Tales of a Thief Turned King
I. Tragedy
A wealthy king constructed a grand vault to hold his wealth.
Unbeknownst to him, the builder left a specific stone loose to enter the vault from outside.
When the builder passed, he told his two sons of the stone.
In the night, they snuck into the vault and stole all they could carry.
They did this many times, and so the king laid traps for the thieves.
When the brothers entered the vault, one fell into a trap.
"Cut off my head, so that they may not tie me to you," he said.
He did as he asked and then escaped.
II. Resurgence
When the headless body was found, the king had it mounted on the palace wall.
"Bring home his body," their mother demanded.
But the body was guarded by the king's men.
And so the man had to come up with a plan.
He brought mules laden with wineskins and uncapped some near the palace wall.
He bantered with the guards when they came to investigate, and gave them some of the wine.
He continued to talk with and give drink to the guards until they fell into a drunken stupor.
Then he retrieved his brother's body and stole away.
III. Victory
The king was shocked that he had been outsmarted yet again.
And so he sent out his clever daughter to investigate and find the man.
She came disguised to deceive him, but the man saw through it.
He approached her anyway, and revealed to her that he was the man she sought.
She reached out to grab him, but the man thrust his brother's arm at her from under his cloak.
She grabbed the severed arm, and the man escaped.
The king was impressed and offered a pardon to him.
The man's wits earned him the king's respect and daughter's hand.
Author's Note
I kept well in line with the original story for this one, but that's because I saw a natural three-act structure within the story, and I took that up in a challenge to try to write three one-hundred-word microfictions for the story, with one for each major act of the story.
The first act explains how the two brothers get into the vault, and culminates in the death of one brother, who has the un-trapped brother cut off his head so that he might at least survive.
The second act is about retrieving his brother's body, which requires planning and good execution in order to succeed, and also shocked the king with the man's wit.
The third and final act has the king sending out his daughter in order to attempt to apprehend the man, but when he manages to outsmart even her, the king instead offers him a pardon if he meets with the king, and when he does, the king is thoroughly impressed and offers the daughter's hand in marriage.
It was honestly a pretty fun challenge to try and turn this story (which was originally ~1100 words) into three little microfictions.
Bibliography
Image Source: Ruins of an Egyptian Temple, taken by DEZALB
Story Source: "The Tale of King Rhampsinitus" by Donald Mackenzie
Hi CJ! I loved this story, and I was amazed at your ability to get it down to only about 300 words! I was also impressed by the way you split it into three acts. I read this story this week and didn't even notice this, but you're right - it really works! I wonder why the man had the severed arm of his brother under his cloak. I noticed this in the original story (and I know you're writing microfiction), but I think this would be a neat place to either give a little bit of background (difficult with microfiction), or maybe even use your creative license to have it make a little more sense. Overall, though, it's a really wonderful story, and I think that making it a microfiction helps with showing the built in structure to the story!
ReplyDeleteHi Leah!
DeleteI'm very glad you enjoyed my story!
To be fair, I've been trained to recognize plot structure like that, so it was apparent for me, but wouldn't necessarily be apparent for someone who wasn't trained to look for those things :)
Yeah, the severed arm was a weird detail without explanation in the original story, but I elected to keep it here since I wanted to just focus on the challenge of doing it as microfiction rather than making plot changes.
And thank you!
Hey CJ! I really liked how you structured your story. I think 100-word stories are super powerful, and I would say that you were very successful in including the important details while still keeping it short and sweet. I am curios though to know that if you weren't writing it as a microfiction, would you feel the need to include any extra detail? Microfictions make me think about how little detail we need to still have an impactful story, so it has definitely impacted my writing style. I would be interested in reading how you would re tell the story if there was no word limit. I also am interested in what changes you would make if you were to completely change the characters or setting of the story. That's something that I love about this class, is that we can take a classic or really traditional story and do literally whatever we want with it. We're given a foundation for something really cool to come out of it.
ReplyDeleteHi Emma!
DeleteThank you very much!
If I retold the story with more significant changes, I'd likely do something more with the brother who sacrificed himself, since he kind of got shafted in the original story. Would be nice for him to get a happy end of some kind too.
Hi CJ! I enjoyed reading this as three microfictions. I did not read the same source material this week, but I was able to follow what was happening in your story. I am also interested in why he's carrying around his brother's arm, but I understand microfiction doesn't let you explore much. I like your set of stories as they are! If you weren't writing these as microfictions and up against the word limit, I really would love to know more about the random arm. If you ever wrote this in a longer form you could maybe consider telling us more about why he was carrying a severed arm in the first place. And it would be fun to know what the daughter's reaction was to suddenly holding an arm. I know I'd be surprised. I really sort of hope she returned it as a wedding present. But that may be a completely different story!
ReplyDelete-Eli
Hi Eli!
DeleteI'm glad to hear that it was easy to follow!
Honestly, the severed arm actually had no explanation in the original story either. If I were to make a version of this story with more serious plot changes, I do feel that's something I'd want to elaborate on.
Hi CJ! This was super enjoyable and very well rewritten. The three act restructuring was done well. I also have a question as to why the man was carrying the severed arm. I know microfictions impose limits, but that would be something to explore more going forward if you were to continue writing on this.
ReplyDeleteHi Megan!
DeleteThank you very much!
Actually, the severed arm was not explained at all in the original story either, but if I were to expand the story, that'd definitely be something worth covering.
Hi CJ! I really enjoyed reading this story. I agree that turning a story into a microfiction is difficult. I'm horrible at keeping things short and sweet, but I always like a challenge. I think you did a good job with these microfictions. It was a cool idea to turn each act into its own microfiction.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed it Helen!
DeleteYeah, it was definitely a fun challenge to tackle, since I tend to write longer rather than short usually!