Week 14 Story Planning Post

Since I have not done a story planning post in awhile (and because I wrote a story last week), I am going to plan a story I will write next week. Because this is the final week of classes before dead week, it will help me to plan a little bit before I actually start writing. I am going to do more research and write a story about one Jataka I read: The Golden Feathers.

-       Once there lived a very poor man with his wife and two daughters

-       One day, the man left them and told them he would return to them with riches; he loved his wife and wanted her and his daughters to have jewels and nice things

-       On his journey, he met a fairy that turned him into a goose. He flew to a lake and noticed that he had golden feathers in his reflection

-       He went back home and told his wife that he will return every week with one gold feather to give her so she may sell it for money

-       One day the wife, who was very selfish, though the goose might stop coming to the house, so she captured him and plucked all his feathers.

-       She threw the naked goose into a box and neglected him

-       The fairy said his feathers would turn white (no more gold) if the feathers were taken from him; he had to choose to give them to her

-       Then, he regained his strength to fly away and lived happily with other birds

The message of Dharma in this story comes from the selfish wife. She did not treat the animal with respect, so she never got any gold in order to take care of her family.

She did not know that the bird was her husband, but her husband tried to show her the upmost kindness. She took advantage of someone she thought didn't matter, but it was, in fact, the person she needed to respect the most.

My story will be about a beautiful Indian princess who was poor but married a prince. Because she was married to him for many years, she has forgotten what it was like to live in poverty. One day, the husband wondered if she princess really loved him for him and not just his money, so he faked his death. While she thought he was dead, she lost all his money and had to go back to her old ways of living.

The princess was so bitter that she cursed the husband and just yearned for her life of luxury back, not her actual husband.

At the end of the story, the king will come back to her after watching her; he will show how she did not love him for who he was, and she will live forever as his servant and not his wife. 

Image: An Indian Royal Wedding Vimeo

Bibliography: Twenty Jataka Tales. Noor Inayat (Khan). Babel.