Introduction
I wrote this story in 10th grade, as part of a "Writing a Romance" assignment. Now,
romance doesn't mean kissing, love, and all of that stuff. The students got a paper that explained
what sort of romance we were writing, and so just for your reference (so you know what's going on), I'm going
to include a little bit of info from that sheet!
'Romance' comes from the old French word 'romanz', which simply means "in the
Roman language." When we speak of the genre of romance today, we are referring to a
basic narrative in which a young nobleman (with supernatural help) embarks upon an
adventure which proves his valor. When he dies, he is memorialized as someone more
than human. The plotline is simple, suggesting strong links to legends, fairy tales,
and myths. You can relate the basic pattern to many narratives, both ancient and modern,
including The Once and Future King, "The Fifty-First Dragon", and the recently
rereleased Star Wars trilogy.
How to write a romance:
1. Develop a young hero of noble birth
2. Send him upon an adventure (preferably three!) a QUEST that will prove his worth:
good must triumph over evil
the innocent must be protected
skeptical elders must be proven wrong
the beleaguered must be rescued at the darkest moment
3. Create mysterious, magical, or supernatural powers that will come to his aid:
they may give advice and warnings
they may instruct him to use his own inner powers
they must work as a force for good
4. Remember that events and characters come in sets of threes!
Dorothy's three companions in Oz, 3 wishes in many fairy tales, 3 wise men, etc.
5. Create a setting in a long ago time in a far away place
6. As you prepare his death (you don't have to kill him off; perhaps you predict
this part):
the hero must take on some godly features or become memorialized as someone MORE than human
I expect that you'll probably get quite a few laughs out of this story. It's not meant to be a humorous
story, but as I mentioned before, I wrote this story in tenth grade (back in 1996), so I still obviously had a
bit to learn when it came to writing! ;) The reason why the events of the story are rushed is because it was
supposed to be a short story...the teacher had joked about me writing a novel, and it was only nine pages long! If
I'd developed things more, it definitely would have been longer!
But anyway, my point is that I know this isn't the best story you'll ever read. I'm not posting it because
I think it's my best literary work, but because I think it's neat to see how my writing has developed since
then. Of course, at the time I wrote it I thought it was terrific, and I did get an A+ on it, so it must
not've been too bad, but looking back on it I realize that I've definitely written better stories! ;) But
at any rate, with that introduction, on with the actual story!
Page 1 | 2 | 3
Back to my writings