smitty

@[email protected]

Eh. I play games and stuff. I'm a web developer. I have a woodshop I spend far too little time in. (he/him)

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juergen_hubert, to folklore
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Will-o'-wisps don't always lead people astray - not if you give them a proper tip.

@germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/errant-lights-36267709

German folk tale "Will-o’-Wisps get a Tip". Drop me a line if you want a machine-readable transcript!

smitty,

@juergen_hubert @germany @folklore What does one tip a will-o-wisp?

DocCarms, to bookstodon
@DocCarms@mstdn.social avatar

There was a poll that stated—Rowling’s opening line in the HP series is one of best in the world. Someone posted about how there are a bunch of other opening statements that are better.

Here’s one of my personal favorites, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (English translated):
“It is inevitable. The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

What are some of your favorite opening lines in literature? 😊
@bookstodon

smitty,

@BashStKid @negative12dollarbill @DocCarms @bookstodon He seems quite content to let it have multiple interpretations. I don’t think any of them harms the reader’s mental image of Chiba City but they do change it a little in interesting ways. Slightly different flavors of desperate and dysfunctional.

smitty,

@diazona @mikebaarda @DocCarms @bookstodon It can definitely work though. ‘The Hobbit’ basically does the same thing: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” immediately raises the question, what the hell is a hobbit? Tolkien then spends the next several paragraphs telling you about the hole instead. The curiosity drives you forward as you’re trying to glean information about what a hobbit is from the details of the hole.

smitty,

@diazona @mikebaarda @DocCarms @bookstodon Personally I think the difference is the reader’s ability to form a mental image. Even if it’s inaccurate, it gives them a kernel to start building the story around. They don’t know what a hobbit is but they can picture the sorts of things that live in holes… and then quickly discover a hobbit isn’t any of those!

That’s why I think the Gunslinger opening works too.

smitty,

@diazona @mikebaarda @DocCarms @bookstodon We don’t know why the gunslinger or Man in Black are, or where the desert is; but we can picture that kind of thing generally because it taps into some established genre concepts. If it instead said “Flagg fled across the desert, and Roland followed,” that would be harder for us to picture and thus less successful.

juergen_hubert, to folklore
@juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe avatar

Each St. John's Day, the spirit of the Kirchsee lake sought a boy from the nearby village as a victim to drown - until one priest managed to stop him.

@germany @folklore
https://www.patreon.com/posts/voices-from-deep-38456442

smitty,

@juergen_hubert @germany @folklore I wonder if this was the inspiration for a certain plot point in Gaiman’s “American Gods.”

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