Book so far

Digging and Cover

At this stage I am not sure whether I will be able to create a finished book that is up to the standard i would like but I am confident I can finish a set of double page spreads that give and overview of the book and demonstrate each of the ideas from my essay.

Imagination pages

This section of the book aims to explore imaginative play, combining fiction ideas with real life experiences to inform attitudes and aid development. The child is experimenting with ideas and learning about different possible outcomes through her pre existing knowledge and her imagination (imaginary friend). She makes decisions on the best course of action based on her use of this process, it informs her decisions, attitude and behaviour.

Conclusion

My conclusion will be focussed on how practitioners could make use of the research in the creative process and the possible benefits. I also want to reflect on my project and how it could have been improved or how it could be continued. I am going to continue the book I have been working on and it would be informative to create a questionnaire for participants to fill out after reading the book. I could try and find out what factors determine how different people interpret the story. Whether the outcome is positive, negative or neither. Simply, it would be good feedback to determine if I have been successful in implementing ambiguity into my work without any negative connotations. making the characters emotions and actions more realistic can also appear negative compared to the majority of children's books that are based on simplistic heroes or design to promote a clear moral message.

Pages progress and decisions

The main decision of the story is not one with a clearly defined right answer. I wanted to include this more realistic section of the narrative, a lot of decisions in real life are much more complex than right or wrong. One thing that was very important to me was not to tell the reader that one is correct or more important than the other. I don't want the story to promote a single perspective on a moral choice but rather encourage discussion and thought process so that the reader can come to their own conclusions.

Worms page stop motion

stop motion illustration from Joe Boon on Vimeo.

This is a stop motion animation of one of the pages of my book. I wanted to demonstrate the process of transforming my roughs into finished illustrations. I have been using procreate to make my work recently and am still experimenting with processes.

Practical Work Rationale

This is my rationale for my practical work for the final crit before Christmas. 


My aim is to produce a children’s book that explores and applies theories related to children’s fiction aiding emotional, intellectual and moral development. During my research I found a number of studies suggesting that activities such as parent and child discussion and imaginative play help children to assimilate lessons into their own experiences. As these theories are not directly linked to how the books are written and illustrated I have tried to explore them in the text rather than apply them. The theories I have tried to apply to the narrative are realism, complexity and ambiguity. These three storytelling practices are thought to encourage the development especially when combined with conversation and play.
I chose to use the Labours of Hercules as a basis for my story and after story boarding decided to concentrate on one of the labours, The Lernean Hydra. To make the story more realistic and appropriate the trial is no longer to kill the hydra, but for the little girl in the story to catch some worms so her dad can go fishing. Her dad jokingly says “make sure you get some really big ones”, and the girls imagination starts to imagine giant terrifying worms she with have to battle with. She sets off out on her mission helped by her imaginary friend. Together they explore possible ways they could defeat the worms. The imaginary friend suggesting outrageous fantastic mythical ideas and the little girl using logic to play out how they would work in real life (badly). My research suggests that children use imaginative play to act out possible scenarios and measure them against what they see in their real lives, the play is essentially a form of science experiment. I want to use the dialogue between the girl and her imaginary friend to explore this idea.
They eventually realise the the worms are much smaller than they thought and not at all scary. I have tried to use perspective to play with the scale throughout the book. They manage to catch a whole bucket full of worms and should be happy but the girl feels bad for the worms and doesn’t want them to be used as bait. She decides to tell her dad she lost the worms even though it means she will have failed the labour and he will be unhappy. She secretly keeps the worms in her room and feels good, until she sees her dad sat at home feeling sad that he can’t go fishing. It is unclear at the end whether she is happy or sad, or what the right decision was.
I have tried to demonstrate complexity of emotion with the little girls uncertainty, initially about the task but then about her own decisions. Complexity in the illustrations by changing perspectives and using the characters to portray the variety of emotions. I have tried to demonstrate realism through the characters interactions and range of emotions, by taking a mythical tale and making it something more mundane and easier to relate to and by using ambiguity, there is no moral message only an attempt to encourage conversation. Did she make the right choice? Is there a right choice?

Ambiguity

After the draft feedback it was highlighted to me that I had left out a lot of my research into ambiguity. I had talked about it in the case studies section but it was only briefly mentioned in the main body of the essay. I have gone back over my essay nd added my research in ambiguity and its part in adding complexity to narrative fiction. This was an important part of my research as it ties in to complexity, realistic characters and events and the case studies I had chosen. My practical work also uses ambiguity. If I had missed it out or only mentioned it in passing without drawing reflecting on its relationships with the other areas of my research it would have made my project disjointed.

Essay draft feedback

The notes from my draft feedback have been very helpful. I can now make an action play based on the feedback and todays conversation. I am going to

- Read my essay through a couple of times and highlight changes I think need to be made.
- Edit out overcomplicated or irrelevant sections. Simplify sentence structure to make the information easier to understand.
-looke at transitions between paragraphs and topics some seem messy
- Paraphrase larger quotes wherever possible, (leave ones where the tone of voice is informative)
- Rework introduction, get rid of the question, explain what I will be doing, introduce theorists as well as complexity, ambiguity and realism ( in order they will appear in the main body
- Restructure the reflective chapter- start by laying out the aims of the project
- rising interest in children's books- why? agendas?
- back up links to theory especially in later chapters.
- clarify own opinion when reacting to research (some are unclear)
- introduce anne fine opinions to case studies section (opposing view)
- include narrative illustrations used in healthcare into either main body or case studies section. (alternative application- more specific)