Mythic Writers Blog

Going off on a tangent from something I wrote about in a post in my writing blog, I’ve been thinking about the differences between myths and mythic fiction.

I think one of the biggest differences is in the characters, in how they are portrayed. In myths and fairy tales, characters seem rather simplistic. We don’t get a lot of the whys behind their actions. We know that Jack decided to sell the cow for magic beans. We know that the stepmother in “Hansel and Gretel” thinks that “bairns are a burden” and wants to get rid of the children. But we have no idea what has brought these characters to these decisions.

In mythic fiction, on the other hand, as in any good story, we see characters with deeper motivations and full inner lives. We get to not only follow them through the world on their adventures, we get to see how they are feeling, what they are thinking, why they are doing what they do.

I want to do a bit of research to back up my idea. Right off the top of my head I can’t think of any fairy tales and myths that give us a lot of insight into the characters’ motivation, but I want to look around to make sure I’m right.

If you can think of any myth or fairy tale where there’s some real character development, inner conflict, etc., please leave a comment so I can start compiling a list. I may decide to take this topic further depending on what I turn up. For now, though, this is it.