Story Planning: Week 9

I'm terrible with titles and never seem to find them till the story's already written, so my bad about the working title of this post.

I do have a source story picked out, though: the fifth part of the Blood Boy saga, from the Blackfoot Stories unit.

The thing that struck me most about this story is the way that the blood boy's basically just wandering the country looking for fights—the way he drifts from town to town, curb-stomping the bullies before moving on again. That much was clear with his confrontation of the snake chief, which went like this:

Kut-o-yis' picked up the dish and ate the berries and threw the dish away. Then he went up to the big snake, who was lying there asleep, and pricked him with his knife, saying, "Here, get up; I have come to visit you. Let us smoke together."

And the takedown that followed was pretty great, too. But I think it's even more obvious when he asks the old lady he saved where he can find another community, and she tells him about one in the mountains—but then warns that he can't go there, because this terrible villain lives there, and "He will kill you." Blood boy's reaction? "Kut-o-yis' was glad to know that there was such a person, and he went to the mountains." It all makes for one of the most interesting characters I've read about so far this semester, and I'd definitely be interested in doing something with that.

Really, the more I think about it, the more I feel like my interpretation of the character might be cursed with immortality—after all this time, he still can’t die, though he desperately wants to. So he goes around picking fights and being reckless and making terrible decisions.

I’m still trying to decide if I’ll use him as the protagonist or get an outsider’s perspective on the whole thing; I gravitate towards the second option, but we’ll see. If that’s the case, in the end, it’ll look like he’s dead, and there’ll be this held-breath moment where the POV character thinks he is and has some pretty mixed emotions about the whole thing, truth be told—but no. He’s bruised and bloody and broken as heck, but still alive. And that’s his curse.

Then again, it might also be fun to go the opposite way with this: to take a character who knows he's going to die (and soon), and maybe even how he's going to die—and so he decides to take all the risks he can before then, because he knows none of them will matter.

Not sure yet, really. But that's why I'm going with the story planning option this week, so I have some more time to stew over it before I actually commit to taking one route or the other.

Bibliography: Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.

Image Credit: Person Writing by Unsplash. Source: Pixabay.

Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories, Part B

The Smart Woman Chief

For me, I think the most interesting aspect of this story was the idea of the two tribes meeting for the first time. I imagine there would be all sorts of tension and misapprehensions and room for conflict, and that's probably what I'd use in my story, with a more modern interpretation of the tribes and the setting.


Bobcat and Birch Tree

When Old Man had the prairie dogs teach him how to lie in the fire without getting burned, my first thought was of some kind of fire-eater, or a character with pyrokinesis. Realistically, that's still probably the route I'll take. But when the Old Man got himself into trouble for the millionth and clumsily picked himself back up again, I started thinking about how he's this guy with the power to animate objects and control the wind and make things happen just by declaring them, but he's also so inept in a lot of ways. That could be fun, too: some kind of story about a minor god or a gifted magician or something like that, who has all this power at his disposal but can't seem to get his stuff together long enough to do anything with it. Or a super villain who outclasses the heroes by a long shot, but always seems to defeat himself in the end.


The Red-Eyed Duck

In this story, Old Man agreed to play some music for a group of ducks—with the stipulation that they couldn't open their eyes while he played, or those eyes would turn red. So the ducks danced blindly around, and any time one of them got close enough to Old Man, he'd bash them on the head with a stick and toss them aside so he could eat them later. When a duckling realized what was going on, he opened his eyes and told the others to run, that the man was killing them. I like the idea of a group being picked off person by person, whether they're killed literally or metaphorically, and that there's going to be some terrible, permanent consequence for the character that eventually figures it out and saves them all. That's probably the element I would carry over as the seed of my own story, then.


Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy

Obviously, the blood boy's origin story itself is the coolest thing about this story: a starving old man gathers up a clot of blood from a dying buffalo, and is stunned when he finds a baby boy suddenly appear inside of it. It's a bloodier version of Wonder Woman's origin story (born from fashioned clay), and I love it. I also love the idea of him growing up to be a bloodier, darker form of hero, more antihero than anything else: some kind of dark avenger or something.

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (Part II)

In this story, the blood boy aged from a baby to an adult in a matter of days, and it reminded me of the way clones in superhero stories are always force-grown to age up quickly, so they can take on their original. But I like the idea of using that same concept and using it as a way to look at how that must actually be for the clone emotionally: sure, he's grown up on the outside, but he's only actually been around for a short amount of time. He's essentially a little kid in an adult's body. That's probably what I'd do with this story, from the point of view of a character assigned to be close to him or keep an eye on him—a trainer or a handler or something.

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (Part III)

The way the blood boy beat up the bear chief's son, then took on the chief himself after the son went crying, sort of makes me think of someone beating up a lower-level member of the mob to get the crime boss's attention. That's probably the direction I would go with this: some thought-dead or long-gone old partner or enemy back from the dead or just a long absence (or maybe both: seemingly back from the presumed dead), coming back for the blood the crime boss owes him.

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (Part IV)

The thing that struck me most about this story is the way that the blood boy's basically just wandering the country looking for fights—drifting from town to town and curb-stomping the bullies before moving on again. That much was clear with his confrontation of the snake chief, which went like this:

Kut-o-yis' picked up the dish and ate the berries and threw the dish away. Then he went up to the big snake, who was lying there asleep, and pricked him with his knife, saying, "Here, get up; I have come to visit you. Let us smoke together."

