{"id":13,"date":"2016-05-30T23:06:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T06:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/?p=13"},"modified":"2016-05-30T23:06:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T06:06:17","slug":"15-how-evil-came-into-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/2016\/05\/30\/15-how-evil-came-into-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"1:5 — How Evil Came into the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your task is to take the story about how evil comes into the world, the story King tells about the Witches\u2019 convention in Chapter One of The Truth about Stories, and change it any way you want, except the ending. You can change to place, the people, the time \u2013 anything you want. But, your story must have the same moral \u2013 it must tell us how evil came into the world and how once a story is told, it cannot be taken back.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Team_Spirit\"Stories are living things–and they are dangerous. \u00a0When evil came into the world, it was in the form of a story. \u00a0Every evening, the creatures of the world would gather together and share their daily stories. \u00a0The birds would tell stories of the sky and all the creatures they had spied on. \u00a0The bears would share their struggles to scavenge the ripest berries to prepare for winter. \u00a0The snakes would share their difficulties in finding warm rocks to fight the constant chill of their bodies. \u00a0The stories were all good and the creatures of the world were content.<\/p>\n

One evening, a newcomer joined the gathering. \u00a0None of the creatures afterwards could recall exactly who it was, but all of them remembered the story that was told. \u00a0The newcomer shared a warning with the others. \u00a0A great and terrible creature had been sighted. \u00a0Hairless, clawless and without visible defenses, the creature should have been harmless, said the newcomer. \u00a0But this strange creature isn’t harmless, insisted the newcomer. \u00a0Beware, beware, beware.<\/em><\/p>\n

The creatures at the gathering laughed. \u00a0If this new creature could not fight, it could not be so terrible. \u00a0We will attack its eyes, claimed the birds. \u00a0I will attack with my claws and teeth, chimed the bear. \u00a0I will coil my great body around it and constrict around its lungs, added the snake. \u00a0All the other creatures agreed and added their own strategies, until all of them felt confident that this new creature could do them no harm.<\/p>\n

Laugh if you want, the newcomer warned, but they are coming. \u00a0They are cunning and cruel and full of fear. \u00a0Their eyes see only a dead, cold world. \u00a0They are deaf to the speech of other animals, deaf to the wind in the trees and the babbling brooks. \u00a0But worst of all, they fear. \u00a0They fear the world they cannot hear. \u00a0They destroy what they fear. \u00a0They destroy even themselves. \u00a0Beware, beware, beware.<\/em> They are coming now.<\/p>\n

All of the other creatures had grown silent and still. \u00a0We do not like your story, take it back. \u00a0Take it back. \u00a0Take it back.<\/p>\n

But it is too late. \u00a0They are already coming.<\/p>\n

Commentary<\/strong><\/p>\n

I found this form of storytelling to be very difficult. \u00a0While I have crafted fiction frequently in the past, they have all been written storytelling; the Genesis version of events, with “rhetorical distance,” to use Thomas King’s example, as opposed to oral storytelling, involving a performance\u00a0for an audience (22). \u00a0I researched other creation stories in trying to come up with my own (I also found what I think is the full version of Leslie Silko’s creation story<\/a>, if anyone was curious). \u00a0I discovered one very important thing on this journey: I suck at oral storytelling. \u00a0It’s harder. \u00a0As an oral storyteller, you can’t just rely on your words to paint the picture–though I’m sure this helps. \u00a0You need to act, use different tones and voice, draw people in. \u00a0Even a short story like the one I wrote above involves a performance, or else my listeners lost their attention. \u00a0I’m not ashamed to say I researched for tips and tricks. \u00a0I was in over my head and needed to tell a good story at least once! \u00a0My endeavors led me places such as this<\/a>, and I learned something crucial: there isn’t a lot of information of telling a story specifically orally. \u00a0Did anyone else try to research something similar in preparation and encounter the same result?<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

“Image.” Digital Painting. \u00a0Magic Jargon.\u00a0<\/em>Magic: The Gathering, 9 Sept 2006. \u00a0Web. \u00a030 May 2016.<\/p>\n

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative<\/em>. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2003. Print.<\/p>\n

Silko, Leslie. \u00a0“[Long Time Ago].”\u00a0First World Stories,\u00a0<\/em>n.d. \u00a0Web. \u00a030 May 2016.<\/p>\n

Ware, Tom. \u00a0“Tips From a Master Storyteller.” \u00a0The New\u00a0Zealand\u00a0Guild of Storytellers,<\/em> n.d. Web 30 May 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your task is to take the story about how evil comes into the world, the story King tells about the Witches\u2019 convention in Chapter One of The Truth about Stories, and change it any way you want, except the ending. You can change to place, the people, the time \u2013 anything you want. But, your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40969,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40969"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/summer2016canadianstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}