Recs: Women Creating Their Story

[rachelmanija]

This is for a possible Sirens presentation. The theme this year is "retold tales."

Can you recommend to me fantasy media or myth in which female characters, in some sense, alter reality by telling stories about it?

This "altering reality" doesn't have to be magic in itself; the ultimate example is Scheherazade, who changes the world by telling stories. There's also Martha's world-changing storytelling in Doctor Who.

The other examples I thought of were magical: Paperhouse (girl creates spooky new reality by drawing it), Fudoki (a dying princess of the Heian court writes a story about a cat who becomes a woman; she may or may not create a reality in which the story is true), The Secret Country (kids create a fantasy world, then travel to it and find that it is and isn't as they imagined), The Tricksters (characters from a girl's lush fantasy narrative show up, again not exactly as she pictured them), Voices (Annals of the Western Shore) (spoilery but sort of fits), Witch Week (the entire climax depends on a girl telling a story which alters reality.)

Can you think of others? Especially, examples from myth and folklore, and examples which aren't about white girls?

ETA: If you rec something, please explain how it fits.

Comments

[akamarykate.livejournal.com]

In Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books, the idea that story shapes the world runs deep, and in I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany takes control of the story the Cunning Man wants to tell about her and twists it back on him by using folk customs. It's kind of a slantwise example of what you're talking about, but the underlying premise is there.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

Lots of ideas like this in Pratchett, he talks about urban legends that really happen in Witches Abroad, and stories as living things that try and twist people into their forms, rather than the other way around. Belief is so strong on the Discworld that it can create gods, so if you get a myth or legend or fairytale enough belief, it will become true. I can't think of specific incident off the top of my head except the ones already mentioned, but he talks about this kind of thing a lot.