Hey, just want to start off by saying that I thought the concept of your story was super cool. The way you took different aspects of stories you liked and combined them into one was really interesting and it made the story really appealing and enjoyable to read. Since It was a mashup of different stories I didn't know what to expect or where the story was going which I really liked. It was like a familiar surprise. Another thing I really liked about your story was the dialogue you used, and they way you broke up the main structure of your story. Each small paragraph led to the advancement of the story in a manageable way which I found to be really important. I do think it was a bit odd that you only named the monkey and not the other creatures, or at least the crab. In my opinion, at least the way in which I understood the story, the king crab and the king monkey were equals in relevance.
Hey Braden! I love how you’ve combined the plots and characters from several of the Jataka tales into one story, and how you summed up the ending with a moral related to the idea of karma, which is such an important theme in Indian literature. It was also a great idea to contrast the ways in which two kings act as rulers; while the crab is villainous and rules with an iron fist (or claw, rather), the monkey king is clever and has a keen but subtle awareness of the subjects of his kingdom.
A few copyediting notes: -I believe the sentence “every living creature lake” is missing some words; “in the lake” or “of the lake” would both work here to fill this gap -“what” in “what an awesome kingdom you have built up” should be capitalized -Before a quote begins, there should always be a comma in the word directly preceding the quotation Ex: said to his wife, "I will go get it for you." vs. said to his wife "I will go get it for you."
Hi Braden. I really liked your story. One main detail or major plot point I would add is having some info why all the animals at the lake hate the Crab King. The story kind of transitions from everyone loving him then he gets food from them. It doesn't really give any info other than that. All we see as readers is the people rejoicing at the end without seeing their struggle. I also think you did a great job with the Indian names. How did you end up picking those? Another great detail to have would be the battle between the croc and the King. You said the king had gotten very powerful so I would expect there to be an epic battle. That would give you more words for the story and have a good action scene for the story!
Hi Braden I really loved reading your story. I especially enjoyed how you choose to write it! The way you picked up the story after the conclusion of the original story is brilliant. I will have to try this for one of my stories in the future! My first story I wrote about was over the Cunning Crane and the Crab too, so reading your story simply felt a continuation of the original story. The amount of dialogue in your story was the perfect amount as well the way all the characters interact with each other was perfectly fluent. I only wish the crab would have turned out to be the good guy in the story. He had help save the rest of the fish but then immediately turned around and starting stealing from them. So now karma has eventually caught up to the crab as well. I am a firm believer in bad karma, if you do bad things, bad things will always come upon you. Again Braden I really enjoyed reading your story. I look forward to reading more of your stories in the coming weeks.
As soon as I got to your cover page with the elephant I literally said "oooh." The elephant looks fabulous and it got me super excited about what I was about to read. Upon reading your first story, I figured out that you were retelling the jatakas we read at the beginning of class. I thought that was super cool! It was neat how you put it all together and made one big massive story. I would suggest maybe placing a link to your comment wall on all the pages, but maybe I'm just lazy. I'm glad you included the information in your last sentence of your author's note: Asatyavadin meaning liar. I had no idea, but I read that and had this moment of thinking about how much sense that made. I'm also glad the crocodile couple got their heart, but from someone who deserved it! Great job so far!
Hey Braden, I liked how you incorporated three different stories into one story. It was definitely unique because I haven’t seen anyone else in class use this method. I like how you made all the stories flow together. I could hardly tell that the story was made up of three different stories. The only thing that I had a problem with was the formatting of your story; particularly the spacing throughout your story, if the sentences were closer together, it would make it a lot easier to read the story. I thought it was really interesting how Brahmadatta was the mastermind behind the entire plan to take down Astayavadin. Also, I thought it was interesting how you made Brahmadatta convince Astayavadin to go to Benares, because he knew that the crocodile would be there waiting to kill Astayavadin. It was a very unique twist. I wonder how the story might have turned out if Astayavadin had found out about Brahmadatta’s plan. However, I really did like the way your story turned out.
I really enjoyed your story " The Sage" about the author of the Ramayana. One of the things that really stuck out to me was your excellent use of alliteration, especially in the opening paragraph. The repetition of words beginning with F in "Forever Flowing stream of melted snow... plethora of Forest Friends in the Form of animals" really caught my attention and made me want to read more. I wonder how the poet immediately knew the women crying was Sita. Maybe there was a necklace or bracelet that she was wearing that indicated her identity to old poet. Perhaps she was wearing some of the jewelry that the dropped for Rama when she was kidnapped. What if Sita gave the poet a biased form of the story where Rama was the hero, but in reality it was actually her who rescued him from Ravana and kept it quiet to save their reputation? Overall, great story and I can't wait to read more!
