As I mentioned on Friday, I went to a workshop last week:
‘How do you climb a glass mountain? Exploring Fairy Tales Masterclass.’ It was
run by the wonderful Jo Blake Cave, who gives her job title as ‘Storyteller’. Isn’t that
lovely?
Sixteen of us sat round in a circle, and after some general
discussion of what makes a fairy tale (not a fairy story, note, which is a
story that has fairies in it), Jo told us her version of the Brothers Grimm
tale ‘The Three Languages’, which I must admit I didn’t know.
Then, working in pairs, we had to retell it in our own way.
I was surprised how difficult I found this. Clearly I’m not an auditory learner.
Next, we had to plot the shape of the story on a graph, marking the fortunate
and unfortunate events, and the threshold points that could be said to be
decisive moments or turning points in the narrative.
Then we were each given four pieces of paper on which we had to write
(1) a problem and a task, (2) a hero(ine), (3) a magical object and (4) a
helper. These were shuffled and we were given back a different set of four unrelated elements from which to construct a story.
It was fascinating and tempted though I am to write up the
entire two hours I will instead tell you that as well as the four elements
above, a fairy tale needs its own internal logic, archetypal landscapes and
some manifestation of the rule of three (three wishes, three bears, etc, etc).
Unfortunately, this masterclass came too
late to help me write my entry for the recent WM adult fairy tale competition.
Now, where’s my magic lantern?
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