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Fairytales

Do You Love Tiny Stories?

June 28, 2019 By Rachel Stedman

writer's notebook

I’m always scribbling in notebooks. I have stacks by now: multi-coloured and full of crazy words. The other week, I started reading through them, searching for a half-finished tale about a witch-finder and a midwife.

I couldn’t find that particular story, but I did manage to discover other story snippets. Here’s one you might enjoy.

5 Books I Fell in Love With

Thumb

Once upon a time, Berta found a baby on the subway: a baby boy, only a few months old, with brown eyes and curly black hair.

Berta, who had been reviewing her diary on her phone while swaying gently to the train’s rhythm, at first didn’t notice the infant. Becoming aware of eyes fixed on her, she looked up.

“Where did you come from?” she breathed.

The child was perfect, but oh so tiny: no larger than a tea cup. He’d been placed in a car seat and covered neatly with a woollen blanket, embroidered with blue flowers. That’s how Berta knew he was a boy.

She and the baby were the only ones in the carriage. (It was still very early, so most people were still asleep.)

A baby shouldn’t be alone, Berta thought. Glancing down at her phone, she tried to put the child from her mind. Perhaps if she ignored it, it might go away.

The baby sneezed.

A baby sneezing is the most amazing thing. Unlike adults, a baby sneezes with its whole body: feet twitch, legs bend, tiny hands clench into fists. And Berta smiled, because the kid was so cute.

The tiny-but-perfect baby smiled back.

And Berta, who had never wanted children, who had never felt the slightest urge to even spend time with kids? She fell in love.

Baby boy

Child-Thief

Berta left the train with the baby.

The car seat was no larger than a shoe box, and the child fitted inside it perfectly. It felt was like something from a fairytale; like a dream. Not at all like something you’d find on the subway.

Berta was on a career fast-track. She loved her job in commercial law; she loved her independence. She had no wish for a child. Anyway, there was the small matter of that ovarian cyst. But yet, most nights she dreamed of carrying a child and in the morning her arms felt heavy with its absence.

Three stops to go.

The platforms were nearly empty, with only the odd passerby outlined against the yellow-tiled walls. She glanced again at the tiny, perfect infant. He was dressed in a hand-knitted white matinee jacket, embroidered with small blue ribbons. Someone loves this child.

Bending she whispered into the baby’s ear: “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

The baby stirred, as though it understood the question, and Berta heard quite clearly – all her life, she believed this – a voice. It said: Take him. He is yours.

Swoosh! The train doors slid open.

And Berta, in a moment of craziness, or indecision or just mad, pure love, lifted the child’s car seat by its handle, the baby still inside, and stepped from the train onto the empty platform where the CCTV camera was turned away.

Heading for the stairs, she whispered, “What should I do with you?”

The baby opened sleepy dark eyes. “Take me home,” he said, so clearly that Berta nearly dropped the seat, baby and all.

***

When Berta arrived at the office, her assistant, Stefan, stared at the infant. “What?” he asked slowly, “is that?”

“A baby. I found him on the subway.”

“A baby? On the subway? And you just took him?”

“I know,” said Berta wearily, “I’m crazy.”

The child opened dark eyes and smiled at her, and she knew that if she had to do it all again: choose a child and steal him, car seat and all – she would.

“What’s his name?”

“Name?” Berta blinked. “Um …” In the car seat, the child stirred. “Daumen. Yes. His name is Daumen.”

“Thumb?” said Stefan. “What kind of a name is that?”

Filed Under: Behind the Scenes, Fairytales, Fantasy, Story Backgrounds Tagged With: Fairytales

How to Write Amazing Urban Fantasy

October 30, 2018 By Rachel Stedman

Amazing Urban Fantasy

fairytale book
Image source

What is Urban Fantasy?

Urban fantasy stories are tales of magic, but unlike other fantasy sub-genres, like Epic Fantasy (think Lord of the Rings) or High Fantasy (like Game of Thrones), they’re set in the real world. Urban fantasy stories are HUGE on TV, film, and books. They’re the oldest kind of story. I think urban fantasy is amazing!

Here’s some tips on how to craft a great urban fantasy story:

1. Use Recognizable Settings

Make sure the reader recognizes the setting of the story.

The house design is familiar, or the story takes place in a well-known city.

Generally, urban fantasies occur in a man-made environment, although sometimes they’re set in at the boundary between the urban and the wild. Like the story of Hansel and Gretel: the witch who lives in the woods in a house made of gingerbread.