First off, I love your homepage. I literally showed my roommate this picture because it looks so nice and professional. As for your story, I loved The Two Kings. I immediately noticed all three stories you were recreating, and I really enjoyed your twists on them. I was especially happy for the crocodile who finally won his wife a heart. I wonder at what point did the animals of the lake realize that the crab was evil. Did all he make them do was give them their food or were there other actions he did that pointed to his deceit? For your other stories, do you plan on combining the plots of multiple stories or just recreating one story at a time? I like the combination because it allowed the reader to see how each story intersects with another, but you might run out of stories to recreate!
I enjoyed your take on the Crane and the Crab. I liked how you combined the stories. However one issue I have is that it feels like the Crab doesn't really deserve to be killed. He was democratically elected ruler by popular vote (not his fault) and then imposed a tax of like 10%. It's pretty corrupt to take 10% just for yourself, but I don't think it's worthy of being brutally killed by crocodiles. Since you emphasized that King Crab was muscular, you should include a bit about the other lake animals trying to confront him because he keeps raising taxes, but he uses his massive size to kill one of his subjects and make an example out of them. That way the reader would feel like King Crab's death was justified.
Other than that I really enjoyed the story. It was written very well with just enough detail to make it feel organic and not forced. I look forward to reading more works from you.
What's going on Braden. So, I really liked both stories but have some thoughts about The Sage. It was interesting how you decided to incorporate a completely different viewpoint of the Ramayana. It's not that you retold the Ramayana but told a new story about how it came to be, which was awesome. For the point where Valmiki starts talking about how is version is being ruined by other writers, it might be cool for him just to list off some of the writers. Valmiki could maybe say "boy the R.K. Narayan really got it wrong with his attempt" or he could talk about one of the PDE writers. I guess if your story is set chronologically then these interactions wouldn't happen yet. A cool thing that you could do for future stories or revisions is having a sort of followup with Vyasa. I don't think you mentioned it, but he wrote the Mahabharata, so it could be cool to have Valmiki comment on Vyasa's writing progress as the Mahabharata was finished. Good job!
Hey Braden, I liked both your stories. They were well done. I wanted to start out first and say that the pictures you chose were great banner images. I have the same layout for my storybook, so I like to see how big other people make their banner images. The first story was a great combination of those three different jatakas that we read during the first or second week (I can’t remember which). The second story is very meta. It takes a very close look at how ancient stories exist and interact with people throughout time. The perspective of the Author looking forward is a very cool way of explaining how a story and its retelling affect the world. Overall, I think you have done a good job so far in your portfolio. The home page is easy to navigate and fun to look at. The two stories are well written and inventive. Good luck the rest of the semester.
Your synthesis of various stories from our readings into one, like others have said above, is a great concept.
In “The Sage,” I liked the nod to the concept of this course itself – there’s something very meta about the whole thing. But I would have liked, stylistically, a little more “show, don’t tell.” What did it look like for the 100 years of writing? The scratching of the pen? The passing of the seasons?
There’s another line in your story that begs for elaboration: “Of course, I twisted Sita's story to focus on Rama.” Why? What did Sita say that was different that the Ramayana we’ve read? Why did he change it? This is a big statement, and I don’t think you can get away without saying anything else about it. It’s also somewhat contradicted by the later statement that “nobody seemed to know the real story of Rama” – which can’t be true if our narrator knows that he intentionally distorted the tale in the first place. “Nobody knows my story of Rama” might be more accurate, and that bit of ego would also be worth exploring.
I really enjoyed reading your stories. I really liked how you integrated the three stories of "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit," The Cunning Crab and the Crane" and "The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart" all in one in your story The Two Kings! It was a very interesting read and it made me want to keep reading more. I also really liked your writing style because it kept me wanting to read more and I was able to follow along without having to read it over and over again. I also liked how you ended up making the Crab a bad guy and how he let the power get to his head. In the end, both the Crane and the Crab got what they deserved! I also really enjoyed your second story and how you told it. I think you are doing a great job so far and I look forward to reading more of your stories!
