little thing that I come up with, so I'd consider what the most powerful and impactful decisions for character development and plot points would be. The same goes for setting, symbolism, and even the tone of the story. Who is my audience? Teenagers? I need to make sure the tone and mood of the story - as well as the language used in such an internet-culture-based story - are appropriate and engaging for my audience.

But there you have it! Your theme can be the seed from which your story can grow.

This is one way you can use theme to guide your storytelling. Next time, we'll be talking about how you can integrate or derive a theme from a story idea that you may already have, even at different stages of the drafting process.

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What Are You Trying to Say? A.K.A. Your Theme

2025-09-24T07:00:00.006+00:00

What Are You Trying to Say?: A.K.A. Your Theme

We've explored a little character work, a little setting building, and now we're moving into theme construction and development. To keep things nice and simple, your theme is the message you're trying to send your readers through your story. It is a lesson or warning you're presenting them with - or a question you're setting to them. Whether your story features ethically ambiguous situations and morally grey characters or focuses on the light-hearted romance blooming between two characters, there's a message to be found there somewhere.

Think back to your literature classes at school. You read books, and then you had to consider what these books were trying to tell you. What was To Kill A Mockingbird really about - what was the message to be found there, the lesson, the warning? Perhaps it warns us of the importance of bravely standing up to social injustice, or perhaps it's about how justice must be blind, beholden to no bias or prejudice, in order to truly function as needed.

Your theme has to be something that can be structured as an argument, even if it is a personally held belief or opinion. It's easy to say that the theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is that of justice, or coming of age, or racism. But what, exactly, does the book say about those things? Make it a statement - a clear, precise argument. So, I can say that To Kill a Mockingbird warns us that the justice and legal systems need to be free of prejudice and discrimination to allow fair treatment to all and prevent miscarriages of justice. It could also be a lesson on how standing up to others for what you believe in requires great courage, compassion, and empathy.

Your story - the setting, the characters, the symbolism, and how everything unfolds - should all work together to get that point across. Even your writing style, the complexity of language used, and the tone and mood of your story, need to be taken into consideration, because they all play a vital role in connecting with your reader and helping them understand your thoughts, argument, or perspective. But these are more relevant to the how of the theme, rather than the what.

Stories, in this way, can be great persuasive texts, because they persuade by entertaining, and pass along arguments and lessons through intriguing and fun fictional scenarios. This is why I believe that stories are amazing tools for teaching and learning. It's also why I believe that as writers, it's our responsibility to consider, very carefully, what messages our stories are presenting to readers, and whether or not those themes are accurate representations of our beliefs and opinions.

You're sending signals out into the void. Make sure that when someone picks up on it, they can get the message.

Even the story that's written without a theme in mind - written just for the heck of it - has a theme hidden away in there. No story exists that does not send its readers some kind of message. Sure, you can write something just for the fun of writing it, but you're placing your biases, opinions, and beliefs in there, even if you don't explicitly notice that.

If your story is going to have a theme, anyway, why not take a moment to make sure that you're crafting that theme carefully, and with precision?

And now, we 're getting back to the how of the theme. How do we apply or use our chosen themes in our stories?

That's a lesson for another day. Stay tuned, and happy scribbling.

Your Setting is a Video Game

2025-09-19T07:00:00.009+00:00

Your Setting is Video Game

We build settings, but sometimes we don't make them count. A setting is a powerful device that you can use in your writing. It's not just a background image in the reader's mind. It's so much more.

There are settings that serve as simple backdrops. Where are these two characters talking? At a cafe. That's it. That's all you get. They don't interact with the cafe, they don't interact with the people there - the place isn't a living, breathing place. It's just a backdrop in the scene. A background in a visual novel.

You're not using your setting at its full potential. Enter the whole video game metaphor.

In terms of gamer types, I'm an explorer. Give me a big open world and I'll spend hours avoiding the main plot of the game.

I don't know about you, but when I play video games set in interesting settings, I want to explore to my heart's content. I want to look at all of the curious little nooks and crannies, to examine different parts of the setting that capture my attention, and so on.

When I say that your setting is a video game, what I mean is that it should be interactive for your characters. They should be moving around in it, exploring it, interacting with it and whatever they find inside, and by extension your reader should be able to experience the setting vicariously.

Obviously, there's only so much you can have your characters interact with and explore in your settings. Often, settings can be there just for characters to discuss other things, and for the plot to move forward in ways that don't have anything to do with that particular setting. But regardless, you can still have your characters live and move throughout that setting - they're not just floating in a void labeled "Living Room."

They're lounging on the couch, flipping through the channels while they talk to someone, throwing a cushion at them while they banter, giving up and turning off the TV when they realize there's nothing interesting on, fishing an item out from the cracks between the cushions, and so on. All of this while they're having a conversation or argument or whatever purpose it is that that particular scene serves.

The setting becomes more real, more interactive, and more interesting for your reader. They can imagine it more clearly, and the actions the characters take - the ways in which they interact with their surroundings - can help support the purpose of the scene. If they're angry, they'll interact differently with their surroundings as opposed to if they're sleepy.

All of this is great to keep in mind, especially as you're editing your first draft. It's one of those things that can be simple to overlook, but just a few sentences and phrases here and there can really elevate the experience of having that character in that particular setting, and not another. If you could paste any background into the same conversation, what's the point of that setting? It really is just a void, labeled.

And if we're going to be putting characters in voids, then you'd better believe it'd be on purpose.

The Your Setting is a Video Game guide is a newsletter freebie that goes into more detail on how you can accomplish this. It will offer more in-depth guidance, as well as how to deal with issues that might pop up during the process, so make sure to grab that by joining my newsletter group.

The newsletter will be sent out end of September 2025.

