Hello, and welcome to the Folklore & Fiction newsletter. In this edition, I'm writing about ritual with help from scholars Catherine Bell, Ronald L. Grimes, and others, discussing ritual use in story craft, and providing you with an example and exercise on the topic. This edition of the newsletter marks a departure from folkloric narrative and the beginning of a five-month exploration of folkloric belief. You'll notice a change in format and focus as well, from the use of folkloric narrative types in writing to the use of folkloric ideas and principles in world-building, characterization, and plotting.
I should mention here that myths, which are the topic of the February 2019 Folklore & Fiction newsletter, might be categorized as folkloric narratives and folkloric beliefs because they're sacred stories held to be true by the people who tell them. So you might keep myth in mind as you build fictional worlds, place characters in them, and plot the stories that happen there.
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