Writing Treatise V. Classic Tale Formulas

 

V. Classic Tale Formulas

 

                There are certain tale formulas that are of a classic nature. They demand their own attentions as they are ancient; as old as humanity. We all know them or at least claim to know them as that is their commonality in the human sphere. The market also abuses them and bombards us with them as we know them well and thus exists a fallacy that these tales are “easy” and cheap when they are nothing of the sort.

Myth:
                Probably the most abused form of classic tale formula. Myth is the most real tale in the world. Myth is both the real and the story world. It is belief, enculturated as reality. It is not just story it is reality.  Religion in all its forms is myth. We live, eat, shit, and die myth. Myth reflects world and culture. This is not some story to just throw away. It is the story!  Myth is the most complex of things and needs the most care when writing it.

 

                I am not sure if it is the host of badly written video games and anime/managa that have produced this or simply following the footsteps of Tolkien without realizing the he was a professor of Saxon literature and mythology that creates the weird fascination with trying to write myth.

                So many fantasy writers try to write their fantasy stories as myth. Fantasy does not need to be myth. Many try to start at the beginning of creation in so much minute detail without thinking of plot hole implications. A lot of this information is not needed for the story at all, that 90% of the time there is no way to have this rhetorically set up in the work, myth does not work like this in general, the separation distance of believer and belief, and it is simply not the best place to start a good story. So I ask you to ask yourself why are you writing myth?  If you want to write a good fantasy story you can live completely without it being a core of the tale.

Ahh… succotash… your still here….

                So myth is most real. If you are writing myth it needs to really be represented in culture and the world. Myth exists in relationships. Myth stories work upon balance, and it may not always need to be good versus evil (a very Abrahamic thing). Again, what is lack and liquidated in the world or thing.  Myth may not be what we perceive what we want, but what is. Myths have bizarre things; especially when taking out of the Abrahamic world view, but in these things there is a cultural logic reflecting world. Myths also have holes whether if we the believer wish to accept them or not. So as always think on those relationships, people to place, supernatural to place, and supernatural to people. Here you will find your symbology and building blocks to help you plan your myths.

Draw Distance of believer to belief and supernatural to believer:
                So in the real world we have quite a variation of belief systems and people in it across along spectrum and their belief.

This question, in asking yourself about the world is on the closeness of the myth and belief of the believer in the world and the common occurrence or not common occurrence. How much is the myth like in the real world versus this fictional one.  So many questions in this? Are gods dropping by playing with mortals, are the spirits active in the world, are the churches silent hoping for a prayer with the jangle of coins in the alms basket?  My best advice is the farther the draw distance the more real and believable your story becomes as you avoid the most plot holes and rhetorical triangle issues, but in doing so you lost the mythic. If you are aiming for the true mythic you really really need to think, plan, and work hard on myth and get to some studying for the world and story.

                Why is this big deal? You guessed it, the rhetorical triangle: Ethics versus emotional soundness versus logic. Now there is a caveat to this. Is the supernatural beyond the sentient concepts of these and if so in what degree? For myth to function it needs a cultural and world reflection in the work.  However, we as human beings at least are well, human beings stuck only with what is Plato’s “ideal.” So, the supernatural may have a disparity or its own logic, ethics, and emotional soundness. Still, you need to think on these things and those relationship per usual. Elsewise, you can create plot holes in the story as you will break myth by creating bad supernatural concepts in the world which makes no sense on any level and off puts your audience.

 

The Sacred and Profane:
                There is a weird dynamic between sacred and profane in human culture and religion. You often find certain things sacred and they may be profane in a different culture. Sometimes a sacred and profane thing in a culture can shift. Life is usually always sacred and only becomes profane if profaned by something else. Sex is extreme in both regards. So in writing your fictional world think about what is sacred and profane and how it symbolically can differ culture to culture. Also, think of the weight of things. Objects close to us via the uncanniness effect are either very sacred or profane. Liminal things, things in-between can be sacred and profane. Such places include: Windows, doorways, hallways, stairs, mountains tops, forests edges, etc. Liminal includes animals: frogs, bats, night animals, night birds, etc. You see these crop up within cultural folk nature. It is the relationship to things in the myth world.  

Media and the Abrahamic:

                The media sells to the highest mass audience. That is a Christian Audience, the largest religion collectively on the planet. There are two aspects to this. One, framing media to reflect something the audience can understand simply, and the second there are periods of religious churning in a society between emergent and conservative values that crop up every 20 years or so. A big one happened in the 50s and early 60s. This created a slew of censorship on certain media codes in television, radio, and comics. Due to this, this became a paradigm of good winning over evil in simplest form which denatured many aspects of complex storytelling and myth in general. It is something to keep in mind as myth may not always be so and it is not a general rule of thumb even in the Abrahamic itself.  Reflecting on this, there is a strange take of Abrahamic in fantasy worlds that are not Abrahamic in nature. As they are not Abrahamic in nature the stories often do not make sense leading to plot holes, rhetorical triangle issues, just pulling from that common dominator. Usually the stories involve trapped evil locked away returning to be saved again by brave chosen heroes.  The first issue if your world is directly Abrahamic, then the story is already known and told, it’s the most sold book on the planet. If the world is not Abrahamic, then it should not really be there as the myth space is not there, your just being a lazy storyteller.  Now, if you’re really thinking on it and really want to have this Abrahamic esque world with deep logic then you need to think on its original story and myth context and the big why to your audience. Christianity is far more than good overcoming evil and the myth you are writing needs to be far more than that if it is Abrahamic esque.  

