Week 3: Brainstorming Styles with Rama and Ravana

For my storybook I think that I am going to make it be about Rama’s adventure while searching for the love of his life, as well as the story of Ravana. What I was thinking about doing was maybe telling two stories at first with Rama being the main character, then after that switch to Ravana’s side of the story and tell two stories with him. The two separate stories would both tell majority of the same story at a certain time period. The only difference is that I will be telling it from two different point of views.

Style: For the Storybook styles I am thinking about doing a First Person style. The reason I decided this was because I feel that the best way to show the emotion from Rama and Ravana is to let their own dialogue do all of the talking. Another option could be Third person. This is just to provide more background information and focus on the different goals and decisions each character made.

Story Style: For the story style I was not sure if it would be an anthology or a frametale. I plain on telling two different stories for each of the characters that aren’t necessarily connected, but they mirror each other. If I had to guess, than my stories would be more of an anthology since my stories will not be following a direct train. They some of the same stories told by different people.

Sidekick as a Narrator: I thought about using this style for my storybook as part of a First-person style. This style interested me the most and seemed to fit the Ramayana. What I could do is tell a the stories about Rama through one of his sidekicks since he was always traveling with someone. One option could be through Rama’s brother, and the other story could be told through the eyes of one of Ravana’s council men, or is youngest brother. I think that telling a story this way you help clarity the roles between the two characters and also give a new perspective to from with two more different characters.

Third-Person Omniscient: One of the more popular ways to tell a story. I think that this technique would also work well for my storybook idea. This way I could focus more on the story itself as well as setting and background. This style contains the voices of all the characters so I can should how to use the dialogue between characters. This writing style works best for epics and quests like the Ramayana. 

Taj Mahal - India photo by: acher10