To rewrite a myth or classic and make it good, you should read A LOT of myths or classics. That way, you understand the form. If you read just one, or know only a little bit about the genre, you're not going to have an easy time writing one.
Stephen King famously said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
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Montgomery Mahaffey is the founder of Left Hanging, a half-hour radio show on KTOO FM in Juneau Alaska. Featuring folktales and fables from around the world – Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, the Arabian Nights, Norse Myths, Celtic fables, etc – Mahaffey hosted from January 2007 until August 2009 when she moved to Portland, Oregon.
Left Hanging opened with Mahaffey’s version of the tale of Scheherazade using storytelling and suspense to seduce and dissuade the King – who was rendered psychotic from the infidelity of his first wife – from beheading her at night’s end. Like Scheherazade, Mahaffey left the audience hanging so people would tune in the following week to find out what happened next. Besides ancient tales that have been told for thousands of years, Mahaffey also shared her original work – like the fable version of Ella Bandita and The Divorce of Vice and Virtue – as well as contemporary fiction.
Although Mahaffey found this form of storytelling to be a different experience from a live audience, she found it very rewarding and welcomed another way to express her love of the old myths and fairy tales that influenced her writing.
You can listen to a clip from the show here:
[audio mp3="http://freeflyingpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/02-Track-02.mp3"][/audio]
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