posted
I'm taking my schools creative writing class, and I had to write a parable for it. At first I had writers block and couldn't come up with a moral for the story, much less a story. Finally I came up with this. What do you think?
The Dear Green Dell The mountains stood against the horizen, jagged tree covered peaks rising thousands of feet into the bright blue sky, dotted with puffy white clouds. The trees that covered the slopes were birches and beeches near the bottom gradually shifting to pines and cedars towards the top of the mountian. At the very peak were only crags and rocks, and few trees, save for the occational hardy shrub, toughing out the wind and the cold. The dirt tail leading up the mountain ran for miles, twisting and turning, switching forward and back. It made its way slowly up the botton of the slope and climbed up onto one of the moutain’s great ridges that ran down from its peak to its base. It then followed the ridge slowly up to the peak.
The trail was a tough one. Strewn with boulders and fallen trees. When it reached the ridge there came many long stretches of rock dyke that were very slippery when it rained. Every once in a while it would have to scale over a large boulder, being able to go neither right nor left around it lest it fall far down the slope of the mountain and have to climb back up all over again. As it neared the peak of the mountain the ridge, and the trail with it, took a sharp dip into a small enclosed dell just below the peak of the massive mountain.
Contained with in the dell was a clear cool pond. Full of cool refreshing water. The trees in this dell, despite the height at which they lived, were tall, strong, green and full of life. As was much of the forest around the pond. The trail skirted the edge of the pond before diving back into the trees and finally climbing up the moutain to the very summit. The dell had a magical feel to it. The breeze that flowed through it was cool in summer, and almost non-existant in winter when the passes closed up with ice. Many different smells mingled in the clear air, giving it the overall smell of life and lushness. The dell was indeed a wonderful place.
It was here that the men came, way back when. They climbed up the rough old trail, conquered its heights and came at last, tired and worn, to the old dell. The were awed by the wonder and majesty of it. When the passes were open in summer, one could climb up into them and see far down the mountain slope and into the lands beyond. The view was breath taking, mountains everywhere filled it. They were all lush green up to their white, rock topped crowns. The water of the pond tasted like no other, sweet and cool, extremely refreshing.
The men stayed in the dell for several days, drinking in the life, beauty and magic of it. Then they left, but they vowed to come back. And when they did, they brought more people with them. These people too brought more and more. Until the dell lost its magic. Slowly the pond’s water was turned brown, until no one dared drink from its murky depths. Green algea covered its surface, eating up the putrid refuse that people had filled it with. The trees were cut for their wood as many people a night would camp there. After a few years there were no more trees. The under growth was trampled and there was nothing but the hard rock left. The air became full of smoke and hazy and filled with the stink of decay and destruction.
When the first men finally returned to the top of the moutain, exuasted from their climb up the rough trail and looking forward to a rest in their magical dell they were shocked and horrified to find what it had become. It was a wasteland. No one came to that horrid place any more. It became a place of disgust and loathing. They wandered about the ruins of the dell, the barrens, and could not understand what had happened to it. They finally, sadly, began the trek back down the mountain. Their magical place, their dear green place, was gone. They would never return to that mountain dell. Nor would anyone else, but it never recovered.
The algea eventually cleaned the pond and then left themselves. Lichens and mosses eventually covered the barren rocks. But the trees never returned, the water never quite recovered its original clearness and sweet taste, and the air never recovered its sweet smelling magic. The moral of this story is do not share your treasured secrets except with those whom you most treasure and trust, and when a treasured secret is shared with you, do not share it further than those who originally shared it with you. For when a secret is shared and then shared again, it soon loses its magic and the treasure is then destroyed.
posted
I think this is a really good idea for a parable .
However, I have a few suggestions:
quote: The men stayed in the dell for several days, drinking in the life, beauty and magic of it. Then they left, but they vowed to come back. And when they did, they brought more people with them. These people too brought more and more. Until the dell lost its magic.
This is the core of the parable. Here in this half-paragraph. The two paragraphs preceeding it, although filled with beautiful description are not completely vital, especially in their present volume. My suggestion would be to try to capture the sense of first two paragraphs in a couple of sentences.
In order to capture the attention of the listener (as this is a parable), I think it would be better to start with the men:
"Four men climbed a mountain..."
Then tell of the beauty of the place they discovered and how they told others about it and they told others until the beauty of the pool was destroyed by man's intrusion.
Also, emphasize the secrecy of the place, or emphasize the fact that the men intended to keep the secret of the place, but they told one person and that one told the next...
A few technical errors:
quote: The trail was a tough one. Strewn with boulders and fallen trees.
"Strewn with boulders and fallen trees" is neither a sentence nor a really acceptable sentence fragment. I think in this case, you will have to make it into a sentence, or combine the two.
You have this problem throughout the work.
quote: breath taking
Breathtaking.
There are a few spelling errors, also.
But I like the idea very much .
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Well, my constructive criticism is pretty much what Teshi already said. So I might as well add.
I think the secretiveness of the dell needs to be emphasized, to show that the men told the secret to untrustworthy people, and then those people were mean and told others.
Posts: 486 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Yes, he gave me guidelines, a story with a moral. He said we could do anything with in that we wanted, and it did't even have to be serious. He's an awesome teacher
And this has not been turned in, any suggestions are most welcome. Though, I do not promise to use them Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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