Myth and Folklore

This website is absolutely wonderful! It includes lots of fascinating articles that address both very broad and very specific questions about writing. Some of the concepts addressed were ones I would never have thought to seek advice on, but I found to be very helpful. I have included notes on a few of my favorites below! Character Arcs Or Character Development? What’s The Difference? -Character development: how a character changes over the course of a story; linked to plot -Example: Bilbo Baggins; begins his journey in fear and at the end looks at the world with a new sense of wonder -The hero's journey: when a protagonist is reluctant to begin their journey, but by the end has changed to become almost a new person -CD can be positive, negative, or regressive -Can cover for the failings of a story -Character arc: the structure of how a character changes within a story  -Essentially, character arc consists of segments where the character is undergoing distinct chan...

The Man Who Traveled With the Buffalo -A group is tired from outrunning an enemy -Most die, but the survivor sleeps under a tree -Ravens living in the tree converse about the men of the group, who had been killing buffalo -The man is thirsty and journeys to a prairie dog village -One of the prairie dogs brings him water -The man sees a buffalo calf and journeys with him -They come to a group of buffalo and camp with them -When the man wakes the buffalo are gone -He journeys after them, camps with them once again, and in the morning finds them gone -This cycle repeats several times -The chief buffalo speaks to another one of the buffalos about his wife -This buffalo declares that if there is anyone braver than him, he should be entitled to marry his wife -The man is given arrows by the chief buffalo -The man and the other buffalo then engage in battle The Animals Race -The men of the world congregate to run a race to the edge of the world, where a pret...

The Cultures of Heroes and Owl -Kubatc'istcine and Naiyenesgani are companions who go to visit their grandmother -They ask her to make something to play with -Grandmother tells them to go to their father -Their father, the sun, gives them a hoop and pole game and arrows -Tells them not to roll the hoop north -They inevitably do, and it lands in owl's house -Owl's wife chops them up and put them in a pot of boiling water; they tell stories -When she tries to skewer them, they jump out of the pot -Owl determines they are using magic not to die -She then puts them in the ashes and lays a fire on top of them; they tell stories -When she fails again to retrieve them as a cooked meal, owl lets them go -They run home with their toys The Swallowing Monster -A girl finds a dead deer by a lake where she and others are camping -This happens four times, and each time the deer is eaten -One of the campers spies the monster killing the deer -Various m...