Transcripts[]
Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby
Tim and Moby are sitting on their living room sofa. They flip channels on the television, looking for something to watch. They stop on an advertisement for an upcoming program.
NARRATOR: The common desert vole. For centuries, scientists have exploited them.
A vole, a small mouse-like rodent native to parts of North America, appears on the screen. It squeaks and scurries across a desert landscape. It comes upon a small cage baited with cheese, enters, and is trapped inside. A scientist picks up the cage and examines it with a cruel smile.
NARRATOR: This Sunday, the Re-Vole-ution will be televised.
Text on Tim and Moby's television screen reads: the Re-Vole-ution Will Be Televised.
TECHNICIAN: We've bred these voles for maximum aggression.
A female lab technician and a military general are in a laboratory. There is a vole in a small cage on a table in front of them. The cage has a water bottle attached to its side. The vole pulls the water bottle into the cage and bites a hole in it, squeaking loudly. Then it looks up angrily.
GENERAL: Outstanding.
The general crouches and speaks to the vole.
GENERAL: What's your name, son?
The vole squeaks a reply.
GENERAL: Ah, you'll make a fine little soldier.
The scene changes.
SECOND TECHNICIAN: This facility is sitting on a magma chamber the size of Rhode Island!
GENERAL: I didn't get to be a six-star general by listening to nerds.
The general is walking down a hallway with a male lab technician. The scene changes to a downtown area.
MAN: Everybody run!
NARRATOR: Vole-cano, It's gonna blow!
The volcano shudders and a giant vole emerges from behind it. The giant vole turns and faces the viewer menacingly. It shrieks. Drool drips from its open mouth. In the living room, Tim also drools. He wipes his mouth.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: This is going to be the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Tim reads from a typed letter.
TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, I'm supposed to pick a summer reading list in my favorite genre; but I don't even know what that is. Can you help? From, Emma.
Hi, Emma! Before putting down a single word, writers have to make all kinds of choices.
MOBY: Beep.
An animation shows a young writer at a laptop. She ponders what sort of piece she should write.
TIM: Should they write poetry or prose? Fiction or nonfiction? Should it be a novel? A play? A short story?
A graphic illustrates the writer's choices as Tim describes them.
TIM: Maybe it should be a script for a TV movie! These are just some of the different forms, or modes, that a piece of writing can take.
Text of a word montage includes: op-ed, fiction, screenplay, article, short story, poetry, and graphic novel, among other modes.
TIM: Once that's decided, writers still need to pick a genre. That's sort of like the style they'll use to tell the story.
A graphic beneath the word montage represents the concept of genre as a funnel, through which a mode goes and a story comes out.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: Well, let's say you wanted to write a story about courage. It might be about a girl who protects her town from a marauding giant. That would be in the fairy tale genre.
An image shows a young girl defending herself with a pitchfork against a giant's bare foot.
TIM: Or you might tell the story of a detective who overcomes his fear of the dark to figure out whodunit. In other words, a mystery! Genres are flexible: they can work across different modes.
A second image next to the girl with the pitchfork shows Moby dressed like the detective Sherlock Holmes and holding a magnifying glass. He is in a dark room and looks scared.
TIM: Either of these could be a short story, a graphic novel, a play, you name it!
An image shows the fairy tale about the giant as a graphic novel. A second image shows a poster for a performance of Moby's mystery as a play.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: You can tell a story's genre by the conventions it follows. These are similarities in tone, style, or subject matter. Sort of like the rules for that kind of story. If you've read a few mysteries, or even watched some mystery shows, you know that the main character has to be a detective.
An image shows Moby as a detective investigating a safe that has been broken into.
TIM: Or at least someone who's trying to solve a crime.
Another image shows Moby examining an empty can of motor oil with his magnifying glass.
TIM: The detective will interview suspects and investigate clues.
Images show three robot suspects that Detective Moby is interviewing.
TIM: There's often a red herring, something that throws the hero, and readers, off the right path. It could be a suspicious character or a clue that seems to solve everything.
