Author: Ryan

The “Original Story” Folly

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This past week, the topic of writing was briefly brought up between a co-worker and I. He mentioned that he’d always wanted to write a novel, but he could never think of an original story. This is something I have struggled with, along with many other young writers I have met. We all strive for the one idea that will grow into a great and original story that nobody has quite read before. Another friend and I also knew of a young writer who apparently had an idea “so original” she dared not explain it for fear of it being stolen, leaving her without any constructive feedback.

Maybe she did have a very original idea that could be a phenomenal success, but I have my doubts. My reasoning for this is not out of jadedness or cynicism, but simply that I have come to learn that there is no such thing as a purely original story idea. Furthermore, if you strive too hard for this ideal of originality you can potentially stonewall your creativity.Read More »

My Farewell to the Tenth

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Tenth

As I’ve mentioned and written about a number of times already, I have been watching a lot of Doctor Who. I refrained from writing about the show during October, since I wanted to focus more on horror in honour of Halloween. Now that we’ve entered November, however, I feel free to return to the well of Doctor Who once more for a topic of musing.

At this point, my friends and I are almost completed the sixth season, so we are well into the Matt Smith period of The Doctor. Despite this, however, I feel I need to pay my respects to the tenth Doctor, David Tennant, who has easily been my favourite of the three incarnations of the Doctor I have known so far.Read More »

Movie Review | Xtro

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This past week I finally managed to watch Xtro, a 1983 British science fiction horror film directed by Harry Bromley Davenport. I first heard about the film when it was discussed on RedLetterMedia’s show Best of the Worst, where they deemed their selection of the film an accident because they found it to have legitimate quality. This piqued my curiosity, so watching it this Halloween season became a priority of mine.Read More »

Tell me a Scary Story

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This past week, while visiting family, my father asked me an interesting question — which I’m sure was inspired by the Halloween season. He asked me if I thought it might be possible in a place where great human suffering had taken place that something could be imprinted upon that location; something that could be measured by science, but right now is outside of human understanding. Essentially, it was a question of whether or not I see any possible truth to cases of hauntings in the world.Read More »

Cleaning the Slate: Doctor Who & Regenerating Narrative

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Over the past three weeks I have been watching a lot of Doctor Who — which I discussed starting here — and I am currently in the middle of the fourth season. David Tennant is still going strong as the Doctor, and the companions have changed a number of times now.

Knowing what’s to come in the future with Matt Smith and subsequent companions, coupled with all the changes that have already taken place, I have been thinking more and more about how daring of a series Doctor Who really is, and how brilliantly flexible the universe has been written.Read More »

Comic Book Review | Judge Vol. 1 & 2

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This past week I started the manga series Judge by Yoshiki Tonogai. The series is a drama, horror, and psychological thriller. It is the sequel to the series Doubt, which was written and illustrated by Yoshiki Tonogai as well. Though it is a sequel series, as far as I can tell Judge is not narratively connected to Doubt. Each volume was published in North America by Yen Press in August and November 2013 respectively. The series will total six volumes long, with the fifth coming out this October.Read More »

Beginning Doctor Who

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As someone who tries to go through as much different content as possible, Doctor Who was one of those shows I was always meaning to get to. In the case of episodic content, however, I can be terrible at actually keeping up, especially in an on-demand age where so much is just at my fingertips. Something about availability has often made going through shows so easy to procrastinate.

Doctor Who is a unique case as well due to its longevity. This presented a significantly higher amount of episodes I would have to go through if starting from the very beginning and made the idea of getting into it more daunting.Read More »