Mythology and Folklore Blog

Collection of Articles from AdviceToWriters (Carl Hiassen from Wikipedia Commons ) For this story lab, I read two "listicles" with advice for writing, Neil Gaiman's 8 Good Writing Practices  and 22 Rules of Storytelling from Pixar . These articles were mostly just advice on forcing yourself to write and good storytelling practices. I liked that Neil Gaiman's article focused mostly on just forcing yourself to write. He focuses a lot on letting go of being perfect and just writing whatever weird thing you want first and then going back and fixing it. The Pixar article focused a lot more on the actual storytelling. A lot of the focus was on the characters themselves, making sure you have a character that people root for and has agency. In addition to the "listicles", I read an interview with Carl Hiassen . I chose to read this interview because when I was younger I remember really liking Hoot. I guess I didn't realize he mostly wrote adult fictio...

The Four Brothers who Brought a Dead Lion to Life. Which is to Blame when he Kills Them All? (Lion Skeleton from Wikipedia Commons ) Plot: Four brothers are born to a family. When the father dies they are left in poverty. Sad to be poor the oldest tries to kill himself. When he fails to do so the four brothers decide to travel around the world to learn some magic. The first brother learns to put the proper flesh on any skeleton. The second brother can put any hair or skin on a skeleton with the proper flesh. The third brother can put the eyes and other sensory organs on a skeleton with proper flesh and hair or skin. The fourth brother can bring any animal with the proper skeleton, flesh, skin or hair, and sensory organs to life. To prove their skills the four brothers go in search of a skeleton to demonstrate their skills. They happen upon a lion skeleton and each performs their magic. Once the lion is brought to life he eats all of them. Which brother is to blame for their deat...

The Girl who Transposed the Heads of her Husband and Brother. Which Combination of Head and Body is her Husband? (A Goblin from Wikipedia Commons ) Plot: A laundry man finds a beautiful woman and falls desperately in love. Their fathers arrange for them to be married. The two are very happy and in love. One day the husband goes to the temple and is inspired by his reverence for the goddess and decides to make a sacrifice of himself and beheads himself. His brother-in-law comes into the temple and seeing this is devastated and does the same thing. The wife comes in and is horrified to find her husband and brother both beheaded. Distraught she goes to hang herself in a tree. The goddess stops her and says that if she puts the heads back on the bodies they will awaken. In a rush, the woman accidentally puts the wrong head on each body. The goblin asks the king which is her husband, the body or the head? Her husband is the body with the husband's head and the brother's body ...