Hey Braden, I enjoyed your story about Valmiki. Although he did write Ramayana, there was not that much information about Valmiki there. I appreciate the research you did on Valmiki to create this story. His background was an interesting one. Your story has a really nice flow to it. You started with where he was born to how he became an apprentice of a sage to becoming a sage himself. The inclusion of Vyasa retelling Valmiki's story was great. I understand how Valmiki would have felt that others were changing his story, but Vyasa was right in the fact that it shows different perspectives. We are doing that when we retell our stories.You know I always wondered if Sita did say bad things about Rama, but Valmiki chose not to include those things in his story. I think you can expand your author's note in your story, The Sage, by including why Rama sent Sita to forest. Your classmate, Joanna
Hi~ I like your site name "Newfound Narratives". It reads really nice. On the home page, I'd recommend moving the stories you are including up from the bottom. I think because the portfolio is all about the stories the list should be more prominent. Otherwise it looks good, the elephant is super cute! I'm not sure if the spacing in 'Two Kings' and 'The Sage' is important for how we are supposed to read the story but maybe you could cut the blank space down a little. That one extra white line throws me off just enough to wonder if there's been a time lapse between each dialogue/paragraph. The stories are great though! I love reading the different interpretations of the stories we've been learning about this semester. Great work! I look forward to seeing the finished product.
Hi again, Braden! With that being said, I would like to begin by saying that I think that I’ve read a few of your stories before, and I think you did a wonderful job at revising your past stories. My favorite story is probably the one with the two kings. I loved how you tied the original stories together to create your own version and interpretation of how it should end. I also wanted to add on how much I liked the images that you picked to be on your page. Moreover, a question that I have is did you consider giving a little more information about why the crocodile’s wife wanted the heart of the crab? A suggestion that I have is to maybe include the crocodile and his wife in the plan to kill the crab, that way it would make the story flow even more smoothly. For example, in order to trade the monkey’s life, they were willing to take the heart of the crab instead.
Hello there Braden! I absolutely loved that you combined 3 short epics to make your story "The Tale of Two Kings" As I read your story I thought I picked up on a few different parts of other stories. However, it has been so long since we read the Indian Epics that I could not remember properly.I also am happy that the crocodile was able to give his wife a heart. Hopefully that heart did not make her deceitful also! I was really surprised when I realized that the story "A Sage Never Stops Learning" was about the original author of the Ramayana! What a great idea! Write about the writer! You story was interesting, and it has me asking questions to myself. I wonder how long after the Ramayana was written that it became so popular? I think good stories leave you thinking. Often after I read a story that some element of truth to it I immediately start researching it. In a way this enables me to prolong the book and story.
Hi Braden! First of all, I really like your home page. The layout is a little bit similar to mine so I may be a little bit biased, but I think the fact that the cover image is so big and the font is so simple is really appealing to the reader. I also really like the image that you chose- the elephant and the warm tones are both so welcoming and accurately represent a portion of India. At the bottom of your home page, it seems as if you are starting a list of stories you have posted, but you only have the first one on there. Although the short introduction is interesting, I don't think it's 100% necessary to have that list there! Just keep the intro on the home page short and sweet. I loved your "The Tale of Two Kings" story a lot and how you were able to incorporate so many elements from three Jataka tales into it. Good job, I'm excited to see more from you!
Hey there Braden, I read both of your other stories and they were pretty good so I was happy to randomize to you for the feedback. This was another great one and it seems like it can teach a few lessons. Don't always assume that city dogs are the ones gnawing on your straps.... Adding the names was pretty interesting but it might seem like this is a story that actually involved Arjuna. Of course if you are okay with that angle, go for it. When reading how King Hastin was going to kill all 700 of the city dogs, it made me think about Krishna's story (which happens to be what my free reading was over, rather than the Jatakas). The king Kamsa was destined to be defeated by Krishna so he ordered that all the newborns in the city be taken away so that Kamsa could avoid his fate. It seems that both kings were acting in anger and punished innocent people.
Your stories are simple yet effective. The story from the point of view of Vamiki was quite an insight. Valmiki is such an overlooked character and deserves some recognition for what he's done (writing the Ramayana). I really like that you told about his times before writing it and his role model Narada. The story about the palace dogs was also well written. I was simple and reminded me of a childrens book. I'm a bit suprised that the palace dogs were not sentenced to death considering that was one of the things considered when trying to find out which city dogs did the deed. Maybe you could emphasize the fact that they were let go because of their history of serving the palace, and how city dogs may be considered lesser. I also kinda wanna see some sort of motivation for destroying the leather... maybe adding a motivation would be cool!
