Week 10 Story Lab: EmpoWord

EmpoWord Chapter 2: Telling a Story

The very first page is such an interesting and powerful beginning. The idea that in the end, we're a huge collection of stories is a great way to begin, pondering the different stories that we have to tell, as well as what everyone else could tell. However, while telling our stories, we need to remember to write them in a way that keeps people intrigued, as there are many portions of our stories that may not interest everyone else.

I like the example that the author uses to explain why we want to only include the highlights of the stories if the goal is to keep people interested. One way they say to do this is to consider it as a few photographs, rather than 24 frames per second video. By mixing in the interesting portions and leaving out some of the monotonous details, we can write a better and more captivating story. Despite it making for a good story, I question how good of advice this is. These techniques feel like the reasons we see social media being criticized, as we see only the highlights of other peoples' lives, and it makes us forget that they don't always have these incredible moments. It can create a false perception about the person and their life. Although the example is a good one for why we would want to write this way, I wonder what kinds of effects it has in the real world.

They also discuss different ways to explain the plot, and different plot arcs. One of my favorite arcs that we see today is in medias res, where they begin with the middle of the story to create some suspense and interest, before going to the beginning. The first example I can think of that uses this arc is Breaking Bad, where we find Walter White in his underwear in the middle of nowhere. Another way to play with the plot arc is to slow down or speed up certain segments, dependent on how important you or your audience see them.

Walter White

Source: TVOverland

We also look at how the point of view affects the story. Dependent on not only who tells the story, but also what way it's portrayed, such as tone and the mood, the point of view can determine so much as far as how the reader interprets the work. In the story The Three Little Pigs, simply switching to the wolf's point of view can dramatically alter how the story is seen.

Overall, combined with everything else in the chapter, I found it to be a very fun and interesting thing to read. While I may not have to consider all of the information provided while I write my stories in this class, I will likely write them again at some point in the future. I do worry that promoting this type of storytelling, at least for our own personal stories, can create the same issues we see today on social media and how we share our lives, but outside of this critique, I believe it was a very useful article to read.

Each Day is a New Story

Source: QuoteFancy

Reading Notes: Great Plains, Part B

Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913).

The Man Who Shot a Ghost
A man is traveling, and hunts several rabbits. He builds a fire that night and cooks a rabbit to eat, when he hears the ghosts coming. He leaves and hides under a tree, listening to the ghosts. They end up surrounding the man, and when one of them kicks him, he shoots them through the head. They run away, and he goes to where they were screaming from. One of the bodies buried there has been unearthed by a wolf, and has a hole in its skull.

The Indian Who Wrestled With a Ghost
A man is traveling, and stops in the woods for the night. He hears a woman, and pretends to be dead when she comes near, only showing life when she's about to remove his foot. The next night, he stops in the woods again, and after feeding and sharing tobacco with a ghost, wrestles him, having been told if he wins, he will be successful in battle. They wrestle all night, and eventually wins, using the fire's ability to weaken the ghost to gain the advantage. He then wins the battle, gaining horses and killing the enemy.

The Wakanda, or Water God
A man and his wife lost their only child, a son when he drowned. This left the man depressed, and two men who were sacred were sent on a journey to find him. They found him alive, but were told he would die if he left the water, as he ate the food of the Wakanda. The father still wished to see his son, so they exchanged for the boy, who died when he left the water, and was buried. Later, the same couple lost their daughter, however, she lived as she did not eat the Wakanda food.

The next few stories focused on how things came to be. They included a crow sowing pebbles that became mountains, dust that became the land, and twigs becoming massive forests. We also learn why possums play dead when they sense danger. It's always interesting to see how others interpret the creation, and why animals have the instincts they do. The following story explained the dangers of snakes, and how even the smallest things we cannot feel can be the most deadly. This was followed by explaining why different animals are lean or fat, based on how the creator decided they looked in each state.

Is this Possum dead or alive?

Source: Flickr

How the Rabbit Killed the Giant
The rabbit travels to a village, where people are afraid of a giant that takes all of the food. He visits the giant, and eats there, but in the following days, was unable to get his own food, as hunters were afraid of the giant and would not take the meat for themselves or split it. After a few nights, he convinces an insect to bite the giant while he sleeps, and he later dies from this bite.

Legend of the Head of Gold
A man sends one of his sons with Wakantanka to attempt to give him something to do, rather than staying idle. He is given a job tending to the horses, and told not to look into the little house. One of the horses tells him to look into the house, and dip his head into the gold. He does so, and they escape while Wakantanka chases, saying they will die for their actions. They end up successfully escaping, and were able to defend against all future attacks from others.

Ictinike
The first story about Ictinike involves a turtle that he comes across, and he questions why it stays where it is. He convinces it to travel with him, and tricks it into sticking its head out farther than normal, and beats it with a bone, killing it. He cooks the turtle, and falls asleep before eating it, and a coyote eats all the meat while he is asleep.

