I first started capturing her storytelling using the video mode on our digital camera, around about April, but she soon refused to let me film her. So I tried writing her stories while she told them, using pen and paper. That lasted for only a few stories too, before she caught on. Since then, I've been recording her using a mini MP3 recorder, which is pretty unobtrusive, and transcribing the audio later. She then objected strongly to this as well... Nowadays I use a combo of MP3 and video to record her before transcribing. I only manage to record a fraction of the stories she tells. I always have a backlog of stories on the recorder that still need transcribing, as it's impossible for me to keep up with her. To help new readers, I've marked my favourite stories with a star (*), so at least you have somewhere to start if you don't know where to begin. Don't forget to check the older archives too - there are some gems in there as well!

Tuesday 15 January 2008

Characters in her stories, 2008-01-15**

She gave me a ton of backstory again yesterday and today, filling me in on her various characters and what they're doing now. For anyone who's been following her stories, you'll know her main characters have changed over the past year.

The first hero was Aladar, then Corythosaurus, then Corin (Corythosaurus changed in human form), then Larry, now Hook. And she's had a few primary peripheral characters as well.

So Aladar was a dinosaur, who spent a few agonizing months morphing from dino to human. Apparently he's now a boy and cannot revert back to dino form anymore.

Corythosaurus was a dino at first too, and transformed into the boy Corin much sooner than did Aladar. Corin however developed the further ability to split himself into multiple personalities, and that remains until now she says - only Corin can do this (multiply himself at will).

Larry started out as a boy. He then changed into a dino. There was a door between our world and dino world that at first only the humans from here could cross over to there, with Corin being the only one who could travel in the opposite direction. Aladar could not, but now that he is human he can. So going through that door too often has apparently changed Larry into a dino and he's now stuck in dino world as a dino. One of his sidekicks in her stories, Fatty, is still stuck in limbo, transforming from dino to boy to pteranodon to dino to boy, etc.

Her new character is Hook, who is a dinosaur. There is also his alter-ego, another Hook, who is a pteranodon. The dino Hook is good. The pteranodon Hook is bad.

She is very clear on how her characters have evolved and very definite about their fates if you ask her. She is also definite about all the many side characters. I will write those up for her blog when I have the time.

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