Hi Braden! I thought the images that you used for you project was clear and helpful. I thought that the introduction page with the picture of the elephant was really incredible, and I liked that you chose that picture in particular to start your project. I also really liked the image of the crown in your first story. I thought that the choice of an image of a crown for a story about two kings was quite clever and meaningful. However, a suggestion that I have for your project is to maybe add and include a few more pictures to each of your stories. Also, is there a reason why you chose the the image of wolves to represent the palace dogs? Or was it to represent the dogs outside the walls of the palace? Since it’s the palace dogs, I imagined them to be more well-kept, even expensive for instance. Moreover, I’ve enjoyed reading your stories so far. I think your writing is really good and I can’t wait till your project is fully done!
I certainly enjoyed your first story, especially how it incorporated a multitude of Jataka tales, although some of the connections are shakier than others, particularly "The power-hungry Crab said "Show me this place and I will become king of this lake and Benares!" When saying this, Asatyavadin had no clue that Brahmadatta was actually the king of Benares.
Brahmadatta and Asatyavadin went to Benares. The mate of a Crocodile in Benares saw the big Crab and said to her husband, "I want to eat his heart." "
That was the only serious disconnect that I noticed, but otherwise I really liked your first story's inter connectivity, although I can't really say why I liked it.
For your second story, I find the character unconvincing in his belief in his belief that he is lacking as a writer. The paragraph were he describes his self perceived inadequacy doesn't list any specific deficiencies with his writing. It might be useful to describe what his deficiencies were. Was he grammatically deficient? Were his characters inconsistent? Did he make stupid anime references that made no sense and shouldn't have been there? I dunno.
Hi Braden, I enjoyed reading your short story, Caught by the King. I think you did an excellent job writing a short story as it kept me both and engaged and eager to keep reading. I also like the way your portfolio is turning out. It is put together nicely, easy to navigate and I also like the high quality pictures. This weeks assignment has us focusing on the the Author's note portion of the Portfolios. I think everything you mention and bring up in your Author's Note is great information for the reader and helps inform the reader where you got your inspiration from. One small critique I have about your Author's note that would make it near perfect is to give a small explanation. Maybe just a sentence or two about the original story you are taking inspiration from. My best advice would just be to say what the main story was about. This gives the reader an idea of the story you are taking inspiration from. Other than that I think your short story looks great. Again I enjoyed reading through it!
Hey Braden, I just read your story "Caught by the King" and I love it! It was a great story. I like the change you made in your story by adding names in the story. It is more difficult to differentiate characters or give a purpose to them when they do not have a name. I did not like how the palace dogs were not going to say anything and let all the dogs in the city be killed for the mischievous act they committed. I really liked Arjuna in this story. He went to seek justice not only for himself but his fellow dogs. I can tell you did some research on the kinds of dogs you wanted for your picture. I like how you made it realistic by making them resemble wolves because that was how they looked like before hundred of years of selective breeding.The way you described the dogs remind me of the dire wolves from Game of Thrones. I feel like those dogs would fit well with the time period also. Your classmate, Joanna
First of all, I really enjoyed the images you used throughout your portfolio. Everything was neat and very well put together. It made your website simple to navigate. I also thoroughly appreciated how you used a medley of stories from the Jataka Tales in your "Two Kings" story. I thought you did an amazing job at utilizing different aspects of each original story and your collaborative efforts did not disappoint. I specifically liked how your "The Sage" story really provided a different perspective for us all to look at regarding rewriting the Ramayana. It is really cool to see how different authors imagine characters and plots to play out and even more so how they bring their stories to life. Sita Sings the Blues is one of my favorite retellings of the Ramayana, so I liked how you were able to incorporate that into your portfolio. I think the spacing of your paragraphs and language between characters was well thought out and contributed to the smooth flow of your stories. This made it easier to see who was talking and there was no confusion, so great job on that. One thing I might suggest is giving animal characters some more descriptive personalities and with human characters adding physical features. I look forward to reading more of your stories!
