Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Depths Of Perception, Connor Matthews

All Theses

This thesis contains the first four chapters of a novel named Depths of Perception (working title), as well as a short critical essay detailing the process of creating the chapters as well as other literary influences that impacted the construction of the work. The focus of this thesis is on the use of shifting point of view to tell a story from a multitude of character’s perspectives. While this is not a new concept, I aim to derive a deeper understanding of the importance of being able to access the perspectives of a large cast of characters. Allowing the reader …

Twisted Threads: A Novel And Exploration Of Fraternity Culture And Race, Christian S. Golden

Senior Theses

Twisted Threads: A Novel and Exploration of Fraternity Culture and Race is a project that seeks to explore questions about race and brotherhood through the lens of the urban fantasy genre. It is the first ten chapters of a full-length fantasy novel and can be considered the first half of the planned novel. The Introduction details some of my influences, both literary and cultural, as well as the thought process behind much of the worldbuilding in my manuscript. It also details some of the research that was conducted to help build accurate allegories and allusions. The novel follows a black …

The Black Garden, Madalene Klocke

Theses

“The Black Garden” is a novel-length fantasy fiction work. It follows the narrative of Ryan, an 18-year-old girl, who has great expectations for what her first year at university will hold. Her entire world view is tilted when she attends a party with her new roommate, Blair, and wakes up in an unfamiliar place. Ryan must fight to keep her sanity as she is thrust into the world of faeries, witches, and far worse creatures than she could have ever imagined: including her parents.

Thesis Submission Assignment, Monica Cookson

Masters Theses

This paper focuses on the importance of complex character development to form connections with the reader. Readers develop connections to characters who are relatable, so writers need to be aware of what makes a character emotionally important to the reader.

The Exile's War, Stephen Edwards Arnold

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

In Gaelwyn, the village of a thousand stories, Katchan receives a powerful ruby and an ancient technique called writing hidden by his grandmother, Maggaline. Jealous of the power Katchan has, the village Elder seeks to destroy him. After escaping the Elder, Katchan must leave his home and traverse a dangerous and mysterious wasteland that will lead him directly into an ancient conflict that lost a powerful empire to the sands of time.

Hattie: A Twin Territories Matriarch, Madison P. Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Hattie: A Twin Territories Matriarch” is a creative novel of vignettes in the vein of historical fiction set at the turn of the 20th century in Oklahoma/Indian Territory exploring the complexities of love and betrayal through generations of one Muscogee family as they battle the legal and personal implications of white-settler encroachment. With societal criticisms and Indigenous methodologies, this thesis aims to explore land ownership, resource allocation, and the complex governance of Oklahoma tribal reservations. The research of this novel focuses on primary documents from National Archive probate records, Dawes Commission enrollments, newspapers, and a familial collection of photographs, letters, …

August In The Dog Moon, Desmond Fuller

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of a novel in progress. August in the Dog Moon depicts a story about the strange, beautiful, and frightening things we find while exploring the liminal perspective in wild and abandoned places.

In constructing a long-form narrative, this thesis attempts to demonstrate the interworking of multiple narrators through a close third-person narration shared between three primary characters, two supporting characters, transcriptions of found recordings, and several chapters from an omniscient perspective. The intention being to explore the narrative of place through various perspectives and experiences. The accumulating effect being one of panoramic storytelling, increased instances of dramatic …

Not About You: A Novel, Hillary Colton

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This novel-in-progress explores the complexities of single parenting and coming of age in a misogynistic society. Through the perspectives of a recently divided family, we are drawn into the coping mechanisms of characters who have been impacted by the cyclical nature of sexism, alcoholism, and abuse. Told through multiple points of view, the novel aims to explore questions of how internalized misogyny and generational trauma force a person to look at their complicity in the rippling effect of societal expectations, and whether it is possible to break free after a lifetime of trying to survive in a society rooted against …

Rethinking Length And Form In Fiction: Workshopping Short Stories, Novels, Novellas, Flash, And Hybrid, Kevin Clouther

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

This essay challenges dominant workshop practices and details efforts to diversify workshops with particular attention to what is workshopped and how workshops can become inclusive of not only short stories but also various lengths and forms of fiction: novels, novellas, flash, and hybrid. This essay addresses face-to-face as well as online workshops.

