Lit.

lit most generally applies to my interest in stories and how they work.

what leads this interest is my belief that stories are very valuable when they affect people. this has professional applications in creative industries, marketing, activism, entrepreneurship and business development, with each requiring knowledge of how to effectively create an affective story.

some guiding questions: what are affective stories? what do they effect? what makes them effective? if only effective in one group, why not in another? what is effective in both groups? in 3, 4, 5, 6, different groups? who do I want to effect?

my approach to lit has been as holistic as possible. starting with my studies, my degree in Lit at Duke concentrated on global culture and theory. I sought to better understand global cultural, social and intellectual differences and theoretical methods of this interpretation. my desired (and I think somewhat achieved) outcome was new ways of seeing and reading stories beyond my current bias, instead taking on frameworks that could be applied to newer creative channels, effectively increasing affective groups.

the knowledge I’ve gained from this approach as been constantly applied via short stories that I create. I typically apply these in two categories: professional and creative. for the former, my professional stories are often related to marketing content, effecting more groups to spread brand awareness. it has also been very literally applied in creative narrative industries such as film development, game development and publishing. I’m hoping to hone these skills in application of business development and am currently seeking entry-level positions at companies and brands where I feel my work will help refine and grow their effective market.

creatively, I find that I can be more eccentric and have more freedom to experiment with affective stories. i’ve experimented making stories in as many mediums as possible. visual media is usually effective to more people, so I create most my stories in the short film medium. of course, written, game and artistic mediums are also great and I’ve spent considerable time in these mediums as well. always, my experimentations attempt to push the boundary of what I already know. recently, I’ve been caught up on testing surrealism or dream aesthetics as a globally affective story. I am attempting to make more sense of its current and possible future qualities.

I typically learn something from what my own work and case studies into audience interest or dislike. but, admittedly, I do most of my learning from taking in stories already out there. I constantly rotate what I am watching, reading, playing, listening to, etc. I choose titles based on known degrees of popularity, historical influence, or random intrigue. I try to make sense of my leading questions and answer, if affective in x amount of people, why? (I am never bored)