Narrativity 2022 is underway, and the book, movie, and other media references are flying fast! Here they are so far; more to come. This should be everything; additions or corrections welcome in the comments!
Day 1
Writing Workshop: Great Beginnings
Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone – J.K. Rowling
Lives of Christopher Change – Dianne Wynne Jones
Charmed Life – Dianne Wynne Jones
Pride & Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursual K. leGuin
Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C.S. Lewis
“Three and an Extra” – Rudyard Kipling (short story)
Uprooted – Naomi NOvik
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Iron Widow – Xiran Jay Zhao
general conversation
No Maps for These Territories (documentary film about William Gibson)
The Still Small Voice of Trumpets – Lloyd Biggle Jr. – circumventing the Prime Directive
What Is a Character and Why Do We Care?
First of Their Kind (The Chronicles of Theren book 1) – C.D. Tavenor
the Black Jewels series – Anne Bishop
The Daevabad Trilogy – S.A. Chakraborty
Farscape (tv show)
The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Carlo Zen and Shinobu Shinotsuki (manga/anime)
Dexter (tv)
Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir
Breaking Bad (tv)
The Poppy War Series – R.F. Kuang
Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated series)
Michael Roth YouTube series on Brandon Sanderson’s Character Sliders part 1 part 2
Superman, as compared to
The Tick (cartoon, live action, etc)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (TV show)
The Murderbot Diaries – Martha Wells
Dragon’s Dogma (video game)
Moonraker (James Bond movie)
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
I, Lucifer – Glen Duncan
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (90s cartoons)
Game of Thrones series – G.R.R. Martin
Invader Zim (cartoon vs Netflix movie – bad change of character)
Star Trek books, esp DS9 – for characters that are not villains or heroes
Serving the Work
Valdemar series – Mercedes Lackey
Vorkosigan books – Lois McMaster Bujold
Power series (Power Play, Power Surge, Power Failure) – Ben Bova
Books/authors that changed people’s minds by telling the truth:
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
M Dressler
John Steinbeck
Whereas – Layli Long Soldier
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars – Steven Brust (book about serving the work)
The Water Knife – Paolo Bacigalupi
Pose (tv show)
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Casa Dracula series – Marta Acosta
Controlling Pacing
Good pacing:
Dzur – Steven Brust
Frentic pacing that works:
Road Trip to Ruin – Sklyer Grey
Slow pacing that works:
Fall, or Dodge in Hell – Neal Stephenson
The Martian – Andy Weir
A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers
The Goblin Emperor – Katherine Addison
The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. leGuin
Watership Down – Richard Adams
The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell
Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel – slow, introspective
The Hunger Game – Collins – fast, reactionary
The Dungeoneers – Jeffery Russell
Bad Pacing
Game of Thrones – G.R.R. Martin
The Lair of the White Worm – Bram Stoker
Shadow Moon – Chris Claremont & George Lucas (this is a BAD book. Do NOT read.)
Interactive Storytelling
Azure Bonds – Kate Novak & Jeff Grub (example of non-horny Bard)
Grand Theft Auto (video game)
Red Dead Redemption (video game)
Skyrim (video game)
LARPing
Improv
Fable II (video game)
To Be or Not to Be – Ryan North, Choose Your Own Adventure
We All Hear Stories in the Dark – Robert Sheerman, Choose Your Own Adventure
Lone Wolf – Joe Dever, solo RPG
Eight Petals Argent – Randall Right, solo RPG
Disco Elysium (video game)
Readers Panel: Floating, Towing, or Sinking
Floating:
D – Michel Faber
Iron Widow – Xiran Jay Zhao (also sinking)
Mercedes Lackey
Craig Schaefer
Dial A for Aunties – Jesse Q. Sutanto
Charles King
L.T. Meade
Sullivan’s Travels (movie)
The Weather Warden – Rachel Caine
The Stainless Steel Rat – Harry Harrison
Alex Bledsoe
Jenny Lawson
GHOST Teams – Bobby Brimmer
A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
Ethan of Athos – Lois McMaster Bujold
Alexandre Dumas
Ken Follett
Pacific Rim (movie)
Carrying Albert Home – Homer Hickman