A New Atticus Is Afoot: The Portrayal Of Lawyers In Popular Culture, Anna Thrush

Senior Theses

This project analyzes the stereotypical image of lawyers in popular culture, focusing on either overly demonic or unrealistically heroic. Both stereotypes that are common portrayals of attorneys in popular culture are unrealistic and deny society a true comprehension of the profession. Popular culture has molded the image of lawyers to the characteristics that sell, rather than focusing on a realistic portrayal. Therefore, popular culture creates a falsely dramatized image of attorneys to generate revenue, putting the reputation and future of the profession as risk. These stereotypes are exemplified in this project through a close literary analysis of lawyer characters from …

Naruto And Naruto: Shippuden Through The Lens Of Campbell’S Monomyth, Victor Ayon

Literary and Intercultural Studies | Senior Theses

“Naruto and Naruto: Shippuden through the lens of Campbell’s Monomyth” is a comparative analysis of the anime television series Naruto (2002-2007 Japan, 2005-2009 USA) and its sequel Naruto: Shippuden (2007-2017 Japan, 2009-2019 USA) with Joseph Campbell’s monomyth as delineated in his The Hero with the Thousand Faces. These Japanese anime television series that are considered one of the most popular worldwide, and yet the hero’s quest in each series is often overlooked. This study both compares and contrasts how the Campbellian stages of monomyth intersect with Naruto and Naruto: Shippuden animation narratives.

Untitled Novel On Indoctrination And Mentorship, Jacquelyn Ferris

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

A young man is alone in the company of his people. He searches and finds council from a stranger in a long red coat and his own search for a beaten rabbit; a deserter to his distant cause.

This is the first chapter to that much larger work in progress. We see our main character in a more peaceful headspace than what will soon come to him.

The Textual Gutter: How Gene Luen Yang Redefines The Gutter In Boxers & Saints To Tell A Transnational Tale, David Lucas Jr

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This paper attempts to provide a new understanding of the gutter and how it is used to significant effect in Gene Luen Yang's, Boxers & Saints. This research draws upon the work of Scott McCloud to establish a framework for the theoretical applications of the gutter. Most prior research focuses on the gutter within the page. This article demonstrates how Yang pushes the concept of the gutter further by creating a new type of gutter that moves beyond the pages and across texts. Then the research attempts to demonstrate how the idea of the textual gutter heightens the transnational elements …

The Vicissitudes, Lara Young

Graduate Thesis Collection

On the surface, Julia's life at middle age seems calm and settled. Her children are grown; she's got plenty of friends and family; and her marriage has survived a betrayal. But when she unexpectedly receives a text from an old flame, one by one the certitudes she's come to rely on start to unravel and Julia's is forced to reckon anew with the meaning of her life and her place in the world.

Only The Eyes: A Novel, Jason Michael Palomo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Only the Eyes revolves around a series of murders that take place in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, the government of which suppresses the media to maintain the nation's reputation as a safe, innovative tourist destination. After the murders are leaked to the international press and can no longer be ignored, the Sheikhs of the country. decide to procure an investigative consultant through manipulative means to help them capture the unknown suspect. Former-Special-Agent Ramon Del Toro is now a true-crime writer, and he reluctantly takes on the difficult task of creating a psychological profile of the suspect, much to the …

Pride Before The Fall: A Historical Fiction Novel, Brenna Smith

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

The Mycenaean civilization (1650 BCE-1200 BCE) was the first advanced Greek civilization with many features that characterized Classical Greece such as palace states, art, a writing system, intercultural contact, and more. The focus of this capstone project is the ancient Mycenaean civilization, particularly capturing both the build up to and the actual rise of the Greek Early Iron Age (1200 BCE-800 BCE) period, or the Greek Dark Ages. This project takes the form of a historical fiction novel which seeks to offer a possible explanation for how the collapse came to be, using archaeological evidence in partnership with creative writing. …

Fictionalizing Error In Edberto Villegas’S Barikada, Laurence Marvin S. Castillo

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

Barikada (2013), written by the late political scientist, writer, and consultant for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Edberto Villegas (1940–2020), is a novel that presents a counterfactual portrayal of an urban insurrection, waged by city-based national democratic (NatDem) revolutionaries who deviated from the Maoist rural-oriented protracted guerrilla warfare sanctioned by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). This essay reads this NatDem fiction in relation to the debates about revolutionary strategy that surfaced during the movement’s crises-ridden years, and were taken up during the Second Great Rectification Movement. I undertake a detailed examination of the novel’s reworking …

Dust, Asher Didier

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Dust is a dystopian novel centered on the effects of inaction in our combat with climate change. Set in the future (around the year 2150), the world is a much different place. The Earth has turned into a hot and overused world which is devoid of most of the plants and animals that exist today. Desertification has occurred on much of the Earth and sand and dust have become prominent in place of grasslands and forests. One of the common motifs of the book is, as the title suggests, this dust. Dust is looked at in many different ways throughout …

Wave By Wave: A Fantasy Author's Guide For Refining A Creative Writing Style, Michael Bose

