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

"Novels and stories are not arguments; they set out not to convince, but to beguile. When you write a story you're not trying to prove anything or demonstrate the merits of this case or the flaws in that...your intention is to make the audience sufficiently delighted or moved to buy your next book when that comes out in due course." Once again, the same goes for stories in films and TV.

Ten essays left! Woohoo!

Ooooh, talking about Maus now.

"Children whose parents take the trouble to sit and read with them—and talk about the stories, not in a lecturing way but genuinely conversing—will grow up to be much more fluent and confident not only with language, but with pretty well any kind of intellectual activity, including science. And children who are deprived of this contact, this interaction, the world of stories, are not likely to flourish at all."

Answering the question of "why do elephants have trunks" with "because a baby elephant played tug-of-war with a crocodile" is equivalent of answering the question of "why do snakes have no legs" with "because God punished the snake for tricking the first man and woman into eating an apple."

The act of being yourself in the present and being yourself in your imagination, alongside the likes of Batman or Superman, has been something that I've seen in many stories. Often, it is described as daydreams. I like how Pullman explains just how formative such actions can be to a young child.

Researchers clipping microphones to children for years to study how they learned and interred language around them? Nowadays, you can just ask an electronics company to pay for access to microphones to get that sort of access.

"If you start with what you think is truth, you'll seldom end up with delight—it doesn't work that way around. You have to start with fun." If you did start that with truth, then the theme of your story becomes a propagandic message.

"And someone would have to go to [the Fire-Fiend's] grotto and walk through his flames. Why did he have a grotto? Because I like the word "grotto," and I like to use it as often as possible." As good of an excuse as any to use a unique, little-used word. I, too, like to find words that are rare and little-used or archaic, even if there is some dark and/or racist history to them.

"I'd heard of the famous white elephants of Siam, and the way the king would give such an elephant to someone he wanted to ruin, because those rare and important beasts would cost so much to feed and care for that the unfortunate victim would go bankrupt trying to look after them..." I've heard of "white elephant" as a figurative term, but I couldn't describe it to be a metaphor of or when.