Story Planning week 5: The Mahabharata with a Twist

Five Brothers as Superheroes:  Flickr

This week I decided to go with story planning because I am having a harder time following the Mahabharata.  I have had a few ideas from my notes that I want to expand upon.  I want to focus on a small part of the story and turn it into a larger story. 

I really liked the part of the book that described the five brothers.  I could start a story that revolves around them and their adventures.  I found the part where they all married the same girl interesting because in the Ramayana, the men had multiple wives but not vice-versa.  This was an interesting twist, and I thought it could be interesting to highlight that in my story. 

When I googled "five brothers" for my image on this post, this superhero image came up.  I thought it could be an interesting twist if all of the five brothers were superheroes and they were all fighting to save the same damsel in distress.  This could also incorporate the part about the miracle where someone was trying to take her clothes, but they just kept reappearing. 

Perhaps in this idea some of the brothers are heroes and some are villains.  It could be funny to see them fighting back and forth over her, and maybe I could give her a really sassy attitude to where she doesn't even want to be saved in the first place. 

I may not go with the superhero idea, but instead just a modern day idea that focuses on the dress miracle.  Maybe this girl was a nerd and she went to prom and someone pulled the stereotypical drop-a-bucket-of-something-gross-on-the-nerd-girl move.  This girl could find out that she has a secret talent for making magic dresses that always appear when you need them.  She could open a store and help lots of other girls who are picked on and nobody would know what was going on. 

These are a few of my ideas so far, but hopefully the second half of the book will add to them.  I hope I can get a good story out of the Mahabharata.  I was pretty proud of some of my stories from the Ramayana, so hopefully this one will turn out good too!

Source:  Nayaran's Mahabharata:  Link to Reading Guide

Reading Notes: Nayaran's Mahabharata Part B

Source:  Nayaran's Mahabharata: Link to Reading Guide

Colorful Material:  Wikimedia

For part B of the reading, I again had a hard time following the family tree of the Mahabharata.  There are so many different characters in this book in comparison to the Ramayana.  For this reason, I still think that my story will be focused on a smaller part of the large story and I will omit names this time.  I will probably story plan this week and write my story after I finish the entire book. 

In this second of the book, I enjoyed reading about the girl that experienced a miracle when people were trying to take her clothing.  I think it is interesting that the clothes stayed on her and more material just kept coming off.  This could be a really interesting beginning to a story. 

From this section, I was also intrigued by how the five brothers treated their shared wife.  In the beginning it seemed like it was all going to be okay, but now they are questioning her honor and people are treating her badly.  This whole situation could make for an interesting story as well with the right twists. 

Reading Notes: Nayaran's Mahabharata part A

River Rocks:  Pexels

So far I have found it difficult to read the Mahabharata (and spell it correctly!).  I am having a hard time getting confused with all of the names involved, so I think I will do in a different direction for my story posts than I did with the Ramayana.  In those stories, I used the names and the plot and I changed the story and time and place up to make it interesting. 

For this book, I think I will focus on smaller pieces of the story that interest me.  I really liked the first part of the book, where the man is married to the woman who demands to do as she wishes.  I found it interesting that he let her drown seven of their children before he spoke up.  I also liked the aspect of trickery in this part of the story, because she was actually a god all along and she was fulfilling what she was meant to do. 

The part of the story with the five brothers also interests me.  It is weird that they all won the same princess as a wife, but I like the backstory that she was treated badly in another life and the man said that she would be loved as if by five men.  I think it could be used in a story with some sort of romantic plot very easily. 

Source:  Nayaran's Mahabharata Reading Guide