By joining my newsletter group, you will also get access to all previous newsletters and all of their free writing goodies, too, including: Book in a Year, The Flashcarding Method, Hindsight is 20/20, The Checklisting Method for Eating Elephants, and Your Character is an Onion.

More to come on a usually-monthly basis!

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Back to School: My Latest Challenge

2025-09-08T05:00:00.002+00:00

Back to School: My Latest Challenge

I'm going back to school. Not as a student - though I might still do that, too - but as a teacher. For the first time, I'll be teaching elementary school students English, and attempting to prepare them for the chance of continuing their middle and high school education in a school where English is the language of instruction. It's definitely going to be a challenge, but it's one I'm completely up for.

You see, there's something I've always wanted to try: creating a K-12 English Language Arts curriculum tailored to Moroccan ELLs.

Morocco, for its part, is introducing English language instruction as part of the national curriculum at all grade levels, though we've yet to see that implemented in elementary schools. This seems, to me, to be the perfect time to get "stuck in."

It's no secret that I've been working on curriculum and syllabus design for quite a while now, on my own, and in an array of different fields (fiction writing being the latest foray). I've also had various homeschool curriculum and original curriculum projects going on in the background for many years. This opportunity will give me the chance to actually put my thoughts into practice and design a powerful English curriculum for K-5 students, while at the same time having more on-the-ground knowledge and experience about the needs of the students, teachers, parents, and schools, as well as what will be required for the success of such a project.

I've been excitedly preparing for my classes all summer long, and as the school year takes off, I'm even more excited to put my plans in motion and see how each of my grade levels will respond, what will work and what won't, and changes that I'll need to make for upcoming years. In the meantime, I want to take a moment to briefly record challenges that I've already identified and how I plan to tackle them. My hope is that I can return to this mid-year (or at the end of the year) with updates.

Identified Challenges

In my preparations over the summer, I've already identified a number of challenges, both big and small. Perhaps the most evident is the ways in which I will be approaching the progression of English language learning across all K-4 grades I'll be teaching. Based on my discussions with fellow teachers and staff, I'm going to be operating on the assumption that most of my students will have very minimal or no English language exposure. Therefore, I've made a number of decisions regarding the approach to the program:

Core Phonics Instruction: With students who are Arabic-speaking and French-speaking in their daily lives, pronunciation and letter-sound recognition is extremely important to tackle head-on. While French uses the same letters, French letter sounds can be extremely different, and the lack of accents in English may be confusing for learners. Meanwhile, some letter sounds don't even exist in the Arabic language (though they do in the local Darija dialect). Focusing on teaching phonics explicitly, as its own activity in the classroom, can therefore help students avoid common pronunciation and reading errors (such as reading the 'ch' sound as 'sh', among many others).

However, the length of phonics instruction will change from one grade level to the next. Not only will I have more time with students in higher grade levels, I will also have more breadth of language to teach them in what will be a much more limited amount of time overall compared to younger learners who will still be learning English with me in the rest of their elementary school years. Moreover, older learners will be able to pick up target language more quickly than younger learners, though they may have more deeply set speaking patterns and habits, which may require more focused attention. Finding a balance for older learners, particularly Grade 4-5 students, will be critical here. As for younger learners, phonics instruction can happen with more ease and depth, as we will have more time to cover more language over coming years.
ESL vs ELA: As with any new language, we have to begin somewhere. For the first part of the school year, students will be acquiring what I call essential English language. This includes classroom survival English, as well as basic English to discuss themselves, describe people and things, talk about likes and dislikes, ask and answer questions, and so on. The good news is that for younger students, ESL instruction is much like regular ELA instruction, with many of the same topics and learning outcomes. However, the gap between the two grows extremely quickly from one grade level to the next, and thus I feel that a two-pronged ESL and ELA approach may be extremely effective for the rest of the year. For example, students may be introduced to target language in an ESL block, practice and master it, and shift into an ELA block that takes that same target language and pushes it just a bit farther. In practice, this may be applied in a variety of different ways, however, and I'll have a lot of balancing to do before I find the most effective pace and structure.
Multidisciplinary Language Learning: Because the goal is to go beyond ESL instruction and provide students with the opportunity to continue their studies in American, British, or international schools, the students should also be acquiring academic language related to a range of different topics, not just ELA. Certainly, they will be learning grammar, spelling, writing process, reading comprehension and literature, and so on, but they'll need exposure to vocabulary in a range of other topics: sciences, math, social studies, and physical and emotional health, mainly.

In this regard, my goal is to introduce a range of subject-focused lessons or units where students can get more exposure to specific language used in other subjects while still having a heavy language learning component. For example, we may learn about extreme weather, and then do a science experiment to model a tornado in a jar, and write a report to follow-up. Or, we may learn about the history of Rabat, model past tense sentences while answering reading comprehension questions, and make informative posters about the different landmarks in Rabat. In this way, students will feel that they are not just learning English language, as they might in an ESL class, but rather learning a variety of other subjects and topics in English, all the while improving language proficiency and skills.
Supplies and Equipment: There are some supplies that aren't found locally, and some which can be found but are significantly pricier than they would be in other countries because they're imported. This can create a tricky situation. I've found myself unable to locate a roll of construction paper or bulletin board paper, along with various other supplies and equipment that could be quite helpful. Nevertheless, when it comes to necessities, they can be readily found, and all that is required in this regard is a little creativity about how to use the supplies and equipment that are readily available to create similarly robust learning experiences for students regardless. A small gripe, but one that bears mentioning when so many resources and activity and lesson plans found online operate on the assumption that you will have certain items and supplies at your disposal.

