Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Week 2 Storytelling: Brothers in Blood

Bangana and Bangala, two brothers in blood. Their stripes nearly identical save for some markings on their foreheads. Two of the noblest tigers in all the jungle. They were following a deer named Sambaran. Sambaran was an old and wise animal who knew all the ancient tales of the land. Sambaran was old but strong in stature and his antlers were tall and wide, providing further evidence to his age and wisdom.

Bangana and Bangala
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They were trekking through the deep jungle, a place haunted by history and scarred by time. Other large beasts were tracking their movement but dared not attempt to strike at the two brothers or their guide. In this jungle lived a beast that was unknown to time but not unknown to the legends. The beast was named Gaurat. Gaurat was a disfigured and gnarly bison, changed by evil and time. It had dark skin that was akin to rotting leather and horns that were bent and cracked. Its legs were white like bare bone.

Bangana roared a challenge to Gaurat who obliged without thought. Bangana and Bangala quickly entered battle with Gaurat who stood no chance against the strength and skill of the brothers. Bangana struck at Gaurat, breaking her legs and blinding her. Bangala broke her horns and tore off her matted tail. Gaurat who was not completely defenseless, shape-shifted into a hare in an attempt to escape. The hare was bloodied and beat and tried to jump as fast as she could but could not match the speed of the brothers. Bangana swiped one final blow and killed the hare.

Sambaran sang praises and chanted mantras. The heavens sang back at the brothers and provided them with increased strength and skills. Sambaran led the brothers to one of the many places that he and others like him chose to bed down. A number of deer were there and welcomed them all and gave gifts in thanks for defeating the wretched bison. This place was situated in a clearing with a clear view of the sky and was surrounded by numerous colorful and flowering plants. The birds sang and chirped their delights in praise of the brothers and put them at ease after their battle.

Gaur Bison
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After resting for some days, a whole herd of bison trampled upon the clearing in search of revenge. The brothers reacted immediately in order to preserve this place that was such a pleasant refuge in the wilderness. The brothers used their newly increased strength and skills to quickly kill this herd of bison. After defeating half of the bison, Bangana roared so loudly that the remaining bison relented their attack and ran away in complete fear. They all ran in any possible direction for days and days and ran so far apart that they were unable to regroup for years. The many deer, led by Sambaran, were in awe of the brothers and gave thanks to them for not only defeating Gaurat but ridding the jungle of the bison altogether.


Author's note: My storytelling last week replaced animals with humans so I thought I would do the opposite this week. The names I used for this story are all related to the types of animals that can be found in India: Bengal tigers, Sambar deer, and Gaur. The plot here still pretty much follows the plot of the original story of Thataka with only one noticeable change; instead of sons seeking revenge like in the story of Thataka I chose to have a whole herd of bison attack the brothers in the clearing. I think the images shown here fit well for the story that I wrote. There is a picture of two tigers to represent the two brothers. The picture of the Guar does not necessarily represent Gaurat but does show what the other bison would look like. I did also use the image of the Gaur bison to create the original description of Gaurat but I then modified Gaurat’s description to show that he was different from all of the other bison. My overall motivations were to keep the same story but show it in a different light. I chose to use this story because I enjoy reading about the battles and combat so modifying it was fun and interesting!

This is the first story that I am adding to my Storytelling Portfolio.


Title: Indian Myth and Legend
Author: Donald A. Mackenzie
Illustrator: Warwick Goble
Year: 1913

12 comments:

  1. Tyler I really enjoyed your story. I thought the replacement of animals with people was clever. I personally enjoy using this technique in writing. Animals can make a story very unique. I noticed a similar sentence structure through your story. For example you would say haunted by history and scarred by time, then you would say changed by evil and time. I would try to be slightly more diverse in your sentence structure. But overall the story is well written. I also would have loved to see dialogue between your characters. I also would love to see more detail in the setting. I think you did a great job describing the history of the setting, so it would have added more if you would have physically described the setting more. I also don't really understand what your title connects to haha. But I really enjoyed the last sentence of the story, it was a good conclusion to your story. But overall, great job!

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    1. The title is essentially the name of the story that I was retelling from the public domain edition of the book. I couldn't really think of anything clever as a replacement so I just left it. Oh well :)

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  2. I thought that your idea of moving the story characters to animals was a brilliant idea (I did the same thing). Overall the story flowed very well with paragraph transitions being very smooth. Having read the original story previously I enjoyed your interpretation more fully. I liked your choice of animal for the characters especially the tigers. Your word choice explaining the bison description was very vivid and brought many images to my mind none of which I would want to encounter in the wild. I found a typo, but I’m sure you would have caught it had you read it a couple more times. I think dialogue could have added another layer to your story especially if you had them talk between battles. I liked your first sentence I felt like it drew the reader in, but you could make it a bit longer and still be alright. The last sentence was very conclusive and was a good ending to the story.

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  3. I like the idea of using animals instead of people and I think your story was well written. I also noticed that some of the wording in the second paragraph was a little repetitive. I did like how you broke up the story a little by adding the pictures into the story itself. Overall, I think it was a good story.