Hey, just want to start off by saying that I thought the concept of your story was super cool. The way you took different aspects of stories you liked and combined them into one was really interesting and it made the story really appealing and enjoyable to read. Since It was a mashup of different stories I didn't know what to expect or where the story was going which I really liked. It was like a familiar surprise. Another thing I really liked about your story was the dialogue you used, and they way you broke up the main structure of your story. Each small paragraph led to the advancement of the story in a manageable way which I found to be really important. I do think it was a bit odd that you only named the monkey and not the other creatures, or at least the crab. In my opinion, at least the way in which I understood the story, the king crab and the king monkey were equals in relevance.
ReplyDeleteHey Braden! I love how you’ve combined the plots and characters from several of the Jataka tales into one story, and how you summed up the ending with a moral related to the idea of karma, which is such an important theme in Indian literature. It was also a great idea to contrast the ways in which two kings act as rulers; while the crab is villainous and rules with an iron fist (or claw, rather), the monkey king is clever and has a keen but subtle awareness of the subjects of his kingdom.
ReplyDeleteA few copyediting notes:
-I believe the sentence “every living creature lake” is missing some words; “in the lake” or “of the lake” would both work here to fill this gap
-“what” in “what an awesome kingdom you have built up” should be capitalized
-Before a quote begins, there should always be a comma in the word directly preceding the quotation
Ex: said to his wife, "I will go get it for you." vs. said to his wife "I will go get it for you."
Hi Braden. I really liked your story. One main detail or major plot point I would add is having some info why all the animals at the lake hate the Crab King. The story kind of transitions from everyone loving him then he gets food from them. It doesn't really give any info other than that. All we see as readers is the people rejoicing at the end without seeing their struggle. I also think you did a great job with the Indian names. How did you end up picking those?
ReplyDeleteAnother great detail to have would be the battle between the croc and the King. You said the king had gotten very powerful so I would expect there to be an epic battle. That would give you more words for the story and have a good action scene for the story!
Hi Braden I really loved reading your story. I especially enjoyed how you choose to write it! The way you picked up the story after the conclusion of the original story is brilliant. I will have to try this for one of my stories in the future! My first story I wrote about was over the Cunning Crane and the Crab too, so reading your story simply felt a continuation of the original story. The amount of dialogue in your story was the perfect amount as well the way all the characters interact with each other was perfectly fluent. I only wish the crab would have turned out to be the good guy in the story. He had help save the rest of the fish but then immediately turned around and starting stealing from them. So now karma has eventually caught up to the crab as well. I am a firm believer in bad karma, if you do bad things, bad things will always come upon you. Again Braden I really enjoyed reading your story. I look forward to reading more of your stories in the coming weeks.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I got to your cover page with the elephant I literally said "oooh." The elephant looks fabulous and it got me super excited about what I was about to read. Upon reading your first story, I figured out that you were retelling the jatakas we read at the beginning of class. I thought that was super cool! It was neat how you put it all together and made one big massive story. I would suggest maybe placing a link to your comment wall on all the pages, but maybe I'm just lazy. I'm glad you included the information in your last sentence of your author's note: Asatyavadin meaning liar. I had no idea, but I read that and had this moment of thinking about how much sense that made. I'm also glad the crocodile couple got their heart, but from someone who deserved it! Great job so far!
ReplyDeleteWWW Comment:
ReplyDeleteHey Braden,
I liked how you incorporated three different stories into one story. It was definitely unique because I haven’t seen anyone else in class use this method. I like how you made all the stories flow together. I could hardly tell that the story was made up of three different stories. The only thing that I had a problem with was the formatting of your story; particularly the spacing throughout your story, if the sentences were closer together, it would make it a lot easier to read the story. I thought it was really interesting how Brahmadatta was the mastermind behind the entire plan to take down Astayavadin. Also, I thought it was interesting how you made Brahmadatta convince Astayavadin to go to Benares, because he knew that the crocodile would be there waiting to kill Astayavadin. It was a very unique twist. I wonder how the story might have turned out if Astayavadin had found out about Brahmadatta’s plan. However, I really did like the way your story turned out.
Hey Braden,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your story " The Sage" about the author of the Ramayana. One of the things that really stuck out to me was your excellent use of alliteration, especially in the opening paragraph. The repetition of words beginning with F in "Forever Flowing stream of melted snow... plethora of Forest Friends in the Form of animals" really caught my attention and made me want to read more. I wonder how the poet immediately knew the women crying was Sita. Maybe there was a necklace or bracelet that she was wearing that indicated her identity to old poet. Perhaps she was wearing some of the jewelry that the dropped for Rama when she was kidnapped. What if Sita gave the poet a biased form of the story where Rama was the hero, but in reality it was actually her who rescued him from Ravana and kept it quiet to save their reputation? Overall, great story and I can't wait to read more!