 

The monomyth, the Joseph Campbell Mythcycle, and the Heroes Journey:
                I will not dip far into this as no other mythologist’s work has been ranted on in such depth. I will simply say his work is great because it showed myth relationships on common ground. However, not all myths follow the same cloth, and it’s a shame that people look at him when there are other mythcycles in the world to explore.
                So what this is a basic tale formula standard to many myths? A hero goes on the journey and brings peace or order to the world (what so many forget is the step where the hero dies). Many movies follow this, thanks to Star Wars; it became a basic script that Hollywood loves to sell. If you wish to write this simple formula, study it, beware tropes, plot hole issues, and always question why you are writing it.  
1. The hero in this form needs to die in one form or the other.

2. The chosen one is easy to create tropes and plot holes abound. If they are the chosen one the plot pretty much auto resolves itself thus leading too hard to balance audience sense of danger or suspense of disbelief.
3. Myth draw distance needs to be very considered here for myth to work. Too close and we get plot problems, too far away and you don’t have any excuse to use the monomyth.

4. Think on the world and its nature to avoid plot problems.

5. What does restoring balance and order actually mean? Good overcoming evil or something else entirely?

 

Beginning myth:

                Again, there is a weird notion that myth needs to start at the beginning when myth may not be the beginning. First layer to this is a draw distance we as mortal beings are not there for the beginning and are far removed from it. What is the beginning? Some folks take the lazy Zoroastrian approach, things born from chaos, but that too is a thing. You see the logic hole we have created here at starting this early.  Few myths even start with things that detailed. Some do not even have a concept of the beginning of the world. Some cases the world is already here, the world is the world, or the world is not the world or not the first world. How much of this is important for your story. You could drop this in a strange argument why is it that important? Your myth does not need start here. For your myth, start where you need to; at whatever is lacking and liquidated in either the mythic realm or in the mortal realm.

 

Ending myth: 

                Where does myth end? This is quite a hard to understand quandary. Well, back to the nature of endings, nothing ever ends. Some have restoration of new worlds at the end of the old, but that is not the end of the myth. So your ending cannot be in this vein. You need to think of what is lost and found for audience. So many take to Lord of the Rings as the pinnacle of myth.  Lord of the Rings does not end with good overcoming evil. It ends with the supernatural leaving the world to men; the 4^th age. There is so much to unpack there. The original Star Wars good might overcome evil as a rebellion restores its democracy, but there is still a galaxy out there with other evil in it. So think carefully on nature of the world and myth. Great evil being sealed away again versus destroyed (why was it not the first time) may have more merit in certain aspects. To the Dine people, there is evil the hero twins could not kill because the twins were still human or realized that it was part of the universe (part of the myth reality). 

 

 

 

Mixing myth and reusing myth:

                Religions don’t mix. Mixing myths leads to weird questions and authors often forget to answer those questions leading to plot holes. When writing myth think on people and their relationship with others and their beliefs. How true is the myth culture to culture? When you begin picking one over another you lead to bad problems. Like real-life one would expect there to be much variation and wide spread of myth.  If you have very close myth then that becomes an interesting cultural phenomenon with little variation. However, when you pick and pull from different mythologies myth ceases to be as the logic does not add up. It’s common in young adult fantasy as it’s something people know and an easy sell, but many do not do their homework.  This becomes especially weighty when the Abrahamic becomes combined with the non-Abrahamic. So think on the religions of your fictional world and how much they make sense based on that draw distance between believer and the supernatural. If writing with real religions be very careful mixing them together to avoid problems. If you are using real life religions do your homework and be respectable. Myth again is the most real and there are still people who follow and believe in things.  Media and capitalization strips such believers of their religions that they still exist and practice. Not doing so is a good way to miff your audience.

Magic systems:
                Magic systems too need their own logic. If writing myth it is easy to just really on the myth to carry out magic as because gods did blank without really thinking on what magic is. Think on how magic is tied to the myth from the worshipper’s perspective. It does not always have to be DND esque. Magic can be very old lawish, laws of the world that are such as vampires are weak to sunlight being a common one. Old laws tie to trope and architype but often find place in reality of religious practice. Magic can be tied to world. Look at myth, world, and culture and how a magic system can make sense. “Magic,” in our own world follows its logic, tied to the relationship between things. “The magical” things are often in those liminal like and unlike things.

Myth is complex so think very heavily on this, due deep research, be respectable, take your time, and ask yourself do you really want to write myth. 

