Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales, Part B

The Flying Ogre

This story I had to read a couple times because at first I was displeased with the story due to the plot. What I realized though in reading this story again was as a reader one may form an opinion on the plot but must recognize that this is the authors story whether one likes it or not. In that being said what I appreciated about this writing was the detail of characters and setting. I truly could picture the man chasing the ogre because of the detail of what he looked like along with the detail of the horse in which he road. As impossible as it is for the horse to run that fast, as a reader you believed it due to the way it was wrote with such assertiveness in detail. I think this is important in fairy tales because not every reader is so easy to persuade in describing actions like how fast something can be. I think in my own writing that if I were to do something along the lines of a fairy tale that I need to be direct in describing unlikely events.

In thinking about how I might recreate this story I would probably choose a less direct ending. I feel that this could possibly make the story more interesting and have a better climax. I think that if there had been more detail in describing the death of the ogre rather than saying that something "probably" occurred then it would be more crucial to the reader. I'm one for uncertainty in terms of mystery or maybe describing a higher power, but I felt that a described ending would have suited better. This inspires me in my writing to be very detailed for crucial moments in stories, especially describing events.

I think if I were to do a spin off this story, my approach would be to try to write a version where the monk himself is a flying ogre. I was thinking maybe this could be some sort of twist where he could end up attacking the man on the horse. I was also thinking that I could possibly tell a story as to why these flying ogres were being hunted in the first place.

Overall, I respect this story but it was more of a template for me to how I think writing can be better for conveying a climax.

I chose this picture of Shrek, probably the most famous Ogre, to represent the story. I found this image on Flickr posted by Ged Carroll. 

Bibliography:

The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

The link to the specific story is above in the header.