An animation shows Detective Moby interviewing one of the robots, who seems to have suspicious motor oil smeared on his mouth.
TIM: Throughout the story, a sense of suspense keeps you turning the pages.
Moby the detective holds a flashlight as he explores a dark house. Above him, a piano swings by a rope from the ceiling.
TIM: And finally, the detective solves the crime using evidence that was available to the reader.
Detective Moby holds up a black-and-white photograph. It shows a wheel track coming from a puddle of motor oil. Moby points at a robot with a wheel that matches the track in the photo. A robot police officer takes the criminal robot away.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: As you read more of one genre, you'll start to pick up on its conventions. You'll anticipate plot twists and appreciate how authors play with the rules in unexpected ways.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: Well, like by mixing up the elements from different genres. Take Harry Potter: It's set in a world of magic and wizards, putting it in the fantasy genre.
An image shows Harry Potter flying on a broom.
TIM: But it's also a coming-of-age story, tracking Harry's growth from a helpless kid to a confident young adult.
An animation shows Harry Potter growing from a young boy to a young adult.
TIM: J. K. Rowling blended elements from these genres in a unique way. Her creation was so successful, the coming-of-age fantasy novel is now practically its own subgenre.
An image shows several young adult fantasy novels, including Twilight, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and Divergent.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: That's a more specific form of genre with its own particular conventions. For instance, satire is a subgenre of comedy that explores a problem with society.
A diagram shows the many subgenres of comedy, including satire, improve, slapstick, surreal, prop comedy, spoof, mockumentary, black comedy, sitcom, and more.
TIM: Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a good example: It satirizes how tough it can be to fit in at school. It's a painful subject in real life, but that's one of the conventions of satires.
Moby reads Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He imagines Tim as a character from the book, being harassed by other kids.
TIM: They touch on raw emotions, creating an effect that's funny and dark at the same time.
An image shows Tim as the wimpy kid being punched by a sneering boy.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: Well, the point isn't to memorize all the conventions of every subgenre. Follow your own taste, and learn as much as you can about your favorite genres. You can explore realistic fiction if you like to read, er, realistic stories. If you want to read about other galaxies or future technology, science fiction will be more your speed.
Moby walks through a bookstore, examining different genres of literature. When he opens a science fiction book, a UFO flies out of it.
TIM: As you explore, you'll see how authors use genre conventions to get across a story's main message, or theme.
As Moby continues looking at the science fiction book, a light saber tries to cut off his head, and green legs or plant parts try to grab him from the book. Moby shuts the book and looks concerned.
MOBY: Beep.
Moby points at the giant vole on their television screen.
TIM: Oh, this? Well, it's got giant, man-eating rodents in it, so I'd say it's science fiction. And as silly as it is, it seems to be about the dangers of trying to control nature. That's a common theme in many different genres. Mary Shelley explored it in Frankenstein, about a brilliant doctor who thinks he can control life itself.
An animation shows Doctor Frankenstein bringing his monster to life.
TIM: Shelley uses the horror convention of a murderous monster to highlight the failure of the doctor's ideas.
An animation shows Frankenstein's monster walking through a town at night. Thunder booms and lightning flashes.
TIM: Ernest Hemmingway took on a similar theme in his realistic adventure story, The Old Man and the Sea. Here the struggle against nature is represented by an epic battle between a fisherman and some hungry sharks.
An animation shows an old man standing in a boat and holding a harpoon. He is being circled by sharks.
TIM: See? Three genres, three unique approaches to the same idea.
Images and an animation show the Vole-cano, Frankenstein's monster, and the old man with the sharks to illustrate the genres.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: The BrainPOP movie genre? What do you mean?
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: This isn't fiction. It's real!
Suspenseful music plays. A narrator's voice booms. The shot begins to zoom out.
NARRATOR: A boy and his robot. For years, they've explained the mysteries of life.
Tim gets up and stands in front of the sofa. As the shot continues to zoom out, we see that the scene is actually taking place on the screen of a tablet.
TIM: Real, I tell you.
NARRATOR: But the biggest mystery of all is right in front of them.
The tablet's user turns it off.