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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.
Legend
A legend is a traditional story often associated with a particular place, person, belief, or custom. It explains why a local mansion is called "Rooster's Curse," or the old man who owns the grocery is known as "Doubledead." With legends you can distance yourself from your narrative, the way you can with a frame story. Readers accept supernatural or strange occurrences as local tradition and aren't put off by problems about their literal truth. Washington Irving did that in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." Richard Brautigan updates the technique in Trout Fishing in America and A Confederate General from Big Sur.
You can make use of legendary material or make up your own legends, but you can't expect readers to be patient with pseudo-folksiness -- "I was told this here story by my grand-pappy when I was a young-un" -- or with familiar material like ghostly hitchhikers who haunt truckstops. Create tension from the start and develop the story out of its own premises. Don't simply string together inexplicable events. Make readers feel that the story is not merely weird, but deeply mysterious.
See Fairy Tale, Places and Place Names, Premise.
Legend
A legend is a traditional story often associated with a particular place, person, belief, or custom. It explains why a local mansion is called "Rooster's Curse," or the old man who owns the grocery is known as "Doubledead." With legends you can distance yourself from your narrative, the way you can with a frame story. Readers accept supernatural or strange occurrences as local tradition and aren't put off by problems about their literal truth. Washington Irving did that in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." Richard Brautigan updates the technique in Trout Fishing in America and A Confederate General from Big Sur.
You can make use of legendary material or make up your own legends, but you can't expect readers to be patient with pseudo-folksiness -- "I was told this here story by my grand-pappy when I was a young-un" -- or with familiar material like ghostly hitchhikers who haunt truckstops. Create tension from the start and develop the story out of its own premises. Don't simply string together inexplicable events. Make readers feel that the story is not merely weird, but deeply mysterious.
See Fairy Tale, Places and Place Names, Premise.