Thursday, April 27, 2017

Week 14 Storytelling: Old Red


Herr Korbes, a detective of the Woodlands Internal Affairs agency, walked down the South Trail of the crime scene looking for clues that would help him solve his case. Korbes had a couple of suspects but he didn’t have enough evidence to figure out who the dirty cop was. Among his two suspects were Wolfy the over aggressive narcotics officer and Jack the big officer who constantly came close to breaking the rules to solve his crimes. Jack seemed harmless enough but it was Wolfy who he was willing to bet was the dirty cop. Korbes continued down the path but then stopped as he noticed a long piece of wolf hair caught between two branches. “Ah it doesn’t surprise me to find this here,” Korbes thought to himself. “It’s off to Wolfy’s house now,” he thought.



“Knock, knock, knock.” Korbes said, “Open up Wolfy. I know you’re home and I have a few questions for you.” Wolfy opened the door and invited Korbes inside. The two of them sat down at Wolfy’s coffee table opposite of each other.



“Ask your questions, Korbes, I’m an open book,” Wolfy said confidently.



Korbes dug into his pocket and pulled out the wolf hair and put it on the table. “Mind telling me why I found this on the South Trail earlier today?” Korbes asked.



Wolfy’s whiskers twitched ever so slightly. “Easy, that is my usual route that I go running on every morning.”



“If you say so. Last question, when’s the last time you saw Old Red? She disappeared yesterday and we believe a cop was involved in her kidnapping,” Korbes said.



Wolfy’s eyes narrowed. “Surely you don’t believe I had anything to do with her disappearance?? I was actually guarding her house with Jack last night and neither of us saw anything out of the ordinary during our shifts,” Wolfy stated.



“That’s my point, you two were the last to see her,” Korbes said as he stood up. “Anyway, I’m off to talk with Jack now. I’ll be in touch, don’t leave the Woods,” he said. “Knock, knock, knock.” “Jack, it’s Korbes, open up,” he said.



Jack opened the door and invited Korbes inside to sit down with him to talk. “What can I do you for?” Jack asked.



“It’s about Old Red. She went missing yesterday and I believe a dirty cop was involved in her disappearance,” Korbes said. Knowing full well that Jack was going to ask if he was involved, Korbes continued to speak and said, “My first question for you is what were you doing last night?”



“I was on guard duty at Old Red’s house with Wolfy, but neither of us saw anything out of the ordinary,” Jack said. Korbes began to scratch his head to think when Jack said, “However, Wolfy did tell me that I could take a nap while he kept watch and that it was no big deal.”



“That’s it!” Korbes exclaimed.



“What’s it?!” Jack asked surprisingly.



“While you were asleep, Wolfy must have snuck in and ate Old Red!” Korbes exclaimed again. The two of them then proceeded to Old Red’s house to investigate the crime scene. Once there, they noticed that the door had been opened so they proceeded into the house. They were astonished because there was Old Red on her bed, but something was different about her.



“What big hands you have Old Red!” Korbes exclaimed.



“What big feet you have!” Jack exclaimed.



“And what big teeth you have!” Korbes exclaimed right before Wolfy jumped up and swallowed him whole. Not missing a beat, Jack grabbed the axe conveniently lying against the wall and killed Wolfy, saving Korbes in the process.









Author’s Note: As you can tell I adapted my story from the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, but made my characters detectives. I decided to do this because I wanted to write in a different style and experiment with it and see what I came up with. In the end, the Wolf still ended up being the bad guy, the “lumberjack” still ended up being the hero, and I just added Herr Korbes into the story to add another character. I got his name from another story called Herr Korbes from the Ashliman unit.



Bibliography: Little Red Cap translated by D.L. Ashliman (1998-2013).



Image: Wolfy

6 comments:

  1. I thought it was so cool how your story read like a crime drama. This was such an awesome way to retell this classic story! It was very creative. I am impressed that you chose such a different storytelling style from the original. That is something that I have a hard time doing. I really enjoyed this one. Great job!

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  2. You are a very well written writer. I liked how you turned Red Riding Hood into a NCIS episode. It made reading the story that much more interesting because of how you twisted the story to be more personalized. I would like to add maybe some more description of your characters surroundings might make the story stand out some more. But I did like your use of dialogue and how it wasn't too overbearing but just right for the story. Great work.

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  3. I thought your story was a fun read. I like how you named your characters. It’s always fun when people use the original character’s names or personality to come up with their new character’s names. I like how you turn Little Red Riding Hood into a crime drama. It was a fun twist on a classic story and it worked well.

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  4. Wow, great story! I liked how you took the concept from the original story and applied it to a crime scene investigation. I thought it was suspenseful and really well written. It was also very creative and entertaining. The dialogue added a nice little touch and helped the story move along smoothly. Keep up the good work!

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  5. It's an interesting idea to retell Little Red Riding Hood as a murder mystery. A nice contrast between fairy tale and gritty realism.

    I wish you went full ham on the details of the world to make us really feel the contrast. Example: the story could've been set on a stormy night.

    Our characters could use a bit of physical meaning. It's hard to tell if these are animals (in the case of the Wolf) or people (referring to Jack).

    How does Korbes make the connection someone ATE the grandmother in particular? It seems like a bit of a rushed assumption, based on his known evidence.

    What happened afterwards? Ending immediately with killing Wolfy seems a bit too abrupt, even though the investigation is closed.

    Overall: Attractive idea with the potential of a mystery, some surrounding details and additions and elaborations on the plot will make this a mystery worth solving. Keep up the good work.

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  6. This was a clever story. I think making it into a story about detectives was a great touch. It fits in with the story line as well as keeps true to the original story. You did great with writing this story. It has great imagery and details. Keep up the great work!

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