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odd_buttonsThe following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Fable
This term generally means a short tale -- often inhabited by animal characters or in some other way disregarding the ordinary laws of reality -- whose point is often summed up in a proverb. Fables need to be felicitously rendered right from the beginning, or they are like those tedious jokes that you suffer through in hopes that the punchline with be adequate recompense.
James Thurber managed to be witty enough, both in the telling and in his parodic epigrams, to make the form work. His fables "The Unicorn in the Garden" and "The Owl Who Was Good" are full of verbal play:
But they also make sharp moral observations:
Fables can easily seem preachy, platitudinous, and portentous. To avoid those pitfalls you need freshness, wit vitality, and a particularly beguiling style.
See Didacticism, Epigram, Parable.
Fable
This term generally means a short tale -- often inhabited by animal characters or in some other way disregarding the ordinary laws of reality -- whose point is often summed up in a proverb. Fables need to be felicitously rendered right from the beginning, or they are like those tedious jokes that you suffer through in hopes that the punchline with be adequate recompense.
James Thurber managed to be witty enough, both in the telling and in his parodic epigrams, to make the form work. His fables "The Unicorn in the Garden" and "The Owl Who Was Good" are full of verbal play:
"Can you give me another expression for that is to say or namely?" asked the secretary bird. "To whit," said the owl.
But they also make sharp moral observations:
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
Fables can easily seem preachy, platitudinous, and portentous. To avoid those pitfalls you need freshness, wit vitality, and a particularly beguiling style.
See Didacticism, Epigram, Parable.