Fable Basics

Fables are a fun, creative writing activity. In fables, the characters are all animals or objects doing the talking. Here is the basic structure of a fable:

A talks to B

B talks to A

A talks to B

Some kind of interruption (aliens drop from a distant planet…anything)

B talks to A

A talks to B

The moral of the fable is:

The moral should be a beautiful sentence, one that is carefully crafted and has a certain “ring” to it (puns invited but not required).

Feel free to expand or adapt this basic structure to the fable.

Fables call on you to write a lot of dialogue, so here is a review of the general guidelines for using quotation marks with fables:

1) Set up the spoken words that are in quotation marks with a comma.

E.g.: He turned to her and said, “I knew you would say that.”

2) Put end punctuation (periods, question marks, exclamation marks) INSIDE the quotation marks.

E.g.: “What does that have to do with it,” she replied.

Or She replied, “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

3) As each character speaks and you include his or her dialogue, indent five spaces to form a new paragraph. Start new paragraphs as characters go back and forth speaking.

Most of all, be creative and have fun.