Tag: Storytelling

A Storyteller’s Dharma

Posted on by A.P. Miller in Blog

Dharma (n); Hinduism: 1. Essential quality or character; as of the cosmos or one’s own nature. 2. Conformity to religious law, custom, duty, or one’s own quality or character. 1

Happy New Year and welcome back to the Millerverse! Sincerely, I hope this year brings you more joy, and success, than you could possibly be prepared for! I hope your 2023 ended on a positive note, I hope your 2024 isn’t a fraction of the dumpster fire the last few years have been, and I hope you look forward to the coming year with positive expectation. If 2023 wasn’t kind, I’m sorry, and I want you to know that you have every reason, and right, to believe that 2024 will treat you with reverie.

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A Storyteller Can Always See Another Storyteller From Afar

Posted on by A.P. Miller in Blog

In the movie “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko drops an incredible line, parabolizing about being able to spot another Wall Street guy. The line is “a fisherman can always see another fisherman from afar.” Replace fisherman with any profession you’ve ever worked and it holds true. I worked retail for quite a while, and I can spot someone else who has worked retail, …mostly from the will to live being absent from their eyes.

Over the last three years, I’ve done a lot of introspection, trying to find out about myself. I’d spent twenty years having the identity of someone’s boyfriend, fiancee, and husband. Once that was gone, what identity was left? That inner-reflection has benefited me in spades; I know who I am, as a person, as a professional, and as a creative. When you take responsibility for someone else’s existence out of the equation, it is much easier to analyze the aspects of yourself, and have a much better idea of who you are. That information will tell you multitudes about how to get where you are going.

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Funeral For a Friend: The Death of Superman

Posted on by A.P. Miller in Blog

We all carry traumatic events with us from the media we consume, so much so there is a website that will tell you if a dog dies in the movie. Creative types work very hard to achieve the emotional payoff from such reactions. I can tell you from experience, I have sat in discussions where writers were actively talking about how they can twist a story to make you cry. It might be nefarious-sounding, but why do you come to media, to begin with? To artificially stimulate real-life responses in situations you aren’t in currently. You may read romance novels to feel what it’s like to be in love for the first time, you may watch action movies to feel the rush of kicking wholesale ass, or you may consume science fiction to quell the thirst for curious discovery. As writers, we are always trying to improve our ability to give that to you.

What is my traumatic media moment? The day Superman died. I wrote a blog about where I was when I’d found out Superman died — for this week’s blog, I wanted to share the literary examination of why that’s such an amazing story, and how the writers took my emotions and crinkled it like cheap tissue paper in the jaws of a puppy.

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