Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Story. Show all posts

Monday, April 24, 2017

Week 14 Storytelling: The Big Bad Wolf

Caption: Wolf. Link.
Bibliography: Ashliman, Grimm Brothers' Household and Children Tales, Link.

Story:
Chester was a bright young student who loved gardening and playing the harp. He was kind and sweet, but didn’t have many friends and kept to himself for the most part. Chester was the youngest of seven wolf brothers. Chester got all of the nice genes in the family and his older brothers were all cruel and liked picking on others, especially young little Chester. Chester was the brunt of all of the bullying of the family. Even Chester’s parents didn’t step in and stop the bullying.
                  When Chester would finish his chores, he would go outside to his secret garden and plant some of his favorite flowers. He loved all flowers, but found roses to be especially beautiful. He kept his harp hidden in his garden in a secret meadow surrounded by trees. When the weight of the world was especially heavy for Chester, he would retreat to his secret garden and tend to his flowers and play his music.
                  One day after school, Chester thought he was being sneaky and he took a shortcut from the path home to go off to his garden. However, his brothers were close behind and followed him to his secret garden. Once they saw what Chester was doing, they came out in the garden and started trashing it. They stomped around in his garden, pulled his flowers, and destroyed his harp. Chester was devastated. He wondered what the point of rebuilding it all was when he knew that his secret place was compromised now and they would constantly destroy it.
                  That day, Chester changed. Chester was no longer the sweet little boy who loved to garden and play music. Instead, he started picking on people like his brothers. He quickly became known as one of the bad wolves like his brothers and everyone started to hate him, too. The teachers and students were scared of him.
                  Chester grew up mean, and never had any real jobs. He would work at various places until too many customers complained and he eventually got fired. This was a common story and Chester hopped from job to job, just like all of his brothers. Chester eventually became a criminal because there were no places willing to hire him with the reputation he built for himself.
                  Chester started by selling drugs, but there was too much responsibility involved in selling drugs, so he didn’t last long. Stealing, though, was definitely more of his forte. He started by pickpocketing people at the local market and stealing some food here and there. He quickly moved on to bigger jobs, though. He would break into people’s houses when he knew they weren’t home and steal their expensive belongings. But Chester even tired of the robbery life, and picked up the hobby of committing bigger crimes. Chester was the local hit man; people would go to him when they needed people to disappear because Chester was good at eating people up and leaving no sign of them.

                  One day, Chester saw a pretty little girl who looked yummy with a red hood walking through the woods…

Author's Note: I really liked the character of the wolf in the Red Riding Hood story. He is conniving and eats Red Riding Hood's grandmother and pretends to be her so that he can eat up Little Red, too. I thought he was a smart character who probably wasn't always bad. I decided to give him a back story that made people understand why he did the things he did now. 

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Week 13 Story Planning: The Big Bad Wolf

Bibliography: D. L. Ashliman, Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales, Link.
Caption: A wolf. Link.

Story Planning: I really liked the wolf character in the Grimm Brothers' stories. I noticed him in (obviously) the Red Riding Hood story and also in the story with the seven children raised by their mother who goes to run some errands and the wolf eats her children while she's away. I liked the wolf because he had such a defined character and this is something I immediately knew I wanted to use in my story. I want to give a backstory of the wolf and hopefully explain why he's the way he is. He is deceitful and hungry, but he didn't know any better because that's the way he was raised. In my story, I intend to tell about the wolf's story. I plan to explain his rough childhood and his parents' stories, because I think that there should be an explanation for why he's not very nice. I think it'll be interesting to give his back story and will make people pity him more, because he always ends up dying in the Grimm Brothers' stories, which I don't think is always fair. This way, the readers will sympathize with the wolf more and will understand his story. I plan to explain how his parents taught him to be deceitful and were never loving, supportive parents so he hates the children with supporting parents (or grandparents, for Little Red). The Wolf was raised with a lot of other siblings (way too many), and his parents never gave him any real attention. His older brothers bullied him and he was always bullied at school too. He didn’t have very many friends because his older brothers were notorious for picking on anyone and everyone. The Wolf was a solitary child who liked gardening and music, but eventually gave both hobbies up as he got older due to his brothers’ bullying.
 

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Week 6 Storytelling:








Mina was a wonderful wife; Franklin, however was rather undeserving. He was constantly complaining about her and questioning her loyalty and trust, though she had given him no reason to. One bright, sunny day, a beautiful woman arrived on their doorstep. She had long, blonde, curly hair and the greenest eyes Mina had ever seen.
“How can I help you?” Mina asked.
“I’m here to see Franklin,” the beautiful woman replied.
Despite her immediate jealousy, Mina stepped aside and let her in. She went to get Franklin and told him that there was someone here to see him. Franklin walked in to the foyer, immediately recognized the woman, then left with her in a hurry. Mina was devastated, but she refused to let it show, even after Franklin didn’t show up back at home for a week.
When he returned, Mina tried to find out more about what he did and where he went, but she was afraid of prying too hard.
“Did you have a good time?” Mina asked as Franklin was searching through the fridge.
“Sure did, are we out of orange juice?” Franklin replied.
And that was that; not a word more was exchanged about his week away. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, Mina was approached by many men. She turned them all away without a second thought; she loved Franklin and knew that he wouldn’t like it if she gave any of the guys any serious consideration.
Their relationship seemed to be fine; they weren’t fighting, they still went on their weekly dates, everything seemed to be going great, or so Mina thought. There was a knock at the door one day and she answered without a second thought. Standing there in front of her was a beautiful woman with dark brown hair to her mid-back and dark, piercing eyes. Immediately, Mina got a knot in her stomach. She knew immediately what this woman was here for, but she questioned if she should just send her off or play dumb and shut the door. She knew Franklin wouldn’t appreciate that. So instead, she simply decided to let it happen again.
“Hi there, what can I do for you?” Mina asked the woman.
“Hi, I’m here for Franklin,” the woman replied.
Mina stepped aside and ushered the woman in, even if a bit reluctantly.
“I’ll go get him,” Mina said.
She retrieved Franklin and walked with him to the foyer. Again, he recognized her immediately and without another word, he was off. Mina was so upset she could hardly eat or sleep for the next two weeks until he returned. The drill was the same as last time; they exchanged few words over the topic and skirted around it until their relationship was normal again. Until one day, another beautiful woman showed up. This woman had long, vibrant red hair. She ushered her in without a word and grabbed Franklin from their room. Without another word, he was off.

This time though, Mina had had enough. She packed up all of her things and was off within two days of Franklin leaving. She left behind their home and her phone, knowing Franklin would try and contact her. Just like that, she started a new life without Franklin and never once looked back.


Author's Note: I read the Japanese Mythology stories and found Yamato's wife's devotion particularly interesting. She was willing to throw down her life for his despite all of his infidelities, and I wanted to emulate this. However, I didn't think that she deserved to be subjected to it anymore than necessary so I wanted the wife of my story to finally gain the strength to leave her husband. 
Bibliography: The Romance of Old Japan, E.W. and F. Champney, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-japanese-mythology.html