Myths and Folklore Blog

For this week, I decided to watch the TED Talk playlist on creative writing and style. Like last story lab, I will be writing what I learned from each video. Video 1: The power of creative constraints by Brandon Rodriguez This is something I have noticed in my own writing. The more conditions you have to fulfill, the more you tend to think outside of the box when writing. For example, in D&D there is a fantasy race called tieflings, who have pupil-less eyes. I had to write a scene involving an explanation of their anatomy, so I had to come up with an explanation for their eyes. I decided to use the simple eye structure seen in spiders as an inspiration, which leads to a whole new line of intrigue to explore. Video 2: What makes a hero? by Matthew Winkler The Hero's Journey is a strange one for me. Is it really proof of a "monomyth" or just an example of our brains searching for a pattern? The thing about it is it's so vague that anything can fit into it. Not to ...

I chose this lab for this week because I feel like my writing skills have been somewhat lacking as far as grammar is concerned. So I am going to make notes on all 8 videos and put what I learned from each one so I can have a reference later. Video 1:  How languages evolve  by Alex Gendler I know this one! This is why there are different dialects, and why languages are categorized as "Latin" and "Germanic." I've heard that my dialect of Cherokee takes influence from Spanish, which probably explains why the pronunciation for Spanish is intuitive to me.  Video 2:  How did English evolve? by Kate Gardoqui I know a bit about this too! I use a lot of Old Norse in my campaigns (usually to name towns). English is a delightful Frankenstein language. In D&D there is a language called "Common" that I use as an analogue to English, explaining that it is a trade language, cobbled together using the languages of the elves, dwarves, humans, etc.. It makes sense,...

For this story lab, I watched the Crash Course mythology videos. I found them somewhat disappointing, but I do not have time this week to do another lab instead. The first video was called  What is Myth?  and the actual content in this one was fine. It is an introduction to their series and it does its job well enough. The problem I had was in an offhand comment from the speaker that Aphrodite would beat Freyja in a fight "between love goddesses." Now, as a reconstructionist Heathen (Norse pagan) I feel the need to clarify a few things about my god Freyja. First of all, she is not a "love goddess," she is a fertility goddess. Secondly, she is not just a fertility goddess, she is also a war goddess. I am sure you have heard of Valhalla. That is where half of those slain in battle go. The other half goes to Folkvangr, which is Freyja's hall. She gets first pick of the slain. She would not lose to Aphrodite. Athena maybe, I'm not trying to pick a fight with the...

 As much as I wanted to give Icarus a happy ending, I could not resist the siren's call of the story lab videos. The TV Tropes was a tempting one, as I am a fan of perusing that site, but the TED Talks grabbed my attention first and felt like they would provide more benefit for me. I think I will definitely be doing another story lab in the future; this one was a lot of fun. The first TED Talk I watched was The Danger of a Single Story  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I must confess that I have actually watched this TED Talk before for another class (Native American Music), but it is very good and the speaker is very charismatic so I watched it again. I love the message and the anecdotes are hilarious, albeit cringe-inducing due to the secondhand embarrassment. She introduces herself as a storyteller and I find that description apt. She reminds me a lot of the Cherokee storytellers I've met with the way she talks to her audience and with the tone of her overall talk. The message ...