THE MYTH AND FABLE EXERCISE
 

The assignment is to write a myth, or a fable.  A myth is a primitive piece of writing that relies on story telling to explain or illustrate a natural phenomenon or a metaphysical principle.  It can also be a simple and subjective way of imparting history, about a family, a relationship, a place.  When written, a myth ought to help its creator see things personally that otherwise might have escaped him or her by being too abstract.

A fable is like a myth, but it illustrates a moral truth, in the form of a lesson to be learned from the telling of it.

Your myth can be entirely made up, or it can retell an ancient tale, with your own take on it.

However you go with the assignment, you are encouraged to allow your creative impulse to be fanciful, child-like, primitive, easily poised to lapse in and out of the likely, to find its way in and through dreaming, and, generally, to shun and only skirt the open clearings in which reason and rational thinking shine bright.  You should remain in the dream shadows, even though you may peer out into the bright clearing from time to time.