A Final Note

Of course, there's a lot more to discuss, and a lot more to write about and consider. For example, most leveled readers are geared towards students who have almost full-time exposure to English in their daily lives, or at the very least, full-day English-language instruction in their schools - neither of which is true for my students. Many teachers in English-speaking countries will give young students homework that their parents can help them complete, but most of my students' parents are not proficient in English, which limits me in that regard as well. In terms of exposure to English beyond the classroom, it seems I'm going to have to be creative. And despite all of the issues listed in this article and more, I'm still trying my best to align with as many standards as possible. I've considered a range of solutions for all of these issues and more, but as with all of these ideas, I have to try them out first and see how students react.

I'm enjoying this experience so far. As you can see, it's a challenge in many, many ways. But it's a challenge I'm excited to take on, and I hope that the results will speak for themselves when the time comes.

Your Character is an Onion

2025-08-22T07:00:00.009+00:00

Your Character is an Onion

You're building a character. You've got checklists - you know their favourite foods, their favourite color, their nickname, their style of clothing, their birth month and their gemstone, and all of that other funky fun stuff. You visit list after list online, and answer all of them. Your character profile is looking strong. Or, at the very least, very filled out.

But then, you sit down to write the story, and you feel a little... stumped. Your character is still a stranger to you, despite the 101 questions you've answered about them.

Don't throw out those Q&As, though. They can still come in handy.

As you might have guessed from the title of this article, my advice is going to be looking for hidden depths. This means peeling back your character layer by layer - like an onion. The easiest way to do this is by asking ourselves, "Why?"

Actual photograph of your character.

Every single decision you make about your character - who they are and how they behave - there's a reason behind it. Ask yourself "Why?", and then ask it again. And again.

I'd go for 3-5 layers. Just to be on the safe side. But you can take it as far as you want.

Why does this character always wear black?
Because he's still in mourning. Why?
Because he never got over his wife's death. Why?
Because she was the only person who ever seemed to fully understand him, and now he's alone. Why?
Because he feels there's a barrier between him and the rest of the world. Why?
Because ever since he was a child, he felt out of step, and was often bullied and ridiculed. Why?
Because he saw things differently, and had trouble understanding what came easily to others.

And so on, and so forth. Look at that. 7 layers in this onion, and we can keep it going.

By doing this, we uncover the deep psychological, emotional, physical, and even sociocultural reasons why someone is the way that they are. For example, in the example above, maybe the character is on the autism spectrum, but was never diagnosed. Why? Maybe because his parents weren't educated about it, or because they felt it was shameful to take their child to a specialist and instead lived in denial, or any other range of reasons. Now we're getting to some pretty deep and important factors that will play a role in how our character is, and why he is the way he is, and what he needs.

It's not enough to say that this character just needs to find a new "quirky" love interest to replace the old one. In fact, that's a shallow understanding of the character at best, and a complete misunderstanding of the character at worst. We can avoid a character-arc clash by simply asking ourselves why.

Just be careful not to get stuck in that circular reasoning spiral, or dead-end questioning sequences:

Why does this character want to help the other character?
Because they like helping people. Why?
Because helping people is the right thing. Why?
Because it helps people.

Everyone knows that helping people is the right thing to do. Not everyone actually does it. This is a dead-end sequence; there's nothing of value there. Avoid these kinds of dead-ends that don't do much in terms of revealing character motivation and deep-set biases, desires, and needs.

Take those Q&As you filled out about your characters and ask yourself why they are the way they are. Maybe you'll catch something that doesn't make sense, or uncover a whole other layer to your character you didn't know they had, or even reveal an entire backstory that you had never considered. There's so much potential here.

All you have to do is just ask Why?

The Your Character is an Onion guide is a newsletter freebie that goes into more detail on how you can accomplish this. It will offer more in-depth guidance, as well as how to deal with issues that might pop up during the process, so make sure to grab that by joining my newsletter group.

The newsletter will be sent out end of August 2025.

More to come on a usually-monthly basis!

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I Said What You Said: Individuality in Peril

2025-08-20T07:00:00.001+00:00

I Said What You Said: Individuality in Peril

It's been a long while now - probably well over a decade - that I've been in writing circles online, first as a reader, and then as a writer. And in all that time, one thing pops up again and again: this idea of originality. It's been well-established by many people online that originality isn't a real thing; everything is a derivative or something else in some form or other. That's why we have cliches, and tropes, and all of that good stuff. And a lot of it is good stuff; they're popular plot devices because people enjoy them so much. Well - the majority of the cliches and tropes, anyway. Times change, tastes change. But regardless: originality in peril isn't what this blog post is about.

The buzz-word today is individuality. Now, as humans, we tend to do the whole monkey-see-monkey-do thing a lot. When something works, then everyone seems to jump on it. Next thing you know, you've got about a hundred Twilights by other names, or magical school stories featuring chosen ones, or dystopias that must be ended by teen heroines. And it's not necessarily a bad thing; if people enjoy it, and they want more of it, then why not give them more? There's a reason that some genres have high successes in highly formulaic storylines - mystery, romance, YA fantasies - and that reason is because people enjoy it. Naturally, they end up wanting more of it. And there's only so much one writer can give them at a time. Suddenly, the idea of hundreds - nay, thousands - of the same kind of story from other writers sounds pretty good.

But if you're looking to be an individual voice in a sea of sameness, then writing the same thing everyone else is writing is perhaps not the best way to go about it. Unfortunately, it seems to me that a lot of writers do fall into this trap.

Now, to be fair, when you're young and early in your writing craft, I think one of the best things you can do is write versions of stories that others have written and that you have enjoyed. It's a great way to learn about plot devices, to emulate writing styles and approaches to storytelling that you admire, to learn about character development and arcs, and so on. But it really is just more of the same stuff.

