The Hidden Oasis
In a poor village, there was a boy that was known for this love for animals. Although not getting enough food to satisfy his own needs, he always would give portions of his own food to his animals in order to keep them alive. He had a three dogs and two cats that he loved more than his own family. During one part of the year, there was a terrible drought that cost the village countless lives. Food was scarce and the boy struggled to gather enough food for his animals. He begged his parents to help him gather enough food for his animals, but the parents did no such thing. In fact, they threatened to kill the animals for a source of food for themselves. Although he didn't like the idea of stealing, he knew that is what he must do to keep them alive. He stole food from his parents, friends, and other villagers. Soon enough, people started to notice that his animals were growing stronger and fatter. The village was aware that someone was stealing, so they concluded it must be the boy. At a town meeting, the villagers decided to take the animals from the boy and eat them. The boy, overhearing the meeting's decision, ran home and gathered his animals quickly. He took what little food he could find and ran far away from the village with his animals to ensure their safety. After walking for days across dry terrain, he almost died from the heat and lack of food and water. Almost at the point of giving up, his dogs began barking and running in circles around him. The cats purred and he knew something good was near. He got up and kept walking. As he walked more he heard the sounds of rushing water and began to ran. He wiggled his way through some huge boulders and found rushing water, green grass, fruits, and an abundance of wildlife. It was an oasis. After healing completely, he ventured back to the town to tell the people of his findings. The people quickly forgave him for stealing and promised to not harm his animals if they showed him the way to the plentiful lands. He agreed and they all lived in harmony for the rest of their days.
Author's Note
This story is loosely based on "The Dog Husband." In that story, a girl is impregnated by a dog and is shunned by the people of her village. They end up moving away and leaving her for dead. However, the girl gives birth to 5 pups and they end up supplying her with an abundance of food. The village people find out and move back to the original land with the girl and all is forgiven. I changed the character, setting, and pretty much everything else about the story besides the ending. I hope you enjoyed my, very different, version of this story!
Hey Katie, great story! I love how you set the scene and set up the story so that the audience was able to fully comprehend what was happening throughout. I wonder what I would do if I were in the boy's shoes, I think I would do the same things that he did because like him, I am a huge fan of all animals. You showed great creativity with the way you gave the characters personalities and provided great details. Reading your author's note, I like how you developed your own spinoff to what sounds like an interesting story. Great work and I hope to read more from you soon!
ReplyDeleteKatie-- I love the visual representation you included with this story! I think the way you totally changed the story was a good idea. I love happy endings the most so I'm glad you were able to make one for your character. After reading your author's note I realized I've read another story based off of "The Dog Husband" and they are both 100% different from each other so I thought that was really interesting.
ReplyDeleteHi Katie. Wow, what a great story. Your visual representation is captivating and kept the audience (myself) fully engaged. Also, what a beautiful picture you provided of the Oasis. The story is crazy in itself since a female is impregnated by a dog, which obviously is crazy and does not happen in the real world. As crazy as the story is, there is a happy ending which always makes stories so much better in my opinion. Your author's note was well written and I loved reading it. I liked how you created your own spinoff of the story. I think you did a great job, I hope you have a great rest of the semester.
ReplyDeleteHi Katie :)
ReplyDeleteI really liked your story! I liked how you took it and completely made it your own. That's always nice to see in these weekly stories. I liked how you kept the ending, and I liked how you portrayed the strong bond between the boy and his animals. And your picture of the oasis was wonderful!
The only suggestions I have are paragraph breaks and grammar. Paragraph breaks help your readers follow your story better, and it helps them not feel so overwhelmed by a block of text. Creating that empty space with paragraph breaks is a great way to make your story more welcoming to your readers and can really help control the pacing of the story.
With the grammar, there are just a few things here and there. A few times you're missing an article or have one that doesn't need to be there. A few times the verb and subject agreement is off, but those are all quick fixes!
Overall, your story was very engaging :)