frogs_of_war

I thought I'd do A History of a Story again after I wrote three versions of a story within a story that comes five or six days into the 1001 Nights type tale.



This is a story told to a group: the teller's crush, that man's small children (6, 4, & 2) and late wife's teenage siblings. The names in the first part were made up by the kids. Both men appeared in previous stories. I'm not sure if any of the little ones are awake for this part.

—

Iron looked up from his forge. Sword stood in the doorway, covered in dirt and blood. Iron dropped the horseshoe he's been working on into the water bucket. It hadn't turned out to be much of a horseshoe with how distracted he was.

Sword had gone off to fight alone.

( First try )

#

I had some problems. First the story was too visual. A reader could tell who was talking, but could a listener? Also, if blood bugged the horses, Sword was showing disrespect for Iron's profession by washing up inside. And it just wasn't fairytale like enough.

—

Once there was a Blacksmith. He made plows and knives and mostly horseshoes. Occasionally he sharpened a sword.

One day a man new to the valley came to him with a sword wrapped with care in oilcloth. "Sharpen this to make sure I return."

( Second try )
#

Still too visual. And distancing. "The Blacksmith" feels more intimate than "the man". And too long.

And finally, because this is a story within a story, this narrator, whose story the storytelling is relating, is in his late teens and trying to prove the point that same-sex relationships are normal and the city-boy he’s with can start touching him any time he wants. The Blacksmith can’t be scared of what would happen upstairs.

—

Far, far away in a gentle fertile valley lived a Blacksmith. He was a good man, strong and sturdy, a pillar in his community. He was also a man who loved men and that he realized the day a family arrived.

They were less a family than a man and woman with an infant, they still they were together, so the Blacksmith built an iron fence around his heart and locked the gate.

( Third try )

—

Much better. Although when I was putting this in place (surrounded by summaries), I realized I had this story told on the same story-day that the storyteller tells of the baby in the story growing up, so this is all mentioned in passing. Lots of work still to go.