Hi Braden,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love your homepage. I literally showed my roommate this picture because it looks so nice and professional. As for your story, I loved The Two Kings. I immediately noticed all three stories you were recreating, and I really enjoyed your twists on them. I was especially happy for the crocodile who finally won his wife a heart. I wonder at what point did the animals of the lake realize that the crab was evil. Did all he make them do was give them their food or were there other actions he did that pointed to his deceit? For your other stories, do you plan on combining the plots of multiple stories or just recreating one story at a time? I like the combination because it allowed the reader to see how each story intersects with another, but you might run out of stories to recreate!
Hey Braden.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your take on the Crane and the Crab. I liked how you combined the stories. However one issue I have is that it feels like the Crab doesn't really deserve to be killed. He was democratically elected ruler by popular vote (not his fault) and then imposed a tax of like 10%. It's pretty corrupt to take 10% just for yourself, but I don't think it's worthy of being brutally killed by crocodiles. Since you emphasized that King Crab was muscular, you should include a bit about the other lake animals trying to confront him because he keeps raising taxes, but he uses his massive size to kill one of his subjects and make an example out of them. That way the reader would feel like King Crab's death was justified.
Other than that I really enjoyed the story. It was written very well with just enough detail to make it feel organic and not forced. I look forward to reading more works from you.
What's going on Braden. So, I really liked both stories but have some thoughts about The Sage. It was interesting how you decided to incorporate a completely different viewpoint of the Ramayana. It's not that you retold the Ramayana but told a new story about how it came to be, which was awesome. For the point where Valmiki starts talking about how is version is being ruined by other writers, it might be cool for him just to list off some of the writers. Valmiki could maybe say "boy the R.K. Narayan really got it wrong with his attempt" or he could talk about one of the PDE writers. I guess if your story is set chronologically then these interactions wouldn't happen yet. A cool thing that you could do for future stories or revisions is having a sort of followup with Vyasa. I don't think you mentioned it, but he wrote the Mahabharata, so it could be cool to have Valmiki comment on Vyasa's writing progress as the Mahabharata was finished. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Braden, I liked both your stories. They were well done. I wanted to start out first and say that the pictures you chose were great banner images. I have the same layout for my storybook, so I like to see how big other people make their banner images. The first story was a great combination of those three different jatakas that we read during the first or second week (I can’t remember which). The second story is very meta. It takes a very close look at how ancient stories exist and interact with people throughout time. The perspective of the Author looking forward is a very cool way of explaining how a story and its retelling affect the world. Overall, I think you have done a good job so far in your portfolio. The home page is easy to navigate and fun to look at. The two stories are well written and inventive. Good luck the rest of the semester.
ReplyDeleteHi Braden,
ReplyDeleteYour synthesis of various stories from our readings into one, like others have said above, is a great concept.
In “The Sage,” I liked the nod to the concept of this course itself – there’s something very meta about the whole thing. But I would have liked, stylistically, a little more “show, don’t tell.” What did it look like for the 100 years of writing? The scratching of the pen? The passing of the seasons?
There’s another line in your story that begs for elaboration: “Of course, I twisted Sita's story to focus on Rama.” Why? What did Sita say that was different that the Ramayana we’ve read? Why did he change it? This is a big statement, and I don’t think you can get away without saying anything else about it. It’s also somewhat contradicted by the later statement that “nobody seemed to know the real story of Rama” – which can’t be true if our narrator knows that he intentionally distorted the tale in the first place. “Nobody knows my story of Rama” might be more accurate, and that bit of ego would also be worth exploring.
Best,
A.M.
Hi Braden!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your stories. I really liked how you integrated the three stories of "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit," The Cunning Crab and the Crane" and "The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart" all in one in your story The Two Kings! It was a very interesting read and it made me want to keep reading more. I also really liked your writing style because it kept me wanting to read more and I was able to follow along without having to read it over and over again. I also liked how you ended up making the Crab a bad guy and how he let the power get to his head. In the end, both the Crane and the Crab got what they deserved! I also really enjoyed your second story and how you told it. I think you are doing a great job so far and I look forward to reading more of your stories!