At some point, you want to divest yourself from that sameness that has become so comfortable. In other words: Time to take off those training wheels, friend.

How do we do this? How do we become writers whose works reflect an individual identity that nobody else's work projects?

Well, here are a few tips to get you on the right track.

Tip 1: Examine Your Beliefs, Thoughts, Biases

In other words, look at your own biases, your own beliefs, your own thoughts on a range of different topics. And consider them carefully, too. Do you only believe X because everyone around you believes X? Or because the shows that you watch and enjoy tell you you need to believe X? Or because the news says people who believe X are unjust or dangerous? Or because X is a new idea, and you've been taught to turn your nose up at everything "old"?

Or is there a connection you have - a logical reason or attachment that supports those beliefs, biases, and thoughts in a way that you, personally, can accept and support wholeheartedly?

Be very careful with this, because the truth of the matter is, we're all exposed to the same media, all the time. All. The. Time. We're probably more alike than we are different, and that's not always a great thing. With the way the media explosion has gone global, and the way that all cultures seem to be slowly merging into one, it's to be expected that thoughts and beliefs and biases will also begin to converge.

You might even have felt this friction in your own society or community. Consider why that is, and where you stand.

Tip 2: What matters to you?

I'm a strong believer that stories should mean something. They should stand for something. They should send readers a message, usually one of importance about an issue that's relevant to the readers.

There's a lot of buzz out there about a lot of different topics. I'm sure we all have thoughts on a range of issue, but try to choose just one or two to get started with - one or two issues that we are dealing with locally or globally - and say what you have to say about them through your fiction writing.

Of course, to do this, you have to do your own research. You have to understand that issue inside and out, and in some cases, you can really only understand it if you're exposed to it first-hand. These are those situations where people tell you to stick to writing what you know, because in these cases, the alternative could mean getting things way out of context or understanding them completely wrong, and further disseminating that error to others, so that they hold that false belief and understanding, too.

Tip 3: Avoid Gratuity

We talk about gratuitous violence in video game storytelling and how it's unnecessary, and while there are times and places where the depiction of violence serves a purpose, there's something to be said about that.

When you're writing about an issue you believe in deeply, avoid the gratuitous elements that don't need to be a part of it. You'll find that each issue comes with a range of causes and effects - rippling far out beyond what you might see at first. There's more than enough for the whole book, and focusing on these elements will only make your story, and your individual style and voice, shine through all the more brightly.

All that other noise - the gratuitous violence, sex, and whatever else - it's just there to distract, and it's just more of the same. If your reader wants that, they can find it in thousands and thousands of other books and stories. That isn't individuality; it's sensual appeal to please readers, and you don't need it - your story holds water on its own. Believe in it. Believe in what you have to say, and believe that it matters, and that readers will take you seriously, that they will read and listen and consider your words without having to be entertained by the meaningless distractions, which might, in the end, do more harm than good in the clear conveying of your story's message.

Tip 4: Explore Format and Style

You've got style. No, really - you do. We all do. There's a way of speaking, a way of sharing information and knowledge, a way of trying to convince people, that is different between individuals. How I go about a thing isn't how you'll go about a thing. And the mannerisms that I'll have won't be the mannerisms that you have.

Embrace your own style in your storytelling, and with is, explore the different ways in which you can format your story to best get your message across in the style that best suits you. Maybe you do your best work in chat-type formats using highly informal language between husband and wife to discuss pervasive issues in our socioeconomic climate. Maybe it's writing in highly disjointed POVs that present running monologue which reveals the deep-set biases and thoughts that all humans have despite what they may show on the outside. Or maybe it's something totally different.

Explore. And enjoy the exploration; it's not a chore. It's a foray into a new and different art style. Be flexible, malleable, adaptable to the needs of your style and approach to storytelling, and be open to new ideas, even when you think they may not work for your way of writing. You might be surprised to find that they do. Or you might be right. Either way, there's only one way to find out.

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Also, I have a horror writing course. I'm currently looking for course evaluators to help me revise and improve it for its annual review.

Richard is the Best Character in Stoker

2025-08-18T07:00:00.004+00:00

Richard is the Best Character in Stoker

Picture this: It's 4 AM. I can't sleep. I'm lying awake in bed, and I'm still just a few degrees too hot for comfort despite the AC overhead, and I just can't seem to sleep despite my obviously heavy and tired eyes. There's a mosquito somewhere in the room, and I can't be bothered to deal with it. And then, out of nowhere, my mind wanders onto a thought that I'd never had before.

Richard is actually the best character in Stoker, despite being the least explored.

I've watched Stoker about a dozen times. It's a favourite movie of mine, in large part because of the sound production. How many times have I put that movie on as background noise while I worked on a range of other things? But, there you have it: my own little humble opinion, courtesy of my 4 AM brain.

You might be thinking, Best in what way?

Obligatory spoiler alert; you've been warned.

Let's say, to begin with, that Richard Stoker is the only "good" character that we get to have in the movie.

The movie goes out of its way to pit mother against daughter, turning Evelyn's character into an antagonist of sorts rather than someone who is on India's side, but it lets the viewer root for Richard from the very beginning. There is no question about his moral character and whether he is a good or evil force in the story; it's clear right from the start.

Here is a man who, despite Charlie's shocking murder of their baby brother, still finds a way to take care of Charlie in an attempt to get him the help he needs. And, when Charlie is finally ready to leave the institution, Richard goes to pick him up and attempts to help him get his life together, while still keeping him away from India. (Though, of course, we all know how that works out for him.)

Why would Richard need to keep Charlie away from India? Apart from the whole murderer bit, of course. The answer is simple: Richard sees in his daughter India what he saw in his brother Charlie. They're the same, with similar leanings and tendencies, and as a result, Richard doesn't want Charlie to ever meet India.

