Finding and Finessing a Folktale by Chitra Soundar

I’ve started teaching a course on picture books and as I break down the basics to other writers, I realised that I’m articulating my own understanding. My writing, especially in the medium of picture books, comes from my lifelong love of picture books, from this moment, I was handed this book when I was 7.

I read picture books and comics as much as I can, growing up, and when I started writing way back in 2003. I still read way too many picture books and often most ideas present themselves to me in 12 spreads.

Along with this love for picture books, I’m also a storyteller. I think I told stories even when I was four and the love for oral storytelling never really left me even when I was working in the corporate world.

Here is my process of how I search, find and finesse a folktale for a modern audience.

Finding a story: I usually choose a story from my own culture or a trickster tale. I read quite a few stories from collections I’ve accumulated over the years to identify which story connects with me. I need to get the “theme” of the story and I want to be able to see the story in scenes, rather than a quick joke.

If I do choose a story that is not from a culture I’m familiar with, I would check if there are enough independent “first-hand” sources I can rely on for accuracy of representation. I’d want to know if this story has been retold or adapted or written about by people who are native to that culture and what do they think of it. Often folktales have hidden allegory and meaning that will work at a different level than the “story” itself and I might inadvertently cause hurt or offence to people by re-telling this story.

Check out a research paper on this here. 

My search takes me into libraries, Internet archives of ancient texts and research notes because modern retellings or “collections” might be derivative and I would try and find as many “native” sources I can.

Evaluating for a Modern Audience: There are many funny stories in Aesop fables or Panchatantra or our epics that might not be suitable for today’s children. Many of these stories are true to their time and geography. So a story about “girls knowing their place” or “a cruel stepmother” or "old women are witches" are not only inappropriate but also harmful for today’s child.

So I read and understand the underlying concepts of each of these folktales and think about whether the protagonist and the events of the story are telling a tale suitable for today and beyond. While we can’t go back and erase our past, or justify some of the notions, the least we could do is not to propagate unhelpful stereotypes – whether it’s about gender, age, sexual orientation or cultures.

Read about some of the stereotypes challenged in last year's IBBY conference.

Adapting the Story: Now comes the techniques of writing a picture book. I need to know enough about the story to be able to adapt it. As I said before, I would try and find as many variants of the story I can. I’ll try and find archives with original text or translations.

Having absorbed the story, these are my techniques to adapt the story:

a)    Understanding its spine – what’s the story really about? What’s the message and essence of the story? In this, oral storytelling and adapting have the same goal. I normally break down a story into 10 simple scenes or sentences. Or 5 things I need to remember and then distill it into “a message”. Once I know this, I can then adapt the story and still be able to keep the essence.

b)    Who are the characters? Especially when I’m working with trickster tales, the characters in the story are crucial for the logic of the story to work. Like Stork and the Fox in Aesop Fables, or the Crocodile and the Monkey in Panchatantra. The characteristics and the “character” – who is evil, who is tricking whom, who is symbolised as clever – all of that will need to be worked out. Often keeping the same characters as per the original story is sufficient. Sometimes I’d want to change it. When changing the characters, I’ve to make sure that the “symbolic” nature of their characters will still work.          

It’s important to know the cultural archetypes here. In some cultures some animals and birds are clever / evil / cunning and if I need to credit the culture, then using an alternate one or the wrong one will take away the authenticity.

c)     What’s the punch line and how do I get there? I’ll need to understand what are the relevant scenes that need to have happened for the punch line to work. But at the same time, we need 12 scenes in the picture book that are different from each other.

Here’s where research pays off – knowing the geography of the story, knowing the other characters will help.

Also as a storyteller, the embellishing happens here – adding more scenes to show the allegory or the true nature of the characters will help a child reader understand the punch line better.

d)    Word count and other practical considerations: Most modern picture books are under 400 words with exceptions of course. I need to be able to tell the 12 scenes with enough happening between the scenes and still keeping the word count down.