And the takedown that followed was pretty great, too. But I think it's even more obvious when he asks the old lady he saved where he can find another community, and she tells him about one in the mountains—but then warns that he can't go there, because this terrible villain lives there, and "He will kill you." Blood boy's reaction? "Kut-o-yis' was glad to know that there was such a person, and he went to the mountains." It all makes for one of the most interesting characters I've read about so far this semester, and I'd definitely be interested in doing something with that.


Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (Part V)

I love how he really has become this avenger, going around like some kind of rogue superhero—saving people, hunting things. And I also love that, before he even approached the last Big Bad, he knew he was going to have to die in the process; he called a little girl over and told her to give his bones to the dogs and cry out a warning, and when she did, he was reanimated from the bones. If I were going to use this story as inspiration, I think I'd like to use that concept of a character going to take on the antagonist, and knowing that she's going to die in the process—but also knowing that that's not going to be the end. My guess is that she has some kind of special ability, but she can only unlock/use/trigger it by dying. I think it could work well with this format, and I'd be curious to see how that plays out for her.

Bibliography: Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.

Image Credit: "Fire Eater" by Parth Shah. Source: Pixabay.

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Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories, Part A

Two Fast Runners

Initially, when I read this one, I didn't get much from it. A deer and an antelope challenge each other to races, and each wins in his own respective home turf. But if I interpreted it really loosely—even for me—I think I could turn it into a story about a protagonist returning to her home turf and trying to use that to her advantage in the face of what looks like an impossible fight coming her way.


The Wolf Man

In this story, after a man is left for dead, he's rescued by a group of wolves. They take him to their camp, where one of their blind elders heals the man and transforms him into a sort of hybrid: part man, part wolf. If I were to use this story, I'd probably take that idea of someone being saved and taken in. He'd be the main character, but not the protagonist—that would be someone who's part of the group that's taken him in, and watches as he struggles to assimilate and always fails on some deeper, personal level.


The Dog and the Root Digger

From this one, I'd probably do something with a character (one the MC teams up with, probably) who can shape shift between a person and a dog. Not sure yet what kind of trouble they'd get into. Of course, I was also intrigued by the raven who knew to steer the buffalo away from the edges of the cliffs—but I'm not sure yet how I'd incorporate a raven in a way that ties back strongly enough to the source material.


The Camp of the Ghosts

There were tons of interesting things about this one, and any of them could be spun off into different stories: the ghosts' community, the feast with the dead, the old women who appeared to the protagonist in dreams to show him the way. The journey to the ghost camp was one of my favorite aspects of this story, but I don't think I'd have the space to do the camp that or the camp itself justice in this assignment; same issue with a character trying to bring a loved one back from the dead, unless we just showed a snapshot of that journey along the way, including the spirit of that loved one appearing to him sometimes. If anything, I'd probably use this one to tell a story about a character who can travel through dreams, via dreams—intentionally sometimes, and sometimes not so much—and see where that takes me.


The Buffalo Stone

In this story, there are rare, lucky stones—kind of like four-leaf clovers—that occasionally appear, and they bring good hunting luck. When the wife in this story hears a stone singing to her, she does what it says and brings it back to her community, and it does bring good luck. I like the idea of a magical object that talks to people, but I think I'd like it a lot better if this were spun out into a supernatural/horror direction: if the stone object weren't quite so benevolent, and actually used/influenced people to carry some nasty work for it.


How the Thunder Pipe Came

Maybe it's just because I'm in the Halloween spirit, but for me, the highlight of this one was definitely the insanely feared villain, Thunder, and the way he would swoop in and capture people and hang their eyes in his stone lodge. Granted, Home and Garden Television might take a little bit of issue with his taste in decor—but it makes for a great story and a great villain, and the atmosphere was great because of it. That's definitely the detail I'd use if I chose to retell this story.


Cold Maker's Medicine

As fun as the idea of an old-lady serial killer is—and I do mean that sincerely—I loved the idea of the dynamic between the Cold Maker and Broken Bow even more. They're good friends who make a great team, but it's the following few lines that really caught my interest: "When [Cold Maker] reached the camp he went to the lodge of Broken Bow—a brave young man, but very poor. He shivered when Cold Maker entered his lodge and drew his ragged robe about him. They were close friends." I'd definitely be interested in reinterpreting this one as two people who are really close despite the fact that one's presence hurts or is full-on toxic to the other, or something like that.


The Rolling Rock

Though the idea of bats as "night-hawks" was intriguing, for this one, I'd have to go with the dynamic between Old Man and the coyote for my main source of inspiration this time around. I love the trope where two characters are sort of forced together by circumstances and wind up working together in a mutually beneficial sort of way, and that's what I'd use in my interpretation.


Bear and Bullberries

My first instinct with this story was to do a piece featuring a Kid Loki-like interpretation of a trickster figure, and I do still think that could be fun, though it would take a very specific kind of story to set that up well and make it work. But once I got to the end of the story and the twist there—after almost drowning trying to get some bullberries deep below the water's surface, he realizes he was actually seeing their reflection, and they were above the water all along—I think I might rather go with something inspired by that instead. A story involving a quest that was backwards or misguided all along could work well for the shorter length of these assignments, and I think it could still be fun to experiment with.


The Theft from the Sun

In this story, no matter how far Old Man ran, he always woke up again in Sun's lodge. I like the idea of a character—a protagonist who always runs from his or her problems instead of sticking around to face them—finally coming up against an antagonist or obstacle that can't just be avoided, and seeing how that ends up playing out.





Bibliography: Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.

Image Credit: "Raven Croak" by Franco Atirador. Source: Wikimedia Commons.



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