What genre of story are you reading or writing? To answer this question, you must understand the characteristics and qualities of genre. In other words, what kinds of ideas, subject matter, characters, techniques, and strategies are used in the story?
Below you will find seven checklists or cheat sheets that cover the characteristics and qualities of NARRATIVE FOLKLORE STORIES. What are folklore stories? For the most part, they are the types of stories that people have told through the oral tradition for centuries or even thousands of years.
1. Narrative Q Story Q General Folktales and Folklore
2. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Fairy Tale
3. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Tall Tale
4. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Basic Folktale
5. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Fable
6. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Myth
7. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Legend
As you can see, I’ve included a breadcrumb trail of arrows to illustrate the genre path. However, I must say that there is no perfect genre classification system. Writers and storytellers don’t follow rigid guidelines of classification when creating. Their goal is to tell a story.
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As you study the checklists on this page, compare the lists, but also think about them as a whole. Whatever kind of story you are writing or analyzing, you can probably use ideas off of all of these lists. Be sure to think about the kinds of ideas, concepts, strategies, and techniques that writers use to create their stories. Writing is an art of making choices.
By the way, if you are interested in folklore and the oral tradition, be sure to check out these Giant Lists of Myths, Legends, Tales, and Folklore for Scholars and Kids. Also, if you are interested in story, be sure to check out this collection of checklists and cheat sheets: Narrative Story, Narrative Essay, and Narrative Non-Fiction Checklist and Cheat Sheet.
Let’s get started!
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1. Narrative Q Story Q General Folktale and Folklore Concepts
1. The writer created characters that are exaggerated human beings, talking animals, or magical beings. Whatever they are—they have human qualities, and they deal with problems that any human would view as challenging. As the problem is solved, a lesson is learned. That is the point of the tale.
2. The writer shows how things came to be and why things in the world are the way they are. The writer provides a magical or interesting explanation for what we find in the world and in life.
3. Characters in a Traditional Folktale: The writer created fun and interesting characters in the spirit of a traditional folktale. The characters are mostly one-dimensional—each character represents a specific quality of humanness: One is foolish, one is wise, one is selfish, one is good, one is bad, and one is pure evil. Good qualities are rewarded, and bad qualities are punished.
4. Characters in an Ironic Modern Folktale: The writer creates fun and interesting one-dimensional characters. However, the characters become self-aware, then question, and then challenge their one-dimensionality or their lot in life. (Movie Example: Enchanted)
5. Clear, Concrete, and Extreme without Shade of Gray: The writer placed all of the problems, the conflicts, the heroes, the villains, the settings, and the descriptions at an extreme. One is either royalty or a beggar, beautiful or hideous, young or old, generous or selfish, powerful or weak. They live in a hole in the ground or a castle. The setting is either beautiful or untenable, on a mountaintop or in a quaint valley.
The writer knows that the extremes communicate what words cannot, and the writer is brief in his or her descriptions. This lets the writer focus on moving the plot forward. There is no philosophical debate. As a rule, good wins over evil and everyone who lives does so happily ever after.
6. Plot: The writer skillfully uses at least one of the traditional folktale plot elements: promises, quests, tests, amazing feats, journeys, tricks, deception, etc.
7. Plot: Decisive Endings: The writer skillfully constructs the ending so that every problem and every important character is dealt with decisively. The rewards and consequences are forever after: e.g., happily ever after, for all eternity, never seen again, etc.
8. The Rule of Three: The writer uses at least one example of the famous Rule of Three in folktales. The writer may have three characters that represent three different qualities. Or the writer may have had the central character attempt a feat three times or journey to three different places. Or the writer may have constructed the story around three objects. In general, things happened in threes.
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2. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Fairy Tale
The writer uses a variety of these common fairy tale techniques:
1. The tale begins with “once upon a time” or a “once upon a time” feeling.
2. The tale has good characters and evil characters
3. The tale teaches a hidden message: e.g., Good wins over evil. Beauty is on the inside.
4. The tale has magical elements: e.g., spells, potions, fairies, objects with special powers, etc.
5. The tale uses the numbers three and seven.
6. The tale uses opposites: young and old, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, rich and poor, etc.
7. The tale uses magical or unusual helpers and allies: e.g., forest animals, etc.
8. The tale uses talking animals and talking physical objects.
9. The tale uses trickery, travelers, a quest, sleep, spells, royalty, castles, fairies, etc.
10. The tale takes place “long, long ago,” or perhaps, it is a “modern day fairy tale.”
11. The tale ends with “happily ever after.”
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3. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Tall Tale
Five Famous American Tall-Tale Characters and Their Jobs: 1) Paul Bunyan – lumberjack, 2) John Henry – railroad worker, 3) Pecos Bill – cowboy, 4) Annie Christmas – keelboat captain, 5) Mike Fink – keelboat captain.
The writer uses a variety of these common tall tale techniques:
1. The tale contains exaggeration and humor. The main character, the hero, achieves great feats. The hero’s powers come from his or her superhuman strength, cunning, wit, and skill. The hero usually solves the problem in an amusing way.
2. The main character, the hero, is larger than life, but also has realistic qualities. The hero is a human being, just exaggerated.
3. The hero uses or is accompanied by an equally amazing object or animal: e.g., blue ox.
4. The hero possesses the qualities that a community of people identifies with. The hero is a magnified and exaggerated mirror image of them. The hero is a working person, and the hero’s job is an important part of the community. The hero is one of them! The tale tells the story of the community and of how things came to be and why they are all so special. The tale is a humorous celebration of the community and of the community’s way of life.
