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The Girl Who Fell

composition

posted on 2018-01-01, 00:00 authored by Violet Grace, Christopher ScanlonChristopher Scanlon, Kasey Edwards

On her sixteenth birthday, Chess discovers her whole life has been a lie.

History

Pagination

1-386

ISBN-13

9781760640248

ISBN-10

1760640247

Language

eng

Research statement

Background Young adult (YA) fantasy fiction is a popular genre fiction targeted predominantly at girls and young women. Despite associations of female power, the heroines depicted in such stories alternate between two poles. They are often powerless and even submissive or, at the other extreme, effortlessly accomplished and innately gifted. This contrasts with male protagonists, including love interests, who are portrayed as older, wealthier, wiser, more powerful or of higher status than the heroines. Contribution At the level of form, The Girl Who Fell, which was co-written with my wife Kasey Edwards under the pen name Violet Grace, is a contribution to the field of YA fantasy fiction which plays within the rules of the genre, while also disrupting some of its key tropes. The protagonist, Chess Raven, is more powerful than her male romantic interest, and the relationship that unfolds throughout the book is one of equality. The book seeks a feminist appropriation of the genre, that is more than simply a one-dimensional ideal of girl power. The book is also an application of a particular methodology of genre writing. Specifically, it applies Edson’s (2012) work on story structure for commercial screenwriting. The Girl Who Fell is an experiment in seeking both to test this methodology and adapt it to the creation of textual works. Significance The Girl Who Fell was selected for the October-November 2019 Inside a Dog Lit Club, hosted by the State Library of Victoria and aimed at young readers. The book was also the subject of a discussion on ABC774 Melbourne Breakfast radio (12/09/2018) as a positive story for YA fantasy fiction. Further, the book was featured at Somerset Storyfest 2019 on the Gold Coast, Australia’s largest children’s literature festival. Finally, the books have been featured on YA fantasy blogs, such as The Nerd Daily. References 2019 Storyfest Festival Guide, 10 February 2019. https://issuu.com/storyfest/docs/storyfest_festivalguide_2019_singl

Publication classification

J1 Major original creative work

Publisher

Nero

Place of publication

Melbourne, Vic.

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Keywords

Young Adult Fiction

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