apollogyas

[apollogyas]

2025.04.26

espresso tonic & rainer maria rilke

[apollogyas]

a book & a drink | 2024.01.06

the hollow man by john dickson carr & an old fashioned

[apollogyas]

“Poetry transports you—translates you—in and out of your own language of loneliness. The book itself translates you—makes briefly exterior the raw glimmerings of your own dark darknesses, and then folds them back into you–layer upon gentless layer; petal upon petal upon page. You glimpse yourself in the broken shards of image, of dream, of song, in the curve of broken bodies, broken voices, broken circles.”

— Robin Walter, from “On Silence & Song: Kazim Ali’s The Voice of Sheila Chandra,” The American Poetry Review (vol. 52, no. 1, January/February 2023)

[apollogyas]

2023.04.19 | scholarship & coffee

[apollogyas]

[apollogyas]

Audre Lorde to her students during a poetry workshop, as shown in A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (1996) dir. by Ada Gay Griffin and Michelle Parkerson

[apollogyas]

2023.02.26 | getting lost

academic library stacks

[apollogyas]

2023.02.19 | sunny winter day

blood orange mocha & reality is not what it seems by carlo rovelli

trying to have multiple books going so i have options and read when i want to read instead of feeling pressured to have to finish the one book i’ve started before starting another.

[apollogyas]

new books, and embarking on american psycho with a friend

[apollogyas]

2023.02.18 | saturday morning

orange latte & i’m thinking of ending things by iain reid

[apollogyas]

𝑃𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑣. 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦

The story is the WHO, WHAT, and WHERE. It is the chronological events—from which we learn who is in the story, what happens, and where it happened.

Plot, by contrast, is the HOW, WHEN, and WHY. It is a series of scenes that tells us how the characters act in relation to the central conflict, when in the context of these character’s lives the conflict occurs, and why characters act the way they do.

You need both in writing—not just in fiction—to provide a compelling narrative.

An example of something that is all story would be if you find yourself stringing together a series events by saying “and then, and then, and then.” It is harder to imagine something that is all plot, but it might be a piece of writing that discusses motivations and back stories while failing to describe any of the events that actually occur in the character’s life.

For example, in The Gift of the Magi, Della sells her hair, then she buys a watch chain, then she gifts the watch chain to Jim, and then Jim gives Della hair combs. That is story. You can already sees the contours of the plot in the series of events, but it would hardly be a satisfying piece of writing if O. Henry had only told us those events. We care that Della cut her hair because she was selling it, her most prized possession, for money to buy her husband Jim a gift. Jim, too, sells his most prized possession, his watch, because he wants to buy a gift for Della. We are moved by the story only because we get to see why the characters performed the actions they did.

𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑦𝑡𝑎𝑔'𝑠 𝑃𝑦𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑑

Freytag’s Pyramid is a classic way of visualizing exposition, the inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. You do not have to, nor should you, devote equal time to each part of Freytag’s pyramid. This type of visualization can be modified to fit the needs of your story—such as having more than one climax which naturally leads to more than one section of rising action and falling action.

𝐴𝐵𝐶𝐷𝐸 𝑃𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒

The ABCDE plot structure is another way of organizing the events in your story.

Action: The events that set off the story. This section will introduce the setting, characters, and inciting incident. Background: Provide background and context for the characters and their actions while the conflict is being developed. Obstacles help demonstrate motive, motivation, and character. Climax (or crisis): The culmination the story where the conflict finally comes to a head. Denouement: The events following the climax where you can explore the impacts of the climax; beginning wrapping up any loose ends. Ending: The conclusion; something—the character, the world, or both—has changed and we cannot go back to how things were before the story began.

[apollogyas]

2023.02.08 | dirty chai & philosophy

the paper i’m reading is omissive implicature by eric swanson

[apollogyas]

2023.02.05 | the paper menagerie and a milkshake

[apollogyas]

Beautiful from Ordinary Days

[apollogyas]

hopefully back to posting more often and there’s a whole lot of work waiting to be done since it’s finals week eek B) also planning to do extra studying as well so i’m hoping i keep up this page >:) how are you guys doing?

currently reading north and south by elizabeth gaskell, listening to satie and occasionally noir jazz

[apollogyas]

what i read in jan. 2023:

(previous editions) bold = favourite

class, race, & labour

why memphis is different (usa)

‘the goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism

the gentrification of consciousness

corky lee and the work of seeing (usa)

gender, sexuality, & intersectionality

what fandom racism looks like: (not-so) sexy slavefic

women at the barricades

how the ‘rugby rape trial’ divided ireland

trans woman tells us stories of a wilder bugis street (singapore)

the narcissism of angry young men

the realtor fighting for public housing for singapore’s lgbtq+ community

politics & current affairs

what brazil’s failed coup means for the future of its democracy

sicily’s rich olive pickings - the fruit of italy’s migrant exploitation

global firms help myanmar’s military make weapons, says report

there’s no planet b

shadow diplomats have posed a threat for decades. governments looked the other way

history, culture, & media

singapore’s lion dancers are international winners. yet national support eludes them

from inboxing to thought showers: how business bullshit took over

the strangely beautiful experience of google reviews

chinese new year reminded me why i love my grandmother

it never existed

[apollogyas]

January 29th, 2023

I'm currently revisiting my summaries of different philosophical texts and each time I do so, I feel like I uncover a new layer of meaning. It really takes time but I am actually having fun doing this!