Regardless, it seems to me that Charlie has an inkling about his and India's connection, despite her complete obliviousness (she doesn't even know he exists). This, to me, isn't a supernatural thing. My theory is that when Richard noticed the same behaviours in his own daughter India, he visited Charlie to see if it was something he could help her overcome. Whether he told Charlie explicitly that India is like him, or whether Charlie surmised from Richard's visit, it doesn't entirely matter - the end result is that Charlie knows now, and he knows there's someone out there who could understand him and potentially return his love in the way that nobody else ever could, even his big brother Richard.

His obsession with India becomes clear to Richard when Charlie starts sending her all sorts of letters. Because Richard is trying to help India deal with her odd tendencies, he can't risk the two of them ever meeting. He hides Charlie's letters from India for years. During that time, he moves his family to a sleepy, small town, building a house in the middle of nowhere, and teaches India to harness her tendencies and channel them into a hobby that can hopefully satiate whatever urges she might have: hunting.

For a father with no how-to guide or any way of figuring out how to deal with India's Charlie-esque urges, Richard does a pretty stand-up job with India. One has to wonder how India might have turned out if Charlie never came into the picture, and if Richard had more time to spend with his daughter, and if he could finish training her to deal with the odd urges within.

In other words, not only is Richard shown to have a strong moral compass, he's also shown to be a good father. He doesn't run away or turn his back on his daughter when he learns that she shares characteristics with the same man who killed his baby brother Johnathan all those years ago. Instead, he finds a way to help her control those characteristics so that she doesn't turn out like Charlie, who is too far gone.

Perhaps in this regard, it is his regret that drives him. We see that Richard was a responsible teen, who looked after his siblings. He might believe that if he had seen what Charlie was earlier on, he might have been able to help him and to save Johnathan. Now, he helps India in the ways he could never help Charlie.

The consequences of Richard's own obsession with India and making sure she turns out okay are also very pronounced. His wife, Evelyn, feels neglected by her husband, and the two have grown apart over the years. She laments that he spends so much time with India, and vice versa, doing a hobby she obviously doesn't approve of, but she doesn't know the truth behind it and just how critical it is to India's development. She doesn't understand, and therefore feels distanced from the rest of her family, while also being physically removed in this great big house in the middle of nowhere, when a woman like Evelyn would much rather prefer to be living somewhere more "happening".

It's to be expected, therefore, that Evelyn feels like she's missing out on life. It hasn't turned out as expected. Her youth is slipping through her fingers, and life is dreary. Her daughter isn't a normal daughter who does normal daughter things with her, like going out shopping or getting their hair done, and her husband isn't the man she married. Everything was better - before India was born. The subtle context of blame and resentment between the two can find its roots in Richard's handling of the situation, though one has to wonder how else he could have possibly handled it.

Somehow, Evelyn doesn't seem like the kind of woman to keep it together when told, "By the way, our daughter turned out a lot like my murderous brother Charlie who's locked up in an institution and I really think we need to get a handle on it before she kills someone." Regardless, I feel like maybe it would have been a good idea to at least tell your wife that We Need to Talk About India. Or, at the very least, We Need to Talk About Charlie. Although, ironically, Evelyn isn't spared that knowledge anyway, since she learns everything in the end through the particularly traumatic near-death experience at Charlie's hands.

There's a bit of a pattern here. All roads lead back to Richard. All of the conflicts find their convergence at the source that is Richard.

Sure, Charlie is the one who killed Johnathan and put everything in motion, and sure, he's the one who's returned to kill more and initiate young India into a life of kill-kill-kill, but it's Richard who really makes this story possible. This story, in the way it's told.

He's the one who decides to keep in touch with Charlie. He's the one who decides to hide Charlie's letters. He's the one who moves them out into a small town in the middle of nowhere - and, I guess, he's also the one who gives that address to Charlie. He's the one (in my opinion) that lets Charlie know that India is like him, thus starting his obsession. He's the one who allows a distance to grow between himself and his wife. He's the one who decides to teach India to hunt (a final gift for his wife from beyond the grave, because if India wasn't a good shot, that ending might have gone very differently). He's the one who allows resentment to build between his wife and daughter because neither of them are brought into the loop. He's the one who goes to pick Charlie up the day of India's birthday. He's the one who tells Charlie he can't be a member of their family.

Richard's decisions - implied as they are by the various elements of the story - are truly the reason why the story is told in the way that it is, and why it unfolds in the way that it does. How would the story have been different, for example, if Richard had cut contact with Charlie, and hadn't told him where he was or that he even had a daughter? Or what if he never let on that India was like Charlie, so that Charlie's obsession never grew? Or if he'd let Evelyn know the truth about Charlie, so that when he came knocking, she could have at least been on her toes? Or if he'd let the police department know that his brother, who had murdered his other brother, was being released from the psychiatric institution and that they needed to keep an eye out for him?

In other words, what if Richard had done literally anything differently?

The story would have been different, that's what.

All of this to say, Richard is the best character in Stoker - by which I mean, possibly the most complex and the most central character - and we don't even get to see all that much of him.

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Also, I have a horror writing course. I'm currently looking for course evaluators to help me revise and improve it for its annual review.

Creativity in a World of Productivity

2025-08-16T07:00:00.004+00:00

Creativity in a World of Productivity

A collection of semi-connected thoughts

Hello, again. Yes, I am still alive. Immensely busy and taking huge strides that are equal parts terrifying and exciting, but very much still alive.

And I'm back today to talk about something that's been on my mind lately. You see, even before this little unplanned - yet seemingly inevitable - hiatus, I had stepped away from my writing. It's been quite some time since I sat down to write anything new, just for the love of it, and it's been quite some time since I've sat down to work on anything old.

