Читать книгу Types of Prose Narratives. A Text-Book for the Story Writer онлайн

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How to proceed to write a fairy-tale

If a writer cares to attempt a new "old" fairy tale of the real sort, he might observe the following more specific suggestions, which were written out before "Puck of Pook's Hill" came into the hands of the author of this book, but which happen to express fairly well what might be deduced as Kipling's procedure. (1) Decide on the country in which the events are to take place. (2) If you are not already familiar with that country through the medium of traveling or residence, make yourself familiar with it by reading. The more you know about the common people and their superstitions, the better your story will be. (3) Make lists of names of the good and bad spirits of that country together with their occupations and powers. (4) From these lists pick out the being you are going to treat as your chief personage and clearly define to yourself its relation to the other spirits. (5) Then weave about this personality a series of events for which it is directly or indirectly responsible. (6) Be sure to make the fairies or spirits of the other world the chief actors. If living man comes in, he must be simply the object to whom they offer their favors or on whom they play their pranks or wreak their vengeance. It is the doings of the fairies or of the beings of the extra-natural world that you must make your reader interested in. (7) If you care to write a weird fairy tale, select the unpleasant spirits and proceed; but be sure not to make your story revolting instead of weird. A good weird tale is the work of a master and pleases because of its art. A horrible story any bungler can tell. (8) Finally, remember the working definition: Summary definition A fairy tale is a narrative of imaginary events wherein the chief actors are beings other than man and the gods—beings who have power to help man or to tease and molest him, but not the power utterly to destroy him.