Drawing of Ictinike

Source: Wikipedia

In the second story, Ictinike visits the beavers, who feed him their youngest son. Ictinike breaks one of the toe bones while eating, and when the youngest is reborn in the water, he now has a toe that appears broken. Ictinike left his tobacco pouch when he left the beavers, so they return it to him, and he wished to eat one of his children, which beaver refused. Ictinike then goes to visit the muskrat, and is fed wild rice that came out of a pot instead of rice. He asks for the same thing from the muskrats after leaving his tobacco pouch there as well, and attempts to turn water into rice, but is unable to. He does the same thing with a Kingfisher, with similar results.

Reading Notes: Great Plains, Part A

Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913).

The Creation
The people were created by their parents, the Sun and the Moon. When they first came to Earth, it was covered in water, but the most trusted animal, the elk, was able to coax the winds into removing the water and revealing the soft ground below. The excited elk rolled on the ground, and from his hairs that were left sprang all sorts of foods and plants. The people also found footsteps, and followed them to meet who they belonged to.

Sacred Legend
Over the years, the people became more and more resourceful. They replaced grass clothes with animal hides, created pots to cook the meat in, and built the first tepees, to name a few of their creations. The legend shows the resourceful nature of the Native American people, and how they evolved as the time came.

The Legend of the Peace Pipes
The Chief calls together a council, and adds the owl and woodpecker to it when they come near as if to join. He has a servant go and collect a specific tree, on which an eagle lands and drops a feather. However, it is not the feather he wants, and when he finally gets one from the proper eagle, an imperial eagle, and made peace pipes with its feathers. These pipes were used to settle disputes within the tribe.

Eastern Imperial Eagle

Source: Wikipedia

A Tradition of the Calumet
The Mysterious One told the northern nation of a nation to the south. The northern council decides to attack the southern nation, which angered the Mysterious One, who appeared as an eagle over the chief's daughter. She said that they must not harm the First People, so they cleansed themselves of their actions and made peace with the First People.

The Sacred Pole
While multiple tribes were having a Great Council, a man discovers a powerful tree, and tells his father of it. After the council concludes, the father tells the chief of the tree, and after it is found by runners, has it chopped down and placed inside a special tent. They designed it in the shape of a person, and prayed to it for help, as well as to become a chief.

The Buffalo and the Grizzly Bear
A grizzly bear is walking along a river, and finds a buffalo. He attacks it, claiming it would attack him instead. The buffalo thinks it should attack the bear, and the bear knows it thinks this, and attacks it again. The buffalo then attacks the bear in return, although the bear thought at first that it was scared. They later realize they should be friends due to their similarities.

The Eagle's Revenge
A man heard an eagle eating the deer he had shot, so he shot the eagle. He took the deer home and told the story of the eagle, and his tribe began a dance. A strange man showed up, and began telling how he killed a man, and when he said "Hi!" at the end of the story, one of the men with rattles for the dance died. He did this until all of them were dead, avenging his brother, the eagle.

Unktomi and the Bad Songs
Unktomi is traveling and sees many ducks, geese, and swans on a lake. He tells them he has bad songs in his backpack, and they beg him to sing them for him, which he does while they dance with their eyes closed. He goes around killing them while they dance, but when one doesn't die immediately, it squawks, and the rest escape. He boils the ones he did kill, and leaves them to cook while he sleeps. A mink comes and eats all the meat, and replaces the bones in the pot, leaving Unktomi with nothing but his bad songs.

Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies
The old-woman-who-never-dies has 6 children: 3 sons (the sun, the day, and the night), and 3 daughters (the morning star, the evening star, and The Striped Gourd). Each spring, she sends birds that signal to the Indians what crops to plant. They build scaffolds to feed these birds each year, and perform rituals. They do this again in the fall so as to bring the buffalo to them.

Legend of the Corn
A young man goes hunting, and finds a buffalo standing on top of a hill. He decides to wait for it to move before he kills it, but each day, it stays in the same spot. After a few days, he finds it gone, replaced by a plant, but no signs of where it ran to. He tells his tribe, who see what he does. They defended the plant, believing it to be a gift, and when it is ripe, the young man tries it, and when he does not die, they conclude it was a gift from Wahkoda for them to eat. They shared this gift with other tribes in the following years.

Tradition of the Finding of Horses
The Ponca traveled the river, and found the Comanche. The Comanche had horses, which the Ponca did not, and the Ponca were scared of the horses once the Comanche learned how to fight. After many battles, a Comanche speaks to the Ponca, and they become friendly, sharing their fighting technology and knowledge of horses. However, the Ponca later attacked the Comanche, stealing most of their horses and taking them back home with them.

Comanche atop horses

Source: LegendsOfAmerica

The Ghost's Resentment
A young man died, and his parents had a grave scaffold made for him. Another young man, who is married, hears his father and his friends planning to rob the scaffold for clothing, and they do not listen to him trying to dissuade them. He covers himself in clay and acts like a ghost when they arrive, scaring them off and making them return home terrified. When they get home, he is asleep and they are unaware it was him. He makes fun of them for failing in their mission, and they don't return to the grave.