| abstract |
Persephone's Garden is the culmination of my efforts to engage effectively with core
principles of prose fiction writing and how to take inspiration from existing literature and other
media, all in the form of a story that speaks strongly to my personal interests as both a reader and
writer and represents my own authorial voice. I used a careful selection of craft resources—
including Joseph Campbell's model of The Hero's Journey and Orson Scott Card's books
Characters & Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, to help shape the overall
form and early concepts for the story, whose influence is still visible in the final product.
Additionally, the work is heavily influenced and inspired by various stories across several
mediums and genres, namely Tolkien's The Hobbit, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?, multiple Star Wars films, Leigh Bardugo's YA fantasy heist novel Six of
Crows, cult-classic Disney film Treasure Planet, and the 2015 TV show Daredevil, as well as
being heavily influenced by my own beliefs as a Christian. These works served as both creative
inspiration and further resources on the technique and craft of fiction prose and storytelling as a
whole.
The finished work consists of over 60,000 words of written story, mostly in the form of
fully-fledged chapters and supplemented where necessary with a detailed plot outline to display
the full extent of the intended story. It also includes an author's statement at the end, where I
detail the influence and importance of each of my research resources and creative inspirations.
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