Indian Epics Blog

This week for the story lab, I went to the Writers Write website to browse around at different themes for stories. This was an interesting website from the get go because the first two posts that caught my eye were about Harnessing Time Flow and a version of writer's block called Starter's block. I browsed through different stories, and one thing that I think really stood out about this website is that it covers more niche things within writing. We have the opportunity to see these larger scale things that will improve our writing, but the small scale things might be better. Instead of trying to make more dynamic dialogue or more interesting characters, one thing that we might be omitting is the flow of our story in the background. It can be important to use different kinds of pacing or different settings to really expand the story organically instead of unnaturally honing in on one character in particular. Since I basically browsed through articles, I only immediately rememb...

This week, I continued reading about the Jatakas Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt. As per usual, while they all were interesting, three stood out in particular. The first is How the Monkey Saved His Troop. This one was interesting for me because it seemed odd that there was such a fixation on mangoes. I really thought that there would be a war over the food for the mangoes, but it was moreso a protection battle for the king versus the monkeys. It is interesting to me that after watching a larger monkey give himself up that the king decides to protect him, but most of these stories all have some honor theme to them. The second story is The Brave Little Bowman. This seems like a very common theme where someone with skill is passed over due to a semi-non-essential trait. The larger one probably should have practiced and learned from the better Bowman as well. Overall, it is odd that such a large man just runs back to the city, but when you think about it, the smaller one is better of because...

This week, I continued reading more Jatakas tales. Three stories that stood out were The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer; The Woodpecker and the Lion, and The Red-Bud Tree. These stories can be found at More Jatakas Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt. The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer really stood out because it showed the selflessness of the deer. I feel like I have read many stories where once the deer was free, the turtle would be left to perish in the sack in the tree. But through teamwork, they are all able to survive. I think it's a nice tale about making sure that you always thank those that help you. In contrast, we see the lion disregard the woodpecker in The Woodpecker and the Lion. It is weird that we are suddenly getting so many stories with woodpeckers, but regardless, the lion decides that even though the woodpecker had hedged his bets well with the lion, since the lion did not eat the woodpecker, he has paid his due. This seems somewhat unfair as the lion is telling the woodp...