Airs Above the Ground – Mary Stewart
Peter Wimsey mysteries – Dorothy Sayers
My Enemy the Queen – Victoria Holt
Master & Commander – Patrick O’Brien
Towing:
Otherlands series – Tad Williams
Fellowship of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
Vega Jane books – David Baldacci
Fitz and the Fool series – Robin Hobb
Bernard Cornwell
Stephen R Donaldson
Sons of Anarchy (tv show)
Zombie – Joyce Carol Oates
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
The Poppy War trilogy – R.F. Kuang
The Godfather (movie)
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
Sinking:
The Goblin Emperor – Katherine Addison
Witness for the Dead – Katherine Addison
Robyn Thurman
The Faded Sun – CJ Cherryh
Seanan McGuire
The First Sister – Linda Lewis
Patricia McKillip fairy tale books
Peter Shandy mysteries – Charlotte MacLeod
early works of Lois McMaster Bujold
The First Law – Joe Abercrombie
The Water Knife – Paolo Bacigalupi
Day 2
Where Did You Come From? Characters Who Just “Show Up”
the Lymond books – Dorothy Dunnett
Raymond Chandler (for seeing characters from other characters’ POV)
Devil in a Blue Dress (movie)
Easy Rawlins mysteries – Walter Mosley
Death Note (anime)
Book of the New Sun series – Gene Wolfe
Responsibility of Reader and Critic
I May Destroy You (tv show – HBO Max)
Blue Ant trilogy – William Gibson – (if you haven’t read Gibson, don’t start with this series)
Creating Art v Creating Entertainment
Re-entry fan fic – FlameThrower (archiveofourown.org)
Finding Neverland (movie & musical)
Hachiko (movie)
My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult
Creatures of Light and Darkness – Roger Zelazny
Target Audience Solves Everything
Space Opera – Catherynne Valente
Animaniacs (cartoon)
Bugs Bunny (cartoon)
What Are Language/Writing Tricks That Make Your Writing Better?
Dragonsbane – Barbara Hambly
Orca – Steven Brust
The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester – text formatting as part of story
Pale FIre – Vladimir Nabokov
Divine Madness – Roger Zelazny
Alice in Wonderland books – Lewis Carroll
Reefs of Earth – R.A. Lafferty
Painted, Lady – Skyler White (erotica choose-your-own-adventure written in iambic pentameter)
The Somnambulist – Jonathan Barnes
What You Have Heard is True – Carolyn Forché
Sex, Lies, and Videotape – Steven Soderbergh (the book about making the movie)
Brown Girl in the Ring – Nalo Hopkinson
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Day 3
When (Not) to Kill Your Darlings
Hardwired – Walter John Williams
Spenser novels – Robert Parker (start w/ book 2)
Nero Wolfe series – Rex Stout
Temeraire series – Naomi Novik
Non-Linear Storytelling
The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix series)
Atlanta (tv series)
“Out of Gas” – Firefly (tv series) season 1, ep 8
Lord of Light – Roger Zelazny
Book of the New Sun series – Gene Wolfe
Star Wars: Thrawn series – Timothy Zahn
The Witcher – season 1 (Netflix series)
The Witcher books – Andrzej Sapkowski
Knives Out (movie)
The Inside Job (2010 movie)
Westworld (HBO series)
House of Leaves – Mark Danielewski
Russian Doll (Netflix series) – groundhog day format
I May Destroy You (HBO series)
Dhalgren – Samuel R. Delany – story circles around
Watership Down – Richard Adams – implied repeating cycle
Battlestar Gallactica (2004 series) – “before on”
House of X/Powers of X – Jonathan Hickman (graphic novel)
Memento (movie)
Copenhagen (play) – Michael Frayn
Elric saga – Michael Moorcock
The Last 5 Years (musical/movie)
Princes of the Air – John M. Ford
Use of Weapons – Ian M Banks (linearly nonlinear)
500 Days of Summer (movie)
Things Readers Will Hate You For
Examples of the “bad” hate (for some specific people)
Edge of Tomorrow (movie) – hate the happy ending
The Wheel of Time – Jordan & Sanderson
Supernatural (tv series)
The Chocolate War – Robert Cormie
Examples of the “good” hate
The Sausage Party (movie)
Joan Aiken stories
The Birdcage (movie, Robin Williams version)
Justified (tv show) – based on Elmore Leonard stories
Full Metal Alchemist/Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (anime series)
Blake’s 7 (British tv show)
The Wire (HBO series)
Good & Bad
The Walking Dead (AMC series)
Why We Stop Writing
Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert
Becoming a Writer – Dorothea Brande
Steering the Craft – Ursula K. LeGuin