The other thing I’ll think about is viewpoint – which character is telling the story? Am I going to use the voice of a storyteller? Is my language going to be modern or folktale-ish? Is this story going to be billed as a re-telling or an adaptation?

e)    Adapting vs Retelling – Whether it’s the Gruffalo or the True story of the Three Little Pigs, or my own A Jar of Picklesand a Pinch of Justice or Pattan’s Pumpkin – the story can be hidden under a completely new setting, cast of characters and a modern retelling. 

         Whether or not the reader knows the underlying story, it will still be fun for them. Of course,               in all of my adaptations, I’ve made it clear that I’ve adapted traditional tales. Sometimes a story            is in folk-legend widely that you might not need to mention it.

For those who are starting out to write picture books and grappling with “where do I get ideas?”, adapting folktales can be a wonderful exercise in research, structure and plotting. Folk tales have plots that have worked for hundreds of years and can be useful in showing us how to construct a regaling tale.

If you enjoyed reading this post, do share your favourite folktale adaptations in the comments.

Chitra Soundar is the author of many picture books and retellings. Her latest book is an original story of two polar bear cubs discovering the world. Find out more about You’re Snug with Me, illustrated by Poonam Mistry and published by Lantana Publishing here.

In the Beginning there were Folk Tales (by Malachy Doyle)

My very first picture book was The Great Castle of Marshmangle. I wrote it 19 years ago, and life was never the same again.

 

I'd been writing for two or three years by then, but in October 1996 I went on a week-long Writing for Children course at the Ty Newydd residential writing centre in Wales. The tutors were Kevin Crossley-Holland and Valerie Bloom, and not only were they brilliant, but they were immensely encouraging of me and my writing. I've since taught courses at Ty Newydd with both Kevin and Valerie, and it's always a delight to be giving back to new writers, a thrill to be back at such a wonderful place, and a particular delight to see them both again.  

Kevin talked a lot about retelling folk tale, and about the responsibilities of approaching traditional material.
'Yes,' he said, 'many folk tales are dark, but naming the terrors helps children understand them - it's damaging to pretend there are no terrors.'
Yes, he said, they may be about people a world and an age away from us, but 'the deeper we look the more we're willing to grant humanity to those who are unlike us - to see that they are who we are - to realise that there's so little difference between us all that it's not worth mentioning.'
'Folk tale is healing and reconciliatory' he said. 'It looks for common ground between all of us who are human. The stories decode a hidden world but also celebrate a shared identity.' 
(And yes, I was taking notes, and yes, I have them still. I was a most determined apprentice!)

He asked us to find a folk tale, to take a folk-motif, and make it our own. He told us that his book Storm, one of my all-time favourites, came from an eight line section in a Scottish folk tale of a girl who goes on a night journey. I found a story called The Ghosts and the Game of Football in a Patrick Kennedy collection and turned it into one called Famous Seamus that went down a treat on the Friday night read-around. It eventually found its form as The Football Ghosts, published nine years later by Egmont in their Banana Books strand - particularly pleasing as Kevin's Storm, a Carnegie medal winner, was also a Banana Book.

 

And I've been doing it ever since - playing with folk tale. Probably somewhere approaching half of my books, including many of my picture books, either retell folk tales or more often use lines, ideas, motifs from folk tales as a starting point. If they've survived for hundreds, for thousands of years, changing with every telling, then there's obviously some core of truth and relevance and entertainment that will survive one more retelling, one more adaptation.

I got back from Ty Newydd in October 96, all fired up and searching for folk-tale inspiration. I was reading Ciaran Carson's superb book on Irish traditional music, Last Night's Fun, and was very taken with a story he quoted from the musician and story-collector Seamus Ennis. (It also appears in Joseph Jacobs' English Fairy Tales as Master of all Masters). So I wrote a picture book, and then, just to be sure, rang Ciaran Carson to check he didn't mind (and to clear with him that there weren't likely to be any copyright problems). Faber and Andersen made immediate offers, I went with Andersen, and it became my first book with the legendary Klaus Flugge (and the very lovely editor, Janice Thompson).

