The recent anime Mawaru Penguindrum features a character (Japanese) who explicitly shifts realities by writing the change that she wants to make down in her diary. The penalties for making this kind of change are written on her body -- she saves the life of an animal, and comes to school the next day with a burn scar. Saving the life of another child carries a much more significant cost.
Would Princess Tutu count? I mean, technically the men -- Drosselmeyer and Fakir -- are the traditional storytellers, but Duck is the one who changes the narrative by insisting on the possibility of a happy ending.
Pretty much all of Catherynne Valente's books that I've read deal with this in one respect or another, but the most obvious fit is The Orphan's Tales, a pair of books in which the titular female orphan tells a complex and interwoven series of stories and, in the telling of them, makes the conclusion happen. In keeping with the Scheherezade feel, the frame setting is Middle Eastern, although I forget exactly what background the orphan turns out to come from except that it's EXTREMELY COMPLICATED.
In Labyrinth, Sarah tells a story about goblins taking away her brother, and they do. It's strongly implied that the Labyrinth itself sprang out of Sarah's imagination and all the influences around her; she escapes it by telling herself a story in which David Bowie and his terrifying tight pants have no power over her.
There is also Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad, which is kind of a different twist in that in both those books, a villain is altering reality with a false story, and the female protagonists re-tell the story in order to set the world straight.
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Date: 2012-04-18 08:31 pm (UTC)Would Princess Tutu count? I mean, technically the men -- Drosselmeyer and Fakir -- are the traditional storytellers, but Duck is the one who changes the narrative by insisting on the possibility of a happy ending.
Pretty much all of Catherynne Valente's books that I've read deal with this in one respect or another, but the most obvious fit is The Orphan's Tales, a pair of books in which the titular female orphan tells a complex and interwoven series of stories and, in the telling of them, makes the conclusion happen. In keeping with the Scheherezade feel, the frame setting is Middle Eastern, although I forget exactly what background the orphan turns out to come from except that it's EXTREMELY COMPLICATED.
In Labyrinth, Sarah tells a story about goblins taking away her brother, and they do. It's strongly implied that the Labyrinth itself sprang out of Sarah's imagination and all the influences around her; she escapes it by telling herself a story in which David Bowie and his terrifying tight pants have no power over her.
There is also Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad, which is kind of a different twist in that in both those books, a villain is altering reality with a false story, and the female protagonists re-tell the story in order to set the world straight.
DON'T GO AWAY, I'M SURE I'VE GOT MORE.