why can't fanfic authors writing folktales just be normal instead of shoehorning everything into a frame narrative
“kibi didn't you literally just publish the first chapter of a folktale collection which situates the entire thing as a frame narrative” THAT’S DIFFERENT
META frame narratives are fine i’m talking about the obligatory five paragraphs at the beginning where some elder gathers a bunch of younglings around them and is like “now let me tell you a story…”
“but how will people know it is a folktale if i don't situate it in the context of some fake imagined lore-sharing” idk have you tried switching up your authorial voice
it just makes it feel childish to me like you can't trust the audience to figure out that this is a story without slamming them over the head with it at the beginning and end
i’m also bothered by the authorial voice thing in general like the point of a folktale is transmission of cultural knowledge it has different aims than an ordinary fanfic and it SHOULD be written differently
if you aren't asking yourself the question “why is this story being told” throughout the entire process of putting together your folktale you are failing; it's not as simple as coming up with a cool story and sticking a folkloric wrapper on it
folktales can be cool stories!! but they're never JUST that; they're always informed by the agendas of the people telling the tale
the dude over here giving an entire theogony just to tell a story about a yokai
@Lady this makes me think of that tumblr post where someone asks "what is [thing]" and the responder goes through half a dozen aborted attempts to explain as they realize they need to explain more historical concepts until they get to something like "about ten thousand years ago people realized they could plant their own crops..."
AND ANOTHER THING
folktales never bother introducing cultural heroes or significant deities. the assumption of the folktale is that it is being told in a folk context where such cultural knowledges are already widespread. USE FOOTNOTES