5. The tone is highly informal, even colloquial. The dialogue may use a heavy regional dialectic or accent.
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4. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Basic Folktale
1. This is a watered down version of a tall tale. The tale is quirky, amusing, or idiosyncratic but not outrageous. Although the tale may use exaggeration, everything that happens in the story could have happened. The story is presented as though it did happen, but the entire story is certainly suspect. Please Note: If the tale uses extreme exaggeration about things that certainly did not happen, it’s better classified as a tall tale.
2. The main character is presented as a “common person” that is an interesting representative of the people: e.g., a young Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, a man with three cows, or a spirited, cantankerous, frontier woman.
3. The main character is a well-known folk hero or folk-hero type character doing quirky or amusing activities, but not extraordinary activities: e.g., Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, etc.
4. The tale teaches a lesson or instills a cultural value.
5. The tale has a folksy appeal to it.
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5. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Folktale Q Fable
1. The fable has animal characters with human characteristics.
2. The fable teaches a moral or lesson. This moral or lesson may be clearly stated (e.g., The moral of the story is…) or implied.
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6. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Myth
Please Note: Myth is common term for a story that is presented as true or that people believe is true, but it’s not. This is not the kind of mythological story we discuss here.
1. Character: The Hero: The hero is an extraordinary human being in extraordinary circumstances. The hero is a hero in the traditional sense of the word—the heroic ideal.
2. Character: The Hero: The hero is a flawed but extraordinary human being in extraordinary circumstances. The hero is a work in progress whose destiny unfolds throughout the myth.
3. Character: The heroes and important characters are: 1) gods/goddesses, 2) humans who interact with gods, 3) humans with superhuman or mystical qualities, 4) supernatural beings that may resemble monsters, or 5) monsters with human qualities.
4. Character: The characters in the myth may move between the human world and the supernatural world.
5. The myth has a religious, spiritual, or supernatural component. This component is not simply magical—it’s more than magical. It’s an overarching exploration of human existence or the meaning of life. The myth is presented as a true explanation for the questions that human beings have pondered since time began.
6. The myth contributes to creating an identity for a group of people. The myth may be an idealized, romanticized, or heroic version of history. The myth may explain and validate society’s structure and institutions or its beliefs and values.
7. The myth explains things that exist in nature, in the night sky, or in the universe at large.
8. The myth explains the beginning of the world (creation myth) or the ending of the world.
9. Setting: The myth takes place in a world before recorded time. The myth may explain non-human or human-made physical objects that history cannot account for (e.g., Roman buildings and ruins in the dark ages, Stonehenge, or dinosaur bones before archaeology). In short, the myth takes place in a strange young world where gods, superhumans, and strange beings existed.
10. Character: The myth uses archetypal characters:
a) Hero’s Journey Archetypes: 1) The Hero, 2) The Mentor/Teacher, 3) The Guardian, 4) The Herald, 5) The Shapeshifter, 6) The Trickster, 7) The Ally, 8) The Shadow.
b) Jung’s 12 Primary Archetypes: 1) The Innocent, 2) The Orphan/Everyman, 3) The Hero/Warrior, 4) The Caregiver, 5) The Explorer, 6) The Rebel/Outlaw/ Destroyer, 7) The Lover, 8) The Creator, 9) The Ruler, 10) The Magician, 11) The Sage, 12) The Jester/Wise Fool.
c) Other Story Archetypes: 1) The Scapegoat, 2) The Outcast, 3) The Child, 4) The Mother, 5) The Father, 6) The Evil Character, 7) The Opponent, 8) The Monster, 9) The Detective, 10) The Cowboy, etc.
11. Plot: The myth contains elements of The Hero’s Journey Plot (Vogler’s Simplification of Campbell) :
Act 1: 1) Ordinary World, 2) Call to Adventure, 3) Refusal of the Call, 4) Meeting with the Mentor, 5) Crossing the First Threshold
Act 2: 6) Tests, Allies, Enemies, 7) Approach to Inmost Cave, 8) Ordeal, 9) Reward – Seizing the Sword
Act 3: 10) The Road Back, 11) Resurrection, 12) Return with the Elixir
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7. Narrative Q Story Q Folklore Q Legend
1. The legend is set in a known time and place in history. Certain parts of the legend could be true, but little if any historical or archaeological proof exists: e.g., Kind Arthur/Round Table.
2. The legend contains people, places, things, and events that are heroic, imaginative, bizarre, extraordinary, or improbable. Although the legend is probably not true as told, certain parts or aspects of the legend may be true. There are probably logical, real-life explanations for what is unbelievable: e.g., A person stumbled across a dinosaur bone, and a monster legend was born.
3. The legend does not contain exaggeration beyond all sense of reality, but the characters and events are certainly extraordinary or unusual. Although the legend may imply mystical reasons and events, a rational person could assume that there is probably a logical explanation for the unbelievable parts. In short, even the unbelievable parts of the legend may be steeped in truth:
e.g., King Arthur may have pulled free an ancient sword that was stuck between two rocks, and subsequently, he became king. But it did not involve magic. The sword simply came loose. Furthermore, he was one of two rightful heirs to the throne.
e.g., The so-called monster in the bog may have been a bear that wandered in and got stuck. It was something, but not a monster.
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Truthfully, sometimes the categories are confusing because there is so much overlap. As an example, many myths and legends are hero tales, and tall tales and fairy tales are types of folktale. There is no one perfect categorization system. Genres overlap. Furthermore, a writer’s goal is to tell an effective story, not follow a checklist based on categories. Our goal on this page is to understand so that we can analyze, discuss, and write stories.