Hey Braden,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your story about Valmiki. Although he did write Ramayana, there was not that much information about Valmiki there. I appreciate the research you did on Valmiki to create this story. His background was an interesting one. Your story has a really nice flow to it. You started with where he was born to how he became an apprentice of a sage to becoming a sage himself. The inclusion of Vyasa retelling Valmiki's story was great. I understand how Valmiki would have felt that others were changing his story, but Vyasa was right in the fact that it shows different perspectives. We are doing that when we retell our stories.You know I always wondered if Sita did say bad things about Rama, but Valmiki chose not to include those things in his story. I think you can expand your author's note in your story, The Sage, by including why Rama sent Sita to forest.
Your classmate,
Joanna
Hi~
ReplyDeleteI like your site name "Newfound Narratives". It reads really nice.
On the home page, I'd recommend moving the stories you are including up from the bottom. I think because the portfolio is all about the stories the list should be more prominent. Otherwise it looks good, the elephant is super cute!
I'm not sure if the spacing in 'Two Kings' and 'The Sage' is important for how we are supposed to read the story but maybe you could cut the blank space down a little. That one extra white line throws me off just enough to wonder if there's been a time lapse between each dialogue/paragraph. The stories are great though! I love reading the different interpretations of the stories we've been learning about this semester. Great work! I look forward to seeing the finished product.
Hi again, Braden! With that being said, I would like to begin by saying that I think that I’ve read a few of your stories before, and I think you did a wonderful job at revising your past stories. My favorite story is probably the one with the two kings. I loved how you tied the original stories together to create your own version and interpretation of how it should end. I also wanted to add on how much I liked the images that you picked to be on your page.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, a question that I have is did you consider giving a little more information about why the crocodile’s wife wanted the heart of the crab? A suggestion that I have is to maybe include the crocodile and his wife in the plan to kill the crab, that way it would make the story flow even more smoothly. For example, in order to trade the monkey’s life, they were willing to take the heart of the crab instead.
Hello there Braden!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved that you combined 3 short epics to make your story "The Tale of Two Kings" As I read your story I thought I picked up on a few different parts of other stories. However, it has been so long since we read the Indian Epics that I could not remember properly.I also am happy that the crocodile was able to give his wife a heart. Hopefully that heart did not make her deceitful also! I was really surprised when I realized that the story "A Sage Never Stops Learning" was about the original author of the Ramayana! What a great idea! Write about the writer! You story was interesting, and it has me asking questions to myself. I wonder how long after the Ramayana was written that it became so popular? I think good stories leave you thinking. Often after I read a story that some element of truth to it I immediately start researching it. In a way this enables me to prolong the book and story.
Hi Braden!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I really like your home page. The layout is a little bit similar to mine so I may be a little bit biased, but I think the fact that the cover image is so big and the font is so simple is really appealing to the reader. I also really like the image that you chose- the elephant and the warm tones are both so welcoming and accurately represent a portion of India. At the bottom of your home page, it seems as if you are starting a list of stories you have posted, but you only have the first one on there. Although the short introduction is interesting, I don't think it's 100% necessary to have that list there! Just keep the intro on the home page short and sweet. I loved your "The Tale of Two Kings" story a lot and how you were able to incorporate so many elements from three Jataka tales into it. Good job, I'm excited to see more from you!
Hey there Braden,
ReplyDeleteI read both of your other stories and they were pretty good so I was happy to randomize to you for the feedback. This was another great one and it seems like it can teach a few lessons. Don't always assume that city dogs are the ones gnawing on your straps.... Adding the names was pretty interesting but it might seem like this is a story that actually involved Arjuna. Of course if you are okay with that angle, go for it. When reading how King Hastin was going to kill all 700 of the city dogs, it made me think about Krishna's story (which happens to be what my free reading was over, rather than the Jatakas). The king Kamsa was destined to be defeated by Krishna so he ordered that all the newborns in the city be taken away so that Kamsa could avoid his fate. It seems that both kings were acting in anger and punished innocent people.
Your stories are simple yet effective. The story from the point of view of Vamiki was quite an insight. Valmiki is such an overlooked character and deserves some recognition for what he's done (writing the Ramayana). I really like that you told about his times before writing it and his role model Narada. The story about the palace dogs was also well written. I was simple and reminded me of a childrens book. I'm a bit suprised that the palace dogs were not sentenced to death considering that was one of the things considered when trying to find out which city dogs did the deed. Maybe you could emphasize the fact that they were let go because of their history of serving the palace, and how city dogs may be considered lesser. I also kinda wanna see some sort of motivation for destroying the leather... maybe adding a motivation would be cool!