Have I fallen out of love with writing? No. The very idea is preposterous. But I have had a lot of other things on my mind recently - some of which I'm looking forward to sharing with you right here on this blog - and when you're busy with other things that are equally as important to you, some things have to take the back-seat for a little while.

But it's that very same busy-ness, equal parts satisfying and stressful, that has me wondering. The world moves so quickly now, and it's sometimes hard to consider how this pace that we live in could ever leave space for creativity and artistic fulfillment on an individual level. I suppose, if your style of fulfillment is the completely checked-off to-do list and the rainbow-filled block calendar, then this is your time. It's the heyday of Getting Things Done.

And yet, somehow, no matter how much you do, there's always more to get done. Always more just waiting around the bend. Take a moment, pat yourself on the back, and plunge right back into that same old hamster wheel.

Not to be overly anti-capitalist on main, though. Jobs are jobs, and work is work, and we all need to make a living so we can enjoy life. But what's that saying that everyone keeps proclaiming? Don't live to work, work to live?

It's not all gloom and doom, of course. There are still opportunities to live a life filled with worthwhile moments. It's just that, little by little, I'm starting to realize that those worthwhile moments aren't going to come around while I'm sitting in front of my computer writing a novel. Sure, that's something I love, and I do it for me, but fifty years down the line, am I going to remember all the hours that were spent exactly the same, hunched over a laptop tapping away about a story I'll probably have forgotten? Or am I going to giggle at the memory of a fun day out on the beach, or grin like an idiot when I recall that one time the family went on a disastrous road trip, or get an excited twinkle in my eye as I regale my potentially non-existent grandchildren about stories of my youth?

In other words, I guess what I'm getting at with this little blog post is that I want to spend more of my free time - now that I have so very little of it - making bright memories with the people I love, and exploring parts of the world around me (and parts of myself) that I never knew before.

And if that's the plan, then my creative passion has to take a little bit of a back-seat for now. I'll get the chance to write - of that I'm sure. And I'll want to write, and I'll write like a woman possessed - all of these are undeniable facts, given my particular style of approach. But I don't want to allocate all of my time to that anymore. I want to live a more balanced life.

In any case, where else will my creativity find the chance to run wild and explore, if not out in the real world, learning from the experiences I get to have and the situations I get myself into?

I've had a sheltered upbringing. There's a lot about life that I've never experienced, and there's a lot that I probably never will, and there's a whole part of me that, for the longest time, felt dormant. Sometimes it still does. And writing - making art - being creative in the security and privacy of my own home - that's how I dealt with that. You can't not have a creative outlet when you live a life removed from life.

But at some point, it's not enough to just watch life from the sidelines. At some point, you've got to step out into the world and become a part of it. And that's what I'm in the process of doing. And it's all-consuming. I don't think I've ever been so busy, but I'm looking forward to all of the other surprises waiting for me around the bend - right around the corner - whether it's with my work, my studies, or even just the amusement of living life.

But the creative passion that I've nurtured all my life - it's a double-edged sword. Neglected for too long, and it becomes a gnawing hunger somewhere in the back of your mind, a frustration that needs to be relieved. So, even though I want to spend more of my time doing other things with people I love, I still need to find ways to be creative.

How can I do that? How can I be creative and get that satisfaction while still going about achieving all of my other goals in life?

I think the answer is simple, and it's all about - well - multi-tasking, in a way. Or, rather, overlapping. I think everyone can be creative in their everyday, and some of the happiest people integrate creativity into everything they do.

Homemakers who go the extra mile to bring creativity to their home through fun activities for their kids, or new culinary experiences to feed hungry mouths, or even smart routines to teach other members of the household how to be team players.

Teachers who design approaches to benefit all students, who put together activities to help students feel more confident and comfortable, who find ways to circumvent all of the limitations and restrictions they may find themselves facing.

Detectives who use their creativity and intelligence to think ahead, to profile suspects, to find evidence and put together puzzles that at first may seem impossible.

The examples are countless, but almost every single job seems to have room for some kind of creativity. Creativity is brainstorming and coming up with ideas. It's planning and designing. It's organizing. It's problem-solving. It's using your imagination and stretching that muscle to find solutions that fit specific problems. It's breaking something down, and putting something together. It's figuring out how best to approach someone, and how best to persuade them to do something. It's being able to understand others and put yourself in their shoes. It's adapting to changes. It's the curiosity to learn more and continue exploring. Creativity is found in all of these things and more. And that means it's found in all sorts of jobs - regardless of the pace at which they happen.

In my job, I can use my creativity to create resources and solve problems and design learning experiences. In the time I spend with my loved ones, I can choose creative activities every now and again, and we can enjoy making something together. Not to mention the obvious fact that a life well-lived is a form of creativity all on its own. It doesn't just happen; you have to make it happen, and how you do that is up to you and the people in your life. And all of that fills the so-called creative well, giving you everything you need to write and create and make.

Finding moments of creativity in a world of ceaseless productivity is a challenge. But I think it's about time I said, Challenge Accepted, and got down to living life like it's meant to be lived.

So if I'm gone from time to time, it's just life.

I'm out there living it.

But I'll be back.

💪

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Fiction & Storytelling through a Muslim Lens

2025-08-14T15:24:00.002+00:00

Fiction & Storytelling through a Muslim Lens

Author's Note: This was originally written in June 27, 2025, but I'm 2 months late posting it - currently August 14, 2025. Happy belated new year to my fellow Muslims! May Allah bless us all in the ways we each sorely need. Ameen!