Legend:

                Legend is an interesting sticking point of tale formula. It is simple to write and gets audience excited. It pulls us of the unreal to the real. Legend hangs in the balance testing our world of what is real or not real. Legend logic is simple, but often silly in the world. Legends prey on our hopes and fears in the world that we live. Legends perpetuate themselves. Writing legends only really becomes problematic when legend gets confused with myth. Myth is the most real. Legend sits on the boundary of what is real or not.  I am not going to spend a lot of time here, go pick up a copy of Ben Amos’s legend work if you wish to learn more on legends, he is still alive, and the last scholar of his kind. All lesser men like me to follow.

 

Supernatural Legends:
                This is tricky as it ties legend to myth.  Supernatural legend though defies myth. It does not fit the myth logic. It plays on people’s fears, usually tied to place or superstition. These are not tied to myth at all, and seem bizarre in their function. True, there may have been something in the past, but it is not spelled out correctly. Whether real or not for a larger work is of question, but for a short story that is up to your tension building and what you wish your audience to receive.

Folk Rumor:
                A hard concept to understand, but very common place. Gossip is the devil’s talk after all as the old saying goes. We are not logical beings and are bad at grasping logic spinning stories form nothing and hearsay out of proportion. Folk rumor runs very rampant in the internet age. What first could be a joke or malicious person wanting a quick buck with a fake news story can blow out of proportion. Is there an epidemic of people eating tide-pods? Did Jennifer Lopez become fat? The type of thing you see in the Enquirer, weird advertisements on websites, click bait articles, but at the same time actually causing damage.  This does affect reality and can be a great place for exploring something in a story.      

Heroic Legend:

                Again, this is a place where myth and legend blur. The difference is legend is never canonized in official religion. It may come from people’s myth sense, but it not part of myth officially. It is something that happens in the distant past, thus its realness or not is up to speculation. People wish to believe something of the place they live and the people who lived there in the past. It becomes a concept of history which writes itself. So in fantasy things can become legend, but make sure legends are not correct history nor is it myth. This is something to always be wary of when writing heroic legend.  These often stem out of folk rumor.

Urban Legends:

                Another strange concoction of the human mind. Urban legends transform simple things. They are odd, but test our senses in the world and what we know and trust in it. They on the surface are things of young high schoolers. They bring fact to weird stuff; what we trust whether real or not. Many like to tie urban legends to supernatural as part of a myth to be busted in a work of fiction. However, their bizarre existence takes that out of myth context. When you step back you realize how stupid they are and at the same time how puzzling and revealing their logic flow is. Long ago, perhaps urban legends stemmed from other legend types, but now they sit in weird little snippets. Most of the time when someone uses Urban Legends they are taking on horror aspects for a youth’s mind. Feel free to do this as it the cheapest of thrills. If your making your own, do some homework and actually think of what perpetuate this urban legend whether a fear of something trivial, fear of technology, fear of character, etc.

The new urban legend: 

                There is a slew of urban legends being made up via copypasta/creepypasta internet stories and YouTube/podcast channels. Many of these will evolve to be actual urban legends with time probably. However, these are nothing but horror stories from their context again taking speed from folk rumor and entering into the larger world. Most do not have true legend logic. If you are using them make sure you have copyright as many are copyrighted and if they actually fit legend form.  Many though are going to mark you though as an imagination-less hack recycling someone else’s made up story.

So legends are simple to write, we know them well.
Legends follow their own logic.

Legends are not myth.
Legends may have beliefs tied to them, but usually about people, place, and a past which may or may not exist.
Legends in their realness are hazy.
Legends through folk rumor can greatly impact the world as they do in our world even if they may be absurd, or not real, or have good evidence of being real.

Folktale:

                The least real of all the classic tale formulas. However, there is a catch. Fairytales revel to us our innermost wants and desires, what we often want most in the world. This gives them a power over myth. We claim myth as so important in our lives but do not know its complexity, when the simplicity of the fairytale formula we know far more strongly and find comfort therein. It is a strange irony of life. Fairytale tale formulas are simple. However, in that simplicity you change the tale formula it ceases to be the folktale. Always beware inverting the folktale as that is where you receive the most audience backlash. Folktales let you do the bizarre, the most taboo with acceptance. They allow interesting explorations of humanity in the world that cannot occur, but deep down the occurrence of such peeks our interest. If using an old fairytale respects it, it should not be the main gist of your plot. This helps you avoid plot holes and create a unique story with the folktale included. If writing your own folktales think down in the world and the characters. What is being told and why, what is lacking, what does it reflect in both the characters desires and our own? You can fix folktales as folktale logic allows for it pretty easily. However, with media folktales have been watered down. If you are using it do some research and do not perpetuate a lie. Disney was notorious for watering down folktales along with Victorian society. If you have never read the actually recordings of the Brothers Grimm or Perrault they do not end with “happily ever after.” Some are quite grim, some are cautionary, and some are meant for a good laugh and self-mockery, others are weird inspections of a human element. Find the depth of these for the folktale is the human tale and in their use in a story can add interesting depth to the world and its people.