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GSLeloo
01-25-2004, 05:49 PM
Ok I need some advice as to if this works or not. We have to write a frame story in English (ex: Canterbury Tales). What it is is that there are these stories within a story and they are completely separate stories but they relate.. I know that sounds confusing. My character is a lawyer and so she tells a story about lies. Therefore it is ironic because lawyers lie... just tell me if the story works or not.

There was once a man who lived in the heart of a city. He wasn’t too rich and he wasn’t too handsome but he was very good at drawing people in. He would move from woman to woman, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. He had the ability to say the perfect words to make any woman succumb to him. No one truly understood how for there was nothing necessarily magnificent about this man. Yet he was able to make the most skeptical women trust him. It was truly the only talent he possessed. The women he won over he would use until he grew tired of them and dropped them, leaving them more jaded than they ever were.
He would win people over through his lies. Each lie was more extravagant than the last and yet for some reason the women fell for it. Perhaps it was the way he spoke or how he looked into their eyes whenever he did it. Whatever it was it worked very well and he left a trail of broken hearts wherever he went. Once he met a gypsy who warned him that his lies would one day have a price but he simply dismissed the old hag for she was unworthy of being conquered.
One day on one of his normal walks through he park he happened to notice a woman who was more fair and more beautiful than the finest rose. Her beauty was worthy of a prince but this man decided that it was he who would claim her. When he approached, a lie on his lips, he found himself for once unable to speak. She was far superior to him and with one look he felt something he never had before, something he could only believe was love. “Please fair lady tell me your name so that I may hold it in my heart till my very last breath. For it is the only name I wish to even speak again.”
She did not reply but merely watched him. Her gaze was too much for him to hold and he had to turn his head away. When he glanced back she was still watching him and he felt like an angel was looking into his soul. “Please just tell me the name. My soul aches for it and I cannot be whole until I know it. Let me know your name for it must be as pure as you.”
Once again she only watched him as he continued to fret in place. He had never felt so unwound around a woman. He who always had a lie ready on his lips now found himself speechless and frantic to know this single word. He fell to her feet, feeling all his strength leave him as her silence continued.
“Why is it you will not speak? Why won’t you tell me your name?”
“My name is something you can never know for if you spoke it you would tarnish it. You are poison of the greatest potency and what you use are lies. You have corrupted the purest souls with every word you have said. You shall never know my name.”
Her words cut through him like the sharpest dagger. Never before had he known what it was to be rejected. His world was pulled from beneath him and he was left there with nothing. All of his lies had finally come back to haunt him and now he finally knew the cost of those lies. He watched as she walked away and left him there, a broken man. Till the end of his her words would haunt him and what was left of his black soul would ache to know her name.

Latrinsorm
01-25-2004, 06:30 PM
Sounds kinda like a good fable. I dunno if I would expect it coming out of a lawyer's mouth, though.

GSLeloo
01-25-2004, 07:35 PM
Well like... this guy who scams people just to get money told this story about how money corrupts people. All the tales are supposed to be satirical so I figured if you had a lawyer telling a story about how lying will get you in trouble it might follow that path. Did it work?

HarmNone
01-25-2004, 07:41 PM
Hmm. To make this a true frame story, I would think you would need to put more characterization and separateness into the female character. As it is now, she comes into it only in how she relates to the shallow man.

A frame story, as I understand it, would be something like a man, his wife, and their dog walking in the park. The view of the park would shown from the man's eyes, the wife's eyes, and the dog's eyes. Then, at the end, all views are linked.

At least, that is how I remember a frame story to be developed.

HarmNone

Ooga Chaka
01-26-2004, 12:18 AM
I think a frame story can be linked in the beginning as well depending on how you go about it. I get the feeling this isn't the whole piece, if that's not the case, theirs no frame to go around it. Is there more? or were you given the base story of the lawyer and asked to fill in the rest. If so, i think it works fine, but then i'm no expert. Also, if this is to turn in...there's a word missing in the last sentence. :P

Ooga Chaka
01-26-2004, 12:19 AM
For instance, i believe "Arabian Nights" is a frame story, in which the stories are linked in the beginnning.

GSLeloo
01-26-2004, 04:25 PM
This is just the story that the lawyer tells. What it will be is that the main story is there are these four women stuck at an airport because it snows and the flights can't leave. They get to talking and end up telling stories to pass the time. Each one tells a story and the story somehow reflects ironically back on the person telling it.

Ooga Chaka
01-26-2004, 04:37 PM
I see, it sounds like it should work fine. Good luck to ya. :)

HarmNone
01-26-2004, 04:39 PM
That would certainly make more sense, Leloo. Sounds like you have it going really well. Your style is really quite good.

Yes, a frame story can be linked in either the beginning or the end. It really does not matter. :)

HarmNone

Latrinsorm
01-26-2004, 06:38 PM
Originally posted by GSLeloo
This is just the story that the lawyer tells. What it will be is that the main story is there are these four women stuck at an airport because it snows and the flights can't leave. They get to talking and end up telling stories to pass the time. Each one tells a story and the story somehow reflects ironically back on the person telling it.
Do they end up kissing?

/that would be hot

longshot
01-27-2004, 03:07 AM
You should eliminate verbs of being to make your writing more descriptive.

Eliminate the use of "is/be/am/are/was/were/being/appears".

This helps you choose better verbs and makes your writing more precise. It's difficult to do, but the results are excellent.