Samuel Peterson’s Reviews > Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling > Status Update

"Different kinds of stories expect different kinds of audience and certain kinds of attitudes from that audience." All too true. And this does not just apply to creation stories from around the world, but also lectures, both academic and religious, and the ones we write down.

Describing "heaven's armies" digging mines for metal, creating guns, and using them on devils makes this depiction of Lucifer's fall quite hilarious in its contemporary-ness. You don't hear of this in the Catholic Catechisms or other liturgical teachings lol.

Imagine if school children today read Milton's "Paradise Lost" in class? Lol. Seems to have been a loss for everyone.

Sellotape? Is that the British equivalent of scotch tape? And is that where J.K. Rowling got the inspiration for "Spellotape" in Harry Potter? After over 10 years of reading HP, I finally made that connection!

Learning about the theme of His Dark Materials makes me want to read it now. But it is also inspiring me to reflect on the them of my own series and put it into focus.

"And the first result of [Adam and Eve] eating the fruit was embarrassment. They knew they were naked; it hadn't occurred to them before. Knowledge comes with a cost...But once they had eaten the fruit, consciousness was open to them, and with consciousness came self-consciousness, awkwardness, embarrassment, sorrow, grief, and pain." Either we must be innocent of the world, or become wise to it.

"Readers—especially an audience that includes young readers—aren't in the least interested in you, and your self-conscious post-modernist anguish about all the things there are to be anguished about when it comes to text. They want to know what happened next."
Thank you! I would like to know if Pullman does writers' conferences now and if he still says these things. If he does, it's likely he's not invited anymore.

Unlike these kids that Pullman taught, dialogue is harder for me to write compared to descriptive language.

"So my heresy is to suggest that eternal life is not a reward, but the most cruel punishment, imposed on us by God for the sin of seeking to grow up and become wise." Oof, I can see why some Christians would have a problem with this author.

"'I must create my own system, or be enslaved by another man's'" This is why it's important to know your influences, recognize you're being influenced by another person's ideas, and with that recognition and clarity, you can make the choice to either follow through on that other person's ideas or continue with telling the story that you want to tell.