The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).
BREAKING NEWS ON THE G-NETWORK: most recent addition in Portfolio at Featured Fables
Good evening, everyone. I'm Hermes, God of trade, and we interrupt this broadcast of the G-Network to bring you breaking G-news! For the past couple of weeks, there have been rumors that, after losing his beloved wife, Sultan Schahriar has been taking a new wife every evening and having her killed the next day. Now, these rumors were confirmed yesterday evening when one of our reports saw the Sultan having a suspicious conversation with the grand-vizir, the poor soul who has the job of killing these wives after they marry the Sultan. In this hushed conversation, the Sultan was ordering the grand-vizir to 'prepare' for the next bride the following morning. I don't know about you, but it sounds pretty suspicious to me! Well, if you thought this was juicy, just wait until you hear the latest update! Turns out, there is a new woman who volunteered to marry the Sultan. Why, you ask? Well, according to sources close to this individual, she wishes to save the other women in her community from this nasty fate, and is even willing to die fighting for this cause! Talk about a heroine! Now, this is not even the BEST PART of this brand new wealth of information that we here at G-News have recently stumbled upon! The woman who volunteered to marry the Sultan is the daughter of the very man who has killed all of his previous wives! That's right, the Sultan's new wife is none other than Scheherazade, daughter of the grand-vizir! According to some credible sources, the grand-vizir was absolutely crushed when he heard of his daughter's wishes, but could not do anything to stop her from committing to carrying out this act of bravery. The sultan, however, was giddy when he found that Scheherazade requested to marry him, and happily obliged her in this. We also heard that she requested to bring her sister with her for unknown reasons, and were surprised to find that the sultan allowed this. Maybe he was interested in marrying and killing two brides this week? Anyways, we are keeping a close eye on this developing story and are anxious to see if and when this bride makes it out of the palace alive! Thanks for tuning in to G-News! Once again, I'm Hermes, God of trade; goodnight!
Author's note: I found the reading about Scheherazade and the stories she told to the Sultan to be very interesting and quite similar to the Heroine stories of Katniss Everdeen or Mulan, so I wanted to make some kind of breaking news story about it. While I was writing, I liked the idea of making it a gossip channel, similar to E-News, as the story is something that would get the town talking! I had a lot of fun making this story and I hope you all enjoyed reading!!
BREAKING NEWS ON THE G-NETWORK: most recent addition in Portfolio at Featured Fables
Good evening, everyone. I'm Hermes, God of trade, and we interrupt this broadcast of the G-Network to bring you breaking G-news! For the past couple of weeks, there have been rumors that, after losing his beloved wife, Sultan Schahriar has been taking a new wife every evening and having her killed the next day. Now, these rumors were confirmed yesterday evening when one of our reports saw the Sultan having a suspicious conversation with the grand-vizir, the poor soul who has the job of killing these wives after they marry the Sultan. In this hushed conversation, the Sultan was ordering the grand-vizir to 'prepare' for the next bride the following morning. I don't know about you, but it sounds pretty suspicious to me! Well, if you thought this was juicy, just wait until you hear the latest update! Turns out, there is a new woman who volunteered to marry the Sultan. Why, you ask? Well, according to sources close to this individual, she wishes to save the other women in her community from this nasty fate, and is even willing to die fighting for this cause! Talk about a heroine! Now, this is not even the BEST PART of this brand new wealth of information that we here at G-News have recently stumbled upon! The woman who volunteered to marry the Sultan is the daughter of the very man who has killed all of his previous wives! That's right, the Sultan's new wife is none other than Scheherazade, daughter of the grand-vizir! According to some credible sources, the grand-vizir was absolutely crushed when he heard of his daughter's wishes, but could not do anything to stop her from committing to carrying out this act of bravery. The sultan, however, was giddy when he found that Scheherazade requested to marry him, and happily obliged her in this. We also heard that she requested to bring her sister with her for unknown reasons, and were surprised to find that the sultan allowed this. Maybe he was interested in marrying and killing two brides this week? Anyways, we are keeping a close eye on this developing story and are anxious to see if and when this bride makes it out of the palace alive! Thanks for tuning in to G-News! Once again, I'm Hermes, God of trade; goodnight!
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| Scheherazade, Blogspot |
Hi Emily! I really liked your story this week, it was really creative! I read about the Arabian Nights this week too, and kind of struggled to find a story to right, so I'm glad to see that you've combined it with Greek mythology and made a talk show. Maybe it would have been cool for you to add some commentators on the subject, like other gods? Or maybe have a correspondent / reporter "on the scene" interviewing her sister or another character in the story? What if they interviewed the sultan himself! That would definitely add some more humor to the story because he has no idea what's going on right under his nose. I think that might be an interesting take to add! It would be interesting to see Hermes pass the mic to maybe Aphrodite or another god who might have something interesting to say on the subject.
ReplyDeleteHi Emily,
ReplyDeleteIt's Scheherazade, daughter of the grand-vizir. I am here to clear up what this breaking news report so conveniently left out. First of all, my soon to be husband is misunderstood. None of the previous deaths have been confirmed in court to be murders so I demand that you take the "innocent until proven guilty" mindset on just like our judicial system does for us. I am in love with the Sultan, never have I fallen in love with a man so quickly and suddenly. Besides being the wealthiest man in the area, the Sultan has so many other great qualities that the general public will never know of. The jewelry and cars he has bought me thus far truly showed me the contents of his heart and character. Again, I have only known him for nine days but these nine days have been the most life changing days of my life. Hopefully you will all see how wrong you were about him as our marriage develops. Jealousy is a disease, get well soon.
The soon to be,
Mrs. Sultan
Hey Emily,
ReplyDeleteThis story was told in such a cool way! I loved how you made the story into a completely different format by changing it to be a news broadcast. The way that you wrote Hermes perfectly conveyed the smarmy-too good to be true attitude of most news anchors on stations today. Something I liked even more was how “casual” Hermes was in describing the Sultan’s plot of killing his wives consistently. You kept it in line with the fact that in most of these mythology stories, the gods seem to not care as much for humans as they do for themselves/their fellow gods. One question that I could ask would be how would Hermes resolve the broadcast and what other things would he talk about on this channel? I personally love world-building storytelling, so maybe adding in another story would increase the reality of your story!
Sincerely,
Andrew
Hey Emily! I totally see the similarities between your story and that of Katniss, the way she is willing to sacrifice herself to ensure others' safety. I'd love to see a follow-up story when Hermes finds out what happens to the new brides, maybe with interviews with the brides themselves, the grand-vizir, and/or the sultan. Or maybe adding a different story, since on broadcast news the anchors usually have more than one thing to report. I love this concept!
ReplyDelete