Fanciful stories they may be, but fictional tales are powerful things. Often, we neglect them at our own peril. Words are powerful - and because they are powerful, they are dangerous. As with any art which elicits emotion, and which passes on its message through entertainment, fiction stories are a strong method through which we can convey an array of lessons to children and adults alike.

There's a lot of noise out there - a lot of confusion and a lot of question marks. Debates abound about what it means to be a good Muslim man or woman, what's obligatory and what's not, what you can consume and what you need to shun at all cost. Interpretations, opinions, arguments, and even cultural beliefs tip the balances as we figure out what is best for ourselves and for our loved ones.

I'm not going to pretend that I have any of it figured out. Some of the big questions are still swirling through my head. But there is one thing that I'm pretty certain about, and that is that fiction, and storytelling in any format, has gotten a bad reputation, and that it should, in fact, be embraced rather than villified.

Benefits of Storytelling

There's a common belief that storytelling is nothing more than a mere distraction. Something that serves only to pull people away from the correct path, that makes them stray from their obligations and responsibilities. I don't subscribe to this belief.

True, as a lover of storytelling and a writer myself, I'm probably as biased as it gets. Nevertheless, I am also an educator, and because of my identity as a Muslim and my love for writing stories, I have spent many, many hours considering this belief - and considering whether or not I should put down the plume, so to speak. I've come to the conclusion that writing is a lot like a knife.

You can use a knife to cut fruits and vegetables, to cut and prepare meat, to slice your bread; to ultimately prepare and put food on the table. You can use it to cut herbs, or sharpen a pencil, or even carve wood or leather. How important a knife is to our most basic of needs.

But you can also use a knife to hurt other people, or to harm animals. The knife exists; it is a tool. How you use it, and what you do with it, isn't the knife's responsibility. It's yours. The knife, in other words, isn't inherently evil because it is sharp and has the ability to cut things.

While stories are a great deal more complex than a simple knife, the same concept applies. The art of writing, too, can be seen as a tool through which you convey a message. What that message is, however, is your responsibility. It isn't the art of storytelling (which includes writing fiction) that is evil in and of itself; it shoulders no responsibility for what man decides to do with it.

Therein lies the core of my opinion on the matter, but there's more to it than just that. Consider the way in which we are taught in the Quran - through stories of those who came before us, used as examples to teach us critical lessons and impart upon us the importance of certain rulings. Consider how the hadeeth was passed down, narrated in the form of stories - so-and-so did this, and the Prophet (SAW) said this, and so on - to deliver to us the important lessons that our Prophet (SAW) left us. Real stories - all of these - but storytelling all the same.

So, storytelling on its own is no evil thing, and certainly not a waste of time. The way that our brains are wired, we remember stories much better than we remember random facts or lessons. For example, telling you that lying so much means that nobody will ever trust you again is all good and well - but telling you the story of the boy who cried wolf will really drive the lesson home. Stories give us a safe space to experience all sorts of emotions and outcomes without actually experiencing them ourselves, and therefore we learn the lessons attached to them without having to undergo those difficult challenges ourselves. It's also how we build and enhance connections between people and groups, and their cultures and ideas.

When we write fiction with these thoughts in mind, it's easy to understand why it can be so beneficial, and not just for young children. I still remember the stories of Juha, funny fictional tales of a man who seemed to get himself into all sorts of trouble, and the lessons that those stories taught. I remember a Moroccan storybook that I had called Il faut que justice soit faite, a story about injustice and how members of a community can stand together to make change, told through the fantastical lens of a greedy housewife who blames her greed on the cat, and the fallout that takes place as a result of her lies.

And as I got older, there were more books, more stories. They entertained, but each and every one of them taught, too (even the ones you wouldn't think have much to teach).

How to Approach Fiction

The issue that most people have with fiction isn't that it exists as something you can enjoy and consume. I think that labeling it as a waste of time and an evil hobby is just the lazy way of pushing the real problem aside. The true issue is that people can write entertaining stories that can teach others anything. There are, for example, a slew of fictional storybooks aimed at children that teach them a range of beliefs which go against the teachings of Islam. Naturally, you wouldn't want your children to read these stories as a Muslim parent. It's understandable to feel so overwhelmed by all of it - especially if you live in a predominantly non-Muslim environment - and simply decide that it's all bad. Out with the whole lot!

But children enjoy play, and they enjoy exploring, and they are naturally curious. Stories, as we've seen, are critical to enduring educational experiences. Storytelling, and fictional stories in particular, are also found literally everywhere in today's world. There's the internet, and there are books, and there are podcasts, and audiobooks, and comics, and cartoons, and movies, and series, and video games, and advertisements, and social media, and -- They're everywhere! Banning them completely is not realistic.

When we grow older and learn to critically analyze the media we consume, it becomes a lot easier to understand why a certain piece of fiction is "good" or "bad" on certain religious scales. We can do that ourselves. However, it should be noted that that's a skill-set that we learn through literature and media literacy classes, as well as a whole lot of practice, and it takes time to develop. Not developing this skill-set leaves you vulnerable to ideologies that aren't healthy, among many other things. Moreover, this also requires a strong foundation in our own beliefs - an understanding of Islamic values and teachings that allows us to critically consume the media we are exposed to.

Very young children don't have the skills just yet to figure all of these things out for themselves. This means that a great deal of supervision and attention has to go to our children and the books that are made available to them, whether in their libraries or in their schools or even in the home. As our children grow and turn into teens, they'll naturally want to explore a range of different topics that often we tell them are taboo, and that pushes them to seek answers elsewhere - whether that's in steamy romance novels, or inappropriate comics, or even explicit movies.

