8. Explain why this is so.There is a whole series of tales that give smart fairy-tale explanations why. For example: Why does the elephant have a long nose? (Kipling) Why is the sea salty? (Jean Effel) Why do birds have bright plummage? Why do birds have long (short) tails? Why do Chinese, Japanese, and Korean houses have their roofs curved upwards? Why do cats live indoors, and dogs outdoors? Why does the flamingo have red legs? Why are the tiger and zebra striped? Let every child propose his/her own version. 9. A tale out of a proverb.A whole series of tales may be invented out of proverbs and sayings. A tale is to answer the following question: how did a proverb or saying come about? It is necessary to work out an appropriate situation. 10. The "miracle of dramatic art" method.Mikhail Romm proposed to "to catch the audience by the throat" at the very beginning of the movie by featuring a terrible catastrophe development that no movie character expects, but the audience do. This renders possible to keep the audience strained all through the film up to the end. The audience understand everything and are worried with the characters' destiny. Take, for example, the following scenes: - an aerial ropeway's line is starting to tear apart, but no one notices it. - a ship has developed a leak, but everybody is asleep. - fuel is spilling out of an airplane, but the pilot doesn't notice it. - the compass is giving wrong readings(Jules Verne). - an airplane is developing a wing crack. - the automatic pilot was deliberately broken. - a snake is creeping up… 20 pieces of advice to a tale-maker- It is good to start a tale with an incredible event. - A tale must teach eternal values. Love, courage, honor should be appraised, whereas evil, greediness, and envy should be blamed. - The tensity of the plot should be stepping up until suddenly relaxing. - It is desirable that tales be richly and colorfully illustrated. - Tale heroes should have well-defined characters. A vivid character is a vivid tale. - Tale characters must have proper names. These may be, for example, animal names with one letter changed, deleted, or moved, e.g. Penuin, Elphant, Woody the Hoodpecker, etc. - In tales, good usually returns good, and evil returns misfortune. - If a child has a disability (dull hearing, difficult pronunciation), it can be overcome in a tale. - A tale should have nature descriptions, feature the characters' appearances, their clothes as well as their hair, height, color of eyes, etc. - A strong idea should be underlined and headlighted. For instance, a hero says in a complex situation: "Let me go and think a bit", and after thinking he comes back with a strong idea. - Account must be taken of the fact that a dialogue is easier to read than a narration. - It is of great interest when it comes to description of different characters' attitudes towards the same events. - Let positive characters utter wise ideas while negative ones say both smart and stupid things. - In tales, fiction must be neighboring truth and reality. - A tale may include poetry. - One can tell a single endless tale consisting of a series of plots with the same characters. This is a 'lulling' kind of a tale that may be invented and told for the night. - In a tale there can be many parts to be interrupted "at the most interesting points" (the method used in the "Santa Barbara" movie series). The parts should be entitled. - The main hero of a tale, having been through various incredible adventures, must finally win. Children should not be shocked with hopelessness. - The end of the tale must be something special. All's well that ends well. In conclusion it should be mentioned that inventing tales "by methods" doesn't rule out but helps make tales "from the top of the head". |
