Small Life Stories

Notes on the Making

Process, decisions, behind the scenes — how the stories get made.

  • Moving to a self-hosted site

    I’ll be migrating my wordpress.com site to a self-hosted site over the weekend and launching the new site on Monday. I’m planning on continuing to post summaries here with links to the main blog, but let me know if that turns out to be a hassle and I can move your subscriptions over to the…

  • Daisy’s room ‘o foam ‘n photoshop

    The impermanence of Daisy’s current life is written all over her room. Where Rosie has metal and wooden furniture filled with bits of her life, Daisy’s space is all flimsy foam furniture and empty cupboards. The most obviously flimsy part of her room is the lack of a second wall. I have the materials to…

  • Writing without words

    Early on, I decided that my doll adventure would rely very little on words. What entranced me were the the story and the images, and everything that pulled me away from that felt like a distraction.

  • Backstory: My Doll Adventure 07 – Daisy and the mysterious photos

    Go here to read this episode: MDA 07: Daisy and the mysterious photos First shoe dropped. The second shoe will drop next month when Daisy meets a mysterious stranger and her adventure begins in full. I’ve avoided using words within the story, but the central mystery is complex enough that I finally had to throw…

  • Building a room for Rosie

    In Rosie’s doll house, the central element in the room is the bed underneath the casement windows – this is where most of the adventuring begins and ends.

  • Writing plots for doll adventures

    When you’re photographing your stories, it’s not enough to come up with a plot. You need a plot that you can photograph, which means that you need to be able to get your hands on all of the characters and props.

  • Backstory: My Doll Adventure 06 – Rosie’s Doll Adventure, Part 1

    Go here to read this episode: MDA 06: Rosie’s doll adventure, part 1 First, great news! I managed to reattach the head of the severed-head doll so that she can star in this adventure as Rosie’s doll self. More about that in Wednesday’s post. Many thanks to Dovile from DovileDollart for creating an absolutely lovely…

  • Opening to the street

    “The sight of action is an incentive for action. When people can see into spaces from the street, their world is enlarged and made richer, there is more understanding, and there is the possibility for communication, learning” -Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language One of the reasons I’m sharing my work so regularly, openly, and in…

  • Helpful resources for the doll adventurer

    I suspect that the “right” learning tool is specific to each person, but here are some learning resources I’ve found helpful. There’s no specific course or printed material on playscale (1/6 scale) dollhouses and miniatures, but many books on miniatures are good. In my library, I have these:

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