I had great fun, aided by my then teenage daughter Hannah (who's recently illustrated my Pete and the Five-a-Side Vampires), coming up with all the wordplay: Smoulderglow for fire, Soggadrop for water, Sandcastle Stompers for wellington boots, Brainbox Banana for a top hat... A teacher once told me her class had found the book invaluable when they were studying kennings - and was shocked when I told the class I hadn't a clue what one was. Oh, and I just loved the illustrations for the book by the masterly Paul Hess

It got loads of foreign editions and I was up and running: thanks to Kevin and Valerie, to Ty Newydd, to the wonderful and never-ending resource that is traditional story.

Ideas, Themes and Originality by Malachy Doyle

Where do you get your ideas from?  That’s one of the questions I’m most often asked. My imagination, I usually say.  Memories of childhood, I add.  Observation. Experience.

But ideas come from anywhere and everywhere.  A phrase overheard on the bus.  The person in front of you at the check-out.   A picture on a postcard someone sent you from Peru.  That silly/strange/funny thing you did/saw/heard/read/thought yesterday. 

An idea is just a starting point.  Starting points come from anywhere, and lead anywhere.  That’s the joy of creativity.

Folk tales are a great starting point, for example.  If a story’s survived, in all its many forms, for hundreds, thousands of years, then there’s something deep inside it that cuts to the quick of what it is to be human.  Something we can draw on to create a whole new story, a whole new world. 

It’s often said that there are only a limited number of themes, a limited range of plots that are appropriate for picture book.  That may or may not be so, but the joy of picture book is when the writer finds such a fresh, imaginative and engaging way of telling their story that where it stands in relation to anything that’s been written before becomes irrelevant.  It works. It simply works.

So, below, I've jotted down a few basic start points for stories. And then I’ve looked at some of my own picture books to see which of them might fit under each theme:

A puzzle that needs solving:  Who Did It?; Sleepy Pendoodle

Someone or something that’s lost and needs to be found: Charlie is My Darling; The Snuggle Sandwich; Teddybear Blue

The need to find 'home': Antonio on the Other Side of the World Getting Smaller; Big Pig

Triumph of the youngest / smallest: Too Noisy; Collywobble; Danny the Duck with no Quack; Digger and Lew.

Going on a journey / quest:  Little Chick and the Secret of Sleep; The Bold Boy; Blast Off!

Finding a friend: When a Zeeder Met a Xyder

A child’s relationship with a grandparent: Owen and the Mountain; The Dancing Tiger; Tad-cu’s Bobble Hat; Jody’s Beans; Granny Sarah and the Last Red Kite.  

Dealing with an odd/annoying member of the household: Albert and Sarah Jane

Helping, and making friends with, a monster: Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!

Having fun with folk tale: Peek-a-Book; Hen’s Cake; The Great Castle of Marshmangle; Una and the Seacloak.

Looked at that way, you can see that even just in my work certain themes recur over and over (I seem to have a thing about grandparents… and being the little one in a big family... oh, and mountains... and getting lost in the woods... )

In most if not all cases I didn't start with the theme - I more often started with a character, a picture in my head, a phrase that came to me out walking.... 

So yes, as Lynne said in the last post, try to avoid things that have been recently done to death - but don't panic if you think you story isn't 100% original - nothing is.  The trick is to find something fresh, something captivating to say with each new story.  And to tell it in your very own style, in your very own voice.  Then it doesn’t really matter how often the basic theme’s been used before, because it's your story now.  And it's a good one - I know it is.  

How about you?  Do your books/stories use any of these themes as a starting point?

Has anyone got any other recurring themes they’d like to offer up?  Or any killer one-offs?