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

Week 14 Reading Notes: Ashliman, Part A

I read from the Ashliman section of the Brothers Grimm unit for this Tuesday. I chose it because it looked like it had a lot of good short standalone stories in it. I was not disappointed at all! Just like the reading unit that I did for Monday, this unit got right to the meat and potatoes of the story. Reading one continuous story is great, but I like being able to read a lot of short stories because it gives more a lot more writing ideas to work with.

I did notice that there were some parallels between some of the stories, such as "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids" and "Little Red Cap." In both stories the wolf eats the main characters but gets caught and cut open and has his stomach replaced with stones and then eventually dies because of this. Some of the other stories didn't make much sense to me but they were still interesting regardless. One of these stories was Herr Korbes. It starts out with a rooster and a hen going on a journey to Herr Korbes house by taking a wagon drawn by mice. On the way they fill up their carriage with numerous other animals and objects and when Herr Korbes come into contact with them, he gets all beat up. Then the story ends with, "Herr Korbes must have been a bad man." I'm not sure that I get this seeing as how the story never shows the perspective of Herr Korbes.






With all this in mind I think that I can take a few elements away from these stories to use in my own storytelling. I like the way that the Wolf is portrayed in these stories so I will probably write him into my own story. Also, he kind of gets the crappy end of the deal when he helps out Old Sultan so I might incorporate some of that story and have the Wolf end up benefitting in the end. I could possibly combine the Old Sultan story with the Seven Kids story and go in that direction. We shall see!

Bibliography: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D.L. Ashliman (1998-2013).

Image: Rooster, Hen, and Four Mice

Week 14 Reading Notes: Russian Folktales, Part A

For this Monday's reading, I decided to go with the Russian Folktales. This was my original choice for my first week 13-14 reading, that I changed to Dante's Inferno. I thoroughly enjoyed these readings and I got a lot of good storytelling thoughts from them! For instance, most of these stories get right to the point of the story itself whether that be being nice to the poor or doing what you're supposed to be doing in the first place (integrity).
In contrast to the obvious morals, some stories seem like they will end with a moral of the story but then they end with the person getting what they want in the first place. In one story, a rich man is supposed to give some money to a poor man, then he fakes his death to get out of his debt, then helps the poor man scare off some bandits, gets some money in the process, and never pays the poor man what he originally owed him. It's actually really funny to read some of these stories and see how they unfold. There was one story that kind of seemed like an origin story that was about three siblings. In the end of the story, the two sisters abandon their brother and become a stream, while the brother chases after them and ends up becoming a delta. It was actually kind of sad that this happened because the three of them had gone through a lot together and in the end, the sisters abandoned their brother.

Combining all these different ideas, I think that I will take the straightforward and to the point elements from the Russian folktales unit. For example, I will open with the main characters and the main antagonist and clearly lay out the issue at hand. Then I will advance the story while leading to a seemingly clear ending. Then, I will not write that ending, but write something absurd lol.


Bibliography: Russian Folktales by W.R.S. Ralston (1887).
Image: A rich man and a poor man