Today, and at least for the following four Mondays, I will post a writing assignment. Then later in the week, a weird revision strategy.

Just for fun, write a fable . . . We will follow the conventions (rules) of a fable, at least at the beginning. They are relatively easy rules. If you have a computer and prefer to type, you may use it or write it out long hand. The assignment is short—that’s one of the rules.

PURPOSE: The purpose of our fable and of any fable is to teach a lesson about right and wrong. The bad are punished in fables, and sometimes the good are rewarded. There is no character development, no surprise twist. The plot develops with certain inevitability. I think of a story I was told as a child, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

RULES: The conventions (generally accepted rules) of a fable:  

• Very short narrative (story),
• written in 3rd person (they, he or she, no I or we except in dialogue),
• it happened in the past (told in past tense—ran, not runs / fell down, not falls),
• and the title is not clever.
• Aim for 500 words single-spaced if you are typing so that it fits on one page.
• The story offers simple and straight forward plot with no supernatural events (no magic except maybe talking animals).
• A few stereotypical real characters (one or two or three?) named for what they are (may contain speaking animals who otherwise must act like animals.  Do not send a squirrel to Prom or take an antelope shopping for a car!) If you use animals as characters, it’s best to choose animals you know well and that your audience knows as well—the personality of the animal is readymade. We know Crow is loud and bossy, the Robin is alert and timid. We know Squirrel is small and runs about in trees and gathers food, but so does Chipmunk. You might use human characters: Boy, Girl, Farmer, etc. Just remember: no names! No Jimmy Squirrel or Peter Rabbit. No imaginary creatures (no Dragon or pink Unicorns or Mermaid) or creatures behaving in extraordinary way (no romance between Fox and Rabbit or Goldfish in the ocean). You are not writing for Disney.
• The tone is instructional with a moral usually stated at the end. Cheaters never prosper or A job well done is a reward unto itself.
• No specific setting in time or place, but generally takes place outdoors in the natural world and always in the past.
• Most often regarded as having developed through oral tradition, but fables you know generally have an identified author (such as Æsop). In this case the author is you. 
• In any case they were not intended to be believed as literally true, but the sort of story told as a warning and to amuse.

Try to follow these rules in order to set yourself up for REVISION on Wednesday. Consider them a useful frame on which you then construct your story. But on the other hand, you do not need to hand this in to anyone for a grade. Not even me. Write what you like.

To review: keep the story short, simple, with few characters:. Once upon a time something happened and Someone was courageous or foolish and was promptly rewarded or punished. Third person (he, she, they) and past tense (ran—it happened in the past). The story works best when both author and intended reader know what the characters are like—a Seagull character rather than Ostrich. 

Model: for this and the following assignments, I will provide some sort of example of what such a story might look like. Here are two. The first is from Joseph Jacob’s 1894 translation and is in the public domain. I wrote my longer fable seven or eight years ago.

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THERE was once a young Shepherd Boy who tended his sheep at the foot of a mountain near a dark forest. It was rather lonely for him all day, so he thought upon a plan by which he could get a little company and some excitement. He rushed down towards the village calling out “Wolf, Wolf,” and the villagers came out to meet him, and some of them stopped with him for a considerable time. This pleased the boy so much that a few days afterwards he tried the same trick, and again the villagers came to his help. But shortly after this a Wolf actually did come out from the forest, and began to worry the sheep, and the boy of course cried out “Wolf, Wolf,” still louder than before. But this time the villagers, who had been fooled twice before, thought the boy was again deceiving them, and nobody stirred to come to his help. So the Wolf made a good meal off the boy’s flock, and when the boy complained, the wise man of the village said:

 

[I will add that in every version of this story I was told or read as a child, the Boy was eaten too.]

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Cat and the Butterfly Hunt

by Jan Priddy

Long ago, though it might have been just the other day, Cat had an idea. She would hunt butterflies and amuse the Family. She was curled up on the Family’s bed when she hatched the idea, quite warm and comfortable. “I’ll give myself a treat,” she said to herself, “ and catch something. The Family will be admire me, especially the tall one, Man, who opens my catfood and sits properly so that I can curl up to sleep on his lap.”  

Early the next morning Cat stood at the door and told the Child to let her out. “Now,” she said as clearly as she could. “Now,” she repeated patiently, and finally Child opened the door and out Cat went.  

Cat sat on the stoop and looked about for butterflies, but the sun was still low in the morning sky, and the air chilly and no butterflies flew in the garden. So she washed her paws and face, giving particular attention to the fur between her toes while she waited. She moved her cleaning efforts from her toes to her back, giving long swipes to her tail, and before she had time to move on to washing her tummy, the sunshine slid over the tops of the trees and bushes and warmed Cat’s ears. All the while, Cat kept her attention on the Family eating their breakfast inside the house. She did not have to look at them to know they were watching. She knew she made a pretty picture. The Family would find her activities wonderfully entertaining. She stopped washing and looked again for butterflies. They would see what a beautiful and clever Cat she was.  

“Ah-ha!” she cried when the scrap of orange darted into the garden. She stood perfectly still, resettled her four feet under her, and focused on Butterfly fluttering its wings in the rhododendron. The tip of Cat’s tail twitched and jumped before she did. And then, before the thought passed, she had the butterfly between her teeth. She took it to the glass door into the house, sat on the mat and waited, quite pleased with herself.

“Yuck!” cried Child from inside the house. “Cat killed a butterfly!”  

“Yuck?” thought Cat. “I give you the gift of my beauty and grace and skill, and you say ‘yuck’?” Down her throat went Butterfly, and twitched uncomfortable in Cat’s stomach, until she threw it back up on the mat. She felt better, but she was indignant and hungry and though she called at the door, the Family wouldn’t let her back in.    

“Go eat butterflies if you must, but we’re not letting you in the house where you can throw them up on the carpet,” said Woman.    

Poor Cat spent the rest of the day in the garden and when Man finally let her in for the night, he did not open a can of catfood or sit properly to allow her to curl in his lap. 

She was most displeased, but that was not the last time Cat caught butterflies. It was only the last time she ate one in her own garden.  

~Sometimes the lesson learned is not the one intended.

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If you choose to write this assignment, please let me know how this goes for you.