Queer individuals are frequently perceived as ‘the Other’ and thus, ‘the Other’ that exists in the imagination of writers as creatures and monsters to terrify audiences frequently take on queer characteristics. However, to examine these monsters, their transformations, and the communities that connect to them further, we must step away from the cis, straight view of ‘normality’ and attempt to discuss the creature from within. This paper aims to examine the experiences of individual queer identities as they transition out of assumed heteronormativity and into ‘the Other’ themselves through the monsters that each identity aligns itself with narratively.

For this Creative Project, I decided to explore the elements that set novellas apart from other genres and then experiment writing in the form. In doing so, I took into account three main categories: Plot Structure, Character Development, Style/Format, and then used my findings to write 45 pages of a novella titled Emmy and Me.

This work of creative nonfiction explores the life of the writer's great-grandmother, Madge Richardson, and her sister Annie Richardson Johnson, as daughters of polygamist families and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the religious colony of Colonia Díaz, Chihuahua, Mexico. The piece depicts several highs and lows in the late 19th to early 20th century pioneer town, with an emphasis on the mass exodus and devastation that occurred during the Mexican Revolution.

K-2SO: A Science Fiction Novel consists of three separate narratives all connected by one singular event: the choice to save a life. Told in three parts, each narrative explores the story of a different character in a different time, both before the end of the world and after. Dubbed “The Fracture” by the characters of the novel, the repercussions of this cataclysmic event are felt throughout each narrative, but it is not the focus of their stories. The characters and their connections to one another, how each one influences the lives of others, and the choices they make in an effort to rebuild that which they’ve lost and hold onto that which they love, is the heart of the novel, and the titular character, a robot born into a strange new world, is the thread that binds them all together.

This paper examines and analyzes what Dr. Marcello Arnaldo Picucci termed “discovery narratives” in video games, which is something unique only to the interactive and dynamic video game medium. Discovery narratives exist to give players a level of freedom in engaging with the game’s story and world, requiring the player to explore and interact with the game in specific ways to access these particular narratives. While Dr. Piccuci didn’t focus on discovery narratives too much and only lightly touched upon the topic with a few examples, this paper will categorize six different types of discovery narratives and explore an example of a game for each category. These categories are “Side-stories,” “Character Information,” “Sidequests,” “Main Quests,” “Challenge Narratives,” and “True Endings.” Before categorizing, though, the paper will make important clarifications regarding some possible areas of confusion or conflict in the analysis, such as the definition of narrative itself according to H. Porter Abbott, the methodology of the categorization, the other three models of narrative architecture besides discovery narratives, the distinction between “alternative narrative paths” and discovery narratives, and the external process of how these narratives are discovered. The categories of discovery narrative are not mutually exclusive, however, and in the final part of the paper, the game Dark Souls will be used as a prime example of how these different categories of discovery narrative can be mixed together in order to create a narrative that functions almost entirely on discovery. By exploring these different methods of discovery narrative and analyzing the games that use them, the unique narrative possibilities of video games will be much more understood.

In the essay, "Maps and Legends of Hell: Notes on Melodrama," Charles Baxter defines it as, "about, among other things, the failure of explanations." He goes on to describe the ways that melodrama interfaces with emotion, pulling us as readers in directions that we do not expect to feel the way we do. This conflict between emotional and logical responses is a critical part of the human condition, and its value in a literary space is often overlooked as juvenile and not worthy of the same kind of consideration as other, more distinguished driving forces for stories. We don't always feel the way we think we're supposed to, and those moments can tell us a lot about who we really are, as people. This trio of selected stories all have some element of this failure of explanation of emotions. "Table for Two" centers around a couple whose anniversary dinner ends with their landing in Hell. "Melodramatic Fools" is the story of a bad night out that results in a fantasy battle that the narrator cannot believe he is seeing. Finally, "Throwin' Slop" is about a minor league ballplayer past his prime, who can't understand what it was that held him back, in all aspects of his life. All three interface with the unknown in a way that explores it, tries to understand it, but ultimately fails to do much beyond notice it's there. The collected stories seek to explore the human condition through a mixture of the aforementioned melodrama, comedy, and surreal elements.