ReplyDeleteHi Braden! I thought the images that you used for you project was clear and helpful. I thought that the introduction page with the picture of the elephant was really incredible, and I liked that you chose that picture in particular to start your project. I also really liked the image of the crown in your first story. I thought that the choice of an image of a crown for a story about two kings was quite clever and meaningful. However, a suggestion that I have for your project is to maybe add and include a few more pictures to each of your stories. Also, is there a reason why you chose the the image of wolves to represent the palace dogs? Or was it to represent the dogs outside the walls of the palace? Since it’s the palace dogs, I imagined them to be more well-kept, even expensive for instance. Moreover, I’ve enjoyed reading your stories so far. I think your writing is really good and I can’t wait till your project is fully done!
ReplyDeleteHi hi Braden!!
ReplyDeleteI certainly enjoyed your first story, especially how it incorporated a multitude of Jataka tales, although some of the connections are shakier than others, particularly
"The power-hungry Crab said "Show me this place and I will become king of this lake and Benares!" When saying this, Asatyavadin had no clue that Brahmadatta was actually the king of Benares.
Brahmadatta and Asatyavadin went to Benares. The mate of a Crocodile in Benares saw the big Crab and said to her husband, "I want to eat his heart." "
That was the only serious disconnect that I noticed, but otherwise I really liked your first story's inter connectivity, although I can't really say why I liked it.
For your second story, I find the character unconvincing in his belief in his belief that he is lacking as a writer. The paragraph were he describes his self perceived inadequacy doesn't list any specific deficiencies with his writing. It might be useful to describe what his deficiencies were. Was he grammatically deficient? Were his characters inconsistent? Did he make stupid anime references that made no sense and shouldn't have been there? I dunno.
Hi Braden, I enjoyed reading your short story, Caught by the King. I think you did an excellent job writing a short story as it kept me both and engaged and eager to keep reading. I also like the way your portfolio is turning out. It is put together nicely, easy to navigate and I also like the high quality pictures. This weeks assignment has us focusing on the the Author's note portion of the Portfolios. I think everything you mention and bring up in your Author's Note is great information for the reader and helps inform the reader where you got your inspiration from. One small critique I have about your Author's note that would make it near perfect is to give a small explanation. Maybe just a sentence or two about the original story you are taking inspiration from. My best advice would just be to say what the main story was about. This gives the reader an idea of the story you are taking inspiration from. Other than that I think your short story looks great. Again I enjoyed reading through it!
ReplyDeleteHey Braden,
ReplyDeleteI just read your story "Caught by the King" and I love it! It was a great story. I like the change you made in your story by adding names in the story. It is more difficult to differentiate characters or give a purpose to them when they do not have a name. I did not like how the palace dogs were not going to say anything and let all the dogs in the city be killed for the mischievous act they committed. I really liked Arjuna in this story. He went to seek justice not only for himself but his fellow dogs. I can tell you did some research on the kinds of dogs you wanted for your picture. I like how you made it realistic by making them resemble wolves because that was how they looked like before hundred of years of selective breeding.The way you described the dogs remind me of the dire wolves from Game of Thrones. I feel like those dogs would fit well with the time period also.
Your classmate,
Joanna
Hi Braden,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I really enjoyed the images you used throughout your portfolio. Everything was neat and very well put together. It made your website simple to navigate. I also thoroughly appreciated how you used a medley of stories from the Jataka Tales in your "Two Kings" story. I thought you did an amazing job at utilizing different aspects of each original story and your collaborative efforts did not disappoint. I specifically liked how your "The Sage" story really provided a different perspective for us all to look at regarding rewriting the Ramayana. It is really cool to see how different authors imagine characters and plots to play out and even more so how they bring their stories to life. Sita Sings the Blues is one of my favorite retellings of the Ramayana, so I liked how you were able to incorporate that into your portfolio.
I think the spacing of your paragraphs and language between characters was well thought out and contributed to the smooth flow of your stories. This made it easier to see who was talking and there was no confusion, so great job on that. One thing I might suggest is giving animal characters some more descriptive personalities and with human characters adding physical features. I look forward to reading more of your stories!