Senior Honors Theses

Writing a novel is a great undertaking. Many would-be writers have set out to create a novel and give up halfway through, uncertain where or how they failed. This project aims to help prospective authors get past that barrier. By analyzing one’s own writing style, a writer can ascertain greater insight into the strengths and weaknesses of one’s own work and therefore help rectify mistakes one might make otherwise, or learn to see a chapter from a new angle. The author will demonstrate this method on himself first by way of focused revisions. A sample chapter of a fantasy novel, …

The Author's Gauntlets: The Writing, Editing, And Publishing Process Of A Novel, Robert Clifton

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This project details the actions I took in writing my first novel, editing it, and starting the pre-publication process for it. It describes everything from the origins of my idea for the novel all the way to where I am now (June 2022), at my second editing pass and having written the first draft of my query letter for an agent. My premise is that people often assume that authors just write a book and that's it, but there's actually a lot more steps in editing and publishing they have to take before their book is released to the world. …

King Of Swords, Hannah Kimble

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

King of Swords follows five teenage friends on the precipice of beginning their adult lives who find themselves transported to a fantasy world inhabited by orcs and dinosaurs. Each major character reacts differently to this world, making their own allies and enemies, and come into conflict with one another, engaging in combat with magic swords and gay subtext. Some of them want to return to Earth, while others seek to find a place in this new world. In the end, they mature, learning to talk through their differences like functional adults, and accept the responsibilities that come with that.

Electric Snake, David Y. Liang

Senior Projects Spring 2022

A blend of fantastic, noir, and cyberpunk elements. Prose.

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

The Curiosociety, Luke G. Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

«Le Blanc Poétique Ou Le Blanc De Ia Mémoire Dans Harrouda De Tahar Ben Jelloun», Jamal El Qasri

Dirassat

The Poetic White or the White of MemoryinHarrouda byTabarBen Jelloun

Harrouda seems to exploit the double status of white, by its incorporation and linear prose and versified poem. However, the essential is elsewhere: it consists in the use of an unusual white, rarely adopted in poetry and even less in prose, which at times enters the space of the text,until finally monopolizing it. How does this white appear? And at what gold- Does the organization of signification respond?

Human Error, Avery Werther

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

HUMAN ERROR is a science-fiction novel set in a future in which, to save the planet from environmental degradation, humans have been eradicated and replaced by “Syntho-sapiens.” These synthetic humans are engineered in labs to be not only physically superior to their evolutionary predecessors, but also equal in every way to each other. However, from the moment Cal-12 opens his eyes, he is different. He not only has heterochromia, a mutation of the eye color, but also a strong need for connection that his emotionless peers seem to lack. This need intensifies when he discovers a human woman named Thalia, …

The Exiled Prophet (Novel Excerpt), Anna Russon

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The heirs of opposing warlords are prophesied to destroy each other—but they determine instead to fight as allies against their fates. (A four-chapter excerpt from the fantasy novel The Exiled Prophet, introducing key characters, concepts, and plot structure.)

Fog Town: Exploring The Novel-Writing Process, Spencer De Vries

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This project consisted of drafting a portion of a novel and working closely with an advisor to revise and polish two chapters, as well as creating a synopsis. The novel is about F.O., a reporter from Chicago who goes to stay with her mom when her father dies in a shipwreck. Once there, she starts noticing some inconsistencies around his death, as well as hearing about some other strange disappearances. Slowly, she is drawn into the mystery that connects them all. The attached portion is the presentation that reflected on the process, including a small sample of the revised chapter …

Tidelocked, Will Rasmussen

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

A sci-fi novella about a hostile world and the edge of humanity.

The Postcolonial Condition In Tayeb Salih's Season Of Migration To The North, Rachida Yassine

Dirassat

Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North Disacounter-narrative written in 1969 at the early phase of African 'Decolonization'. This narrative re-writes Conrad's Heart of Darkness –and other ethnocentric representations of Europe's Other such as Shakespeare's Cali ban and Othello-from an Arab/African perspective. In his Culture and Imperialism, Said considers Salih's novel an example of the postcolonial native writers' reclamation of the fictive to poi of colonial culture "on the very same territory once ruled by a consciousness that assumed the subordination of a designated inferior. Saree Makdisee makes a similar point in his essay," The Empire Renarrated: Season of …

Forgotten Things: A Historian's Tale, Mary Jackson

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Forgotten Things: A Historian’s Tale is a story of a post-human world where magic and creatures of lore have taken sovereignty over the land, following the adventures of Aster, a small flower elf whose job is to travel and document the residual traces of humanity. Every crumbling building, decaying record, and seemingly useless bauble of humanity tells a story, one that Aster is trying to find the conclusion to. One day, rumors start to circulate. Whispers that there might still be humans hidden away somewhere. Aster is thrilled about this, hoping that she might be able to talk with a …