Once again, it's so easy to push away the whole issue, uncomfortable as it is, and just say, "This is 100000% prohibited, don't you dare!" But, as we've learned, making anything prohibited makes it all the more intriguing, especially for teens as they go through a turbulent time in their development. What's more effective here is to instead curate a range of books or other kinds of stories (in whatever formats) that are more suited to our belief system, and that approach these topics without offering teens un-Islamic solutions.

(And, for the sake of all that is good, to write some books or make some fictional media that's suited to our belief system, too! We really need to provide our kids with more options; if all they find are the books written by non-Muslims, then those are the ideas they're going to inherit.)

Most importantly, it requires that teens have someone to discuss their thoughts with freely and without feeling like they're committing some big faith-shattering sin. That means parents need to step up, read the books they want their children to be reading, and prepare to discuss the topics in those books with their kids, without anger looming over the exchange. And, if parents cannot do that, then there needs to be some other place where teens can discuss - a book club, or a gaming club, or a movie appreciation club, or so on - hopefully run by someone who can facilitate conversations and discussions about the themes and topics.

I understand that this is a whole lot of work - and what I've talked about in this article is barely scratching the surface. But it's necessary work. Humans seek stories. We love stories, and we consume them voraciously. Give us literacy skills and a good book, and we're going to read. It's how our brains work. "Read!" And, boy, do we read. Stories intrigue us, and help us solidify lessons in our minds. But they also can mislead us, being written by humans who are biased and may have certain agendas. That's okay; when we're older and more experienced, we can appreciate and enjoy a piece of fiction without agreeing with the beliefs held within it. But in the meantime, we need guidance.

And we need more fiction written from an Islamic perspective! This doesn't necessarily mean that we need stories that focus on Islam and the practice of Islam, though those of course are crucial to have in our arsenal. We also need more fictional stories that simply agree with Islamic values. Stories about being kind, about seeking justice, about fighting discrimination, about handling cultural differences, about the pursuit of the sciences and education, and so much more. Topics which are relevant to Muslims and Muslim societies today, and which we can discuss.

It's important to remember that reading fiction, or experiencing it through another format, is not a waste of time. It is education by another name; education through entertainment. You might not notice it, but every time you watch a movie or read a book, you're learning something. Your mind is absorbing something. It might be something you agree with, or it might be some bias that becomes a part of your biases - even if it's a harmful bias - so wouldn't it be better to know what you're consuming, to be able to break it down and consider it rather than swallowing it blindly?

I happen to think that literary analysis and media literacy skills are critical and non-negotiable skills for Muslims to have, today more than ever. And I happen to think that in the same way that others teach us through their fictional stories, we should educate ourselves in the same ways. Storytelling isn't something to run away from or shun. It's something to embrace - and it's time we start to take control of our narratives and teach our children the values we want them to have, in the way that best speaks to them: stories, fiction, and fun.

📘

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Hyba Is Writing

Mega-Update: The Black Hare

Weather System - 28/03/2026

Passage Bloat and Trap Doors - 31/03/2026

Marigold's Pawns - Part 1 - 05/04/2026

Marigold's Pawns - Part 2 - 06/04/2026

The Resistance Leader - 08/04/2026

The Lighthouse Keeper - 10/04/2026

The Hourglass is Empty - 12/04/2026

Getting Some Style - 18/04/2026

Pages From My Journal - 003: Simple Joy

Writer's Archive - #002 - 20/03/2026

Writer's Archive - #002 - 20/03/2026

Pages From My Journal - 002: Fragility

Pages From My Journal - 002: Fragility

READING LOG #001.2 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

READING LOG #001.2 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

Writer's Archive - #001 - 18/03/2026

Writer's Archive - #001 - 18/03/2026

Pages From My Journal - 001: Burnout

Pages From My Journal - 001: Burnout

READING LOG #001.1 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

READING LOG #001.1 - Frenchman's Creek, by Daphne du Maurier

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

What about interacting with other blogs?

Why so many segments and categories?

Welcome back

The Black Hare Log #6

The Black Hare Log #6

Current Status

The Map

Prologue Edits

Ironing Out the Plot Framework

The Framing of Horror

Villainizing a Moral Genre

Horror Reveals Our Transgressions

Horror Challenges Misused Amana

Horror Fosters Courage

An Illusionist's Toolbox

Agency in Interactive Fiction

The Mirage of Surface-Level Choices

The Weight of Meaningful Choices

The Tangibility of Mechanical Choices

A Return to the Why

The Hero, the Student, and the Map

Narrative Inquiry in the Classroom

Thoughts on Runaways by Etta Grace: Exploring Music, Family, and Evil

Thoughts on Runaways by Etta Grace: Exploring Family, Music, and Evil

We begin with family...

What's in a family name?

When you hear the music...

The horrors of evil...

Final Notes

Card Games and Board Games as an ELL Resource

Card Games and Board Games as an ELL Resource

One Resource, Many Games

Vocabulary, Phonics, and Phrases with "Alphabet Go Fish"

Phonics with Letter Blocks

Vocabulary, Grammar, and Phrases with Themed Flashcards

Textbooks, Workbooks, and Other Resources

Print and Play Board Games and Card Games

Self-Made Games and Activities

Final Thoughts

The Theme as a Seed: The How of the Theme, part 1

The Theme as a Seed: The How of the Theme, part 1

What Are You Trying to Say? A.K.A. Your Theme

What Are You Trying to Say?: A.K.A. Your Theme

Your Setting is a Video Game

Your Setting is Video Game

Back to School: My Latest Challenge

Back to School: My Latest Challenge

Identified Challenges

A Final Note

Your Character is an Onion

Your Character is an Onion

I Said What You Said: Individuality in Peril

I Said What You Said: Individuality in Peril

Tip 1: Examine Your Beliefs, Thoughts, Biases

Tip 2: What matters to you?