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  4. Great Story! The first sentence sets the mood of the story. You know that these brothers should not be taken lightly. Though I liked your use of words sometimes it felt like you were repeating yourself. For example "Haunted by History" and "Scarred by time". However when you described the Bison, I could vividly picture it in my head. The picture of the tigers that you provided was the perfect photo you could of used.

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  5. Awesome story Tyler! I like how you swapped the human characters with animals, that adds a little spice to the story. I also think it shows a lot of thoughtfulness that you specifically chose animals that are native to India. I think you have a really good opening paragraph. The way you describe the brothers and their prominence helps sets the tone for the rest of the story. However the sentences at the beginning are choppy and don’t seem to exactly flow. For example, and this is totally my opinion, but I think something along the lines of “Bangana and Bangala, two of the noblest tigers in all the jungle. Brothers in blood, their stripes nearly identical save for some markings on their foreheads” flows more. Also, the choice of characters are a little confusing for me because at the beginning when you said they were following Sambaran I thought you meant they were stalking him. A deer seems like more of a likely meal than a bison. However, I understand that it’s a story so this is a pretty irrelevant comment. Overall it was a really good story, great job.

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  6. This was a really good interpretation- it followed the original story close enough for the reader to understand what was happening, but at the same time was different enough to maintain the reader’s interest. This story does a great job of showcasing your writing abilities. I thought one impressive aspect of your writing was your word choice. Specifically, some words that stood out to me were: disfigured, gnarly, rotting, obliged, shape-shifted, and wretched. One thing I noticed about your formatting was that your story and author’s note were in different fonts. This helped to clearly separate the two pieces of your post. The images you selected were great; I like how you chose pictures of real animals instead of a cartoon or painting. It makes the story feel more real. I will be interested in seeing how the remainder of your portfolio grows. Keep using the vivid imagery and expand on your creative ideas.

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  7. Hi, Tyler!

    I really enjoyed reading your take on this story! In particular, I loved your use of characterization through animals. You very skillfully employed the schemas that your readers already have built up about certain animal species to enhance your main actors. However, it threw me for a loop (in a very good way!) when you characterized the deer and tigers as friends. By making the deer's appearance reflect its wisdom, you made the unlikely relationship logical.

    The other thing that really stood out to me was your vivid word choice. You are a very descriptive writer and that paints a beautiful picture of the plot progression for the reader. However, while some words really aided in the understanding of the plot, I felt that some of your additions felt a bit stilted and forced.I think your phrasing is very powerful and it shouldn't be overwhelmed by excess. This is one of my huge problem areas in writing, so I'm working of this personally!

    Finally, I love that your images stayed true to your story and brought it to life. While you could've used images from the epic, by choosing to use real animal pictures, you gave your story independence! I'd love to read more about this unlikely group of animal friends in the future! Excellent work!! :)

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  8. I believe I have read a previous version of this story, but I am fairly certain you have edited it since then and I feel that it is worth it for me to reread and re comment on it. As a whole this story flowed well the only portion that I struggled with was when the brothers obliged, I am not sure what that meant in the context of the story. The spacing for this story is good because it allowed the story to be portioned without making it choppy. The picture fit in the context of your post. I specifically liked the overarching analogy of the bison and the tigers. I feel that this analogy fit the natural order of nature. One thing that I would have enjoyed, was having more dialogue between the characters I feel that it provides more depth for them. Overall I enjoyed the story keep up the good work.

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  9. Hi Tyler!
    I really enjoyed reading your story! I have never attempted to write a story this way, meaning substituting animals for the human characters and vice versa. It flowed really well and your descriptive imagery was splendid. To be honest, while I was reading I kept kind of envisioning something similar to this adorable movie I watched when I was younger. It is called Two Brothers. It's sort of similar, in the sense that it is about two tiger cubs, Kumal and Sangha, brothers of course, who ended up being separated in the Cambodian jungle. So that is kind of the imagery I was going with. When I first read about the deer I thought that the brothers were in pursuit of the deer! I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that wasn't the case. Took me for a loop there! Eventually I did see which story you had decided to write on. I think it was a very clever adaptation. Great job.

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  10. That was awesome. The pictures really help depict the animals. I was just reading your storytelling for this weeks blog comments and wanted to venture over to your portfolio to see what was going on here. I really enjoyed reading this story. It seems simplified since there isn't a big character tree or deep backgrounds but just some animals telling a story. I hadn't thought about trying to switch out human characters for animals. I really like that idea. I might have to try it some week.

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  11. This was such an awesome story interpretation. I think replacing the human characters with animals worked very well and I loved the way you were able to continue the story in the same manner. It is such an interesting story and telling it without dialogue was an awesome touch that really added to the creativity you put into the story. Something else I really enjoyed about this story was that it was not necessary to have a background in the epic because the story was understandable on its own. You changed it so much that it stands alone, but the original story is obvious to anyone who has read it. I also really enjoyed how you used animals that are typical in India and also the pictures that you used were fantastic. They fit really well with the story. This was such a fantastic story and I really enjoyed it. Good work!

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