Creative Writing Unit:Fables

English 11

What is a Fable?

• A very short story intended to teach a lesson (i.e. the ‘moral’ of this story is…)

Elements of a Fable

• Animals are used instead of humans

• The plot and characters are unassuming

• There has to be an underlying moral or lesson

• Setting is common and generic (i.e. a forest, or a farm)

• Anthropomorphism: give your animals human traits: Talk

Display emotions

Vindictive

Sly

Good or evil

How to Write a Fable

1.Choose the Moral or Lesson Because the moral is the crux of a fable, it’s often helpful to begin outlining your fable by

determining the moral. The moral of a fable should relate to or reflect on a culturally pertinent issue that will resonate with many people.

2.Decide the problemThe problem is what will drive the action of the fable, and it will be the

primary source for the lesson to be learned

3.Create your charactersDetermine who or what the characters in your fable will be and what

traits will define them

Remember, they MUST be an animal (not an alien, or Kim Jong-Un!)

4.Determine the characters archetype Lion: strength and pride

Wolf: dishonest, greedy

Donkey: ignorance

Tortoise: slow, determined

Owl: wise, sees 360*

Fox: clever, sly

Lamb: innocent, shy

Serpent: deceitful, evil

5. Imagine a settingWhere will the events of the story take place? As when choosing the moral and the

problem, choose a setting that will be simple and recognizable to most people.

6.Decide on a Resolution The resolution should be satisfying as well as relevant to the other components of

the story, including the characters, their relationships, and the setting.

Write Your Own Fable!1. Opening

• One day in Mr. Owl’s grade eleven English class, the budgies stopped listening. Mr. Owl was not impressed, he was always kind and generous to his budgies; but for some reason, the budgies kept ignoring him, and did not do their work. Mr. Owl implored them to listen, but it was no use.

2. Event

• One particular budgie (whose name will remain unknown) asked to go to the bathroom, and promised to ‘be back in a minute’. Mr. Owl was skeptical, but since he was always gracious towards the budgies’ bladders, he afforded the budgie leave from the classroom. He trusted his budgies after all!

3. Problem

• After several minutes, the Hawk phoned Mr. Owl and asked him ‘why the budgie was wondering around the halls instead of in class?’. Mr. Owl was angered with all the budgies now; he knew that he would have to answer to the Hawk for this. He was overcome with disappointment…

4. Ending

• When the budgie was escorted back to Mr. Owl’s classroom by the Hawk, he/she apologized endlessly to Mr. Owl; but now it was Mr. Owl who wasn’t listening. The Hawk asked Mr. Owl to meet him ‘right after last period’. Mr. Owl spent an hour explaining what happened; what a waste of time. For the next month, the budgie who disappointed Mr. Owl stayed for an hour after school writing fables of his own…

5. Lesson = ???