2. Plot Structure

Often UF’s follow the typical hero’s journey:

  • At the start of the story, the protagonist is happily living his/her life, ignorant of the magical world. Generally, he will be from of humble origins and not blessed with any special powers. He or she will be ordinary. Good-hearted, perhaps, and sometimes naive. At the beginning of the tale, the hero never sees themselves as special.
  • Then … enter the miraculous; the theatrical; the magical. Generally, in an Urban Fantasy, the magical is a total, freaky surprise to the hero. Of course, the reader will know that its there, because it’s an Urban Fantasy, after all!
  • Frequently, upon entering this magical realm, the hero finds they have a super-power. He or she might be amazingly talented, or beautiful or desirable. Sometimes the hero discovers he’s from a magical dynasty and was hidden at birth to protect him from opponents of this dynasty. (Harry Potter, anyone?)
  • Sometimes the hero is the secret hope of the hidden world, but perhaps he’s a bystander. Either way, he’ll have to use his newly-discovered powers to overcome a threat, and in so doing will return to the real world changed.
  • He may leave the real world altogether and continue in the hidden lands, or he may continue as a bridge between the worlds, and move at will between them.
  • There are variations on this. For example, the hero may be inside the hidden realm at the start of the story – in which case, entering our real world may be a total shock.

But either way, all this is good stuff for a story, right?

3. What Tone Should I Use?

Urban fantasy stories are generally funny, although sometimes they’re dark, almost gothic in tone – Vampire stories are classic UF but they’re rarely funny.

Where there is humor it usually comes from the contrast between the magic and the real, and how characters in the magical realms just don’t get technology, or vice-versa.

But wait – there’s more!

I love reading and writing urban fantasy, and gradually I’m focussing more and more on the genre.

Over the next few blog posts I’ll showcase some of my favorite UF books, but right now I’m going to leave you with an Excerpt from Welcome to Faery.


Excerpt: Beauty is a Subjective Term

I’ve put this story below as it demonstrates many of the points above. (P.S. You can download this entire story collection at this link here: https://bookhip.com/VHJFPS)

– Define: Fairest
The Queen tapped her fingers on the marble dressing table. Click click click. Nails filed to a killing point. ‘Stupid Mirror. “Fair” means “beauty”.’

– Define: Beauty

The last mirror had done what she’d asked. But oh no, the dwarfs had talked her into this new one, saying magic words like ‘memory’ and ‘voice activation’ and ‘ram’ and she hadn’t wanted to look stupid, not in front of a bunch of dwarves. And now look at this super-sleek mirror; so beautiful on the wall and yet so, so useless. How was she supposed to find Snow White without a working mirror? An upgrade, they’d said, as if an upgrade was a good thing.

The Queen threw a crystal jar across her chamber. It shattered on the stone tiles, spilling musk-flavored perfume. A serving girl scurried to clean it up, ducking low to avoid any other stray objects that the Queen might throw.

‘I mean, you stupid mirror, is there anyone else in this Kingdom more beautiful than I?’

– Define: More beautiful

The Queen paused. How does one define beautiful, anyway? ‘Girl,’ she said over her shoulder.

The maid paused in her cleaning. ‘Yes, my Lady?’

‘What makes someone beautiful?

Kneeling on the floor, the maid carefully placed shards of glass onto a folded piece of paper. ‘Like you, my Lady?’

The Queen smiled. This girl was intelligent. ‘Exactly,’ she purred. ‘Like me.’

The girl scrambled to her feet, bending her head. ‘Beauty, my Lady? Ah, maybe something like clear skin. Red lips.’

‘Is that all?’ The Queen was disappointed. ‘Why, you have red lips.’

‘Thank you, my Lady.’

‘There you are, mirror.’ The Queen turned her back on the servant. ‘I want you to find out for me if there is anyone in the Kingdom with clearer skin and redder lips than I.’

Behind her, the girl went to get a mop and bucket.

– Subjective terms. Reframe your search parameters

‘Servant,’ called the Queen.

The girl was folding the paper into a funnel, ready to pour the glass into a small tumbler. ‘Yes, my Lady?’

‘What does it mean now?’

The girl ducked her head. ‘I think, my Lady, it does not understand your question.’

‘Why not? I am perfectly clear.’

Tap-tap went the nails. The Queen’s hand twitched towards another glass bottle and the girl added quickly, ‘It’s a dwarf mirror. My Ma works for them. They’re scientific. Need to use very specific terms, to get their magic working.’

‘Specific terms?’ asked the Queen grimly. ‘I’ll show them how specific I can be. With my wand, I can very specific.’ She sighed. ‘So. What should I ask this wretched mirror?’

‘May I, my Lady?’ The girl indicated the space beside the Queen.

The Queen nodded, and the servant stepped beside her. She smelt of musk perfume and bleach. Her face, what the Queen could see of it behind the fall of grubby hair, seemed pale. She was right to be nervous, thought the Queen grimly. Persons that got too close to her were apt to have a significantly shortened lifespan.

‘Mirror mirror,’ said the girl softly.

‘I said that. Didn’t I say that?’

‘That’s just the start command.’

‘Oh,’ said the Queen. ‘I knew that.’

The girl cleared her throat. ‘Definition input.’

– Inputting

‘Beauty = Fair. Beauty: blemish-free skin.’

‘Amazing,’ thought the Queen. ‘How does she make that noise in her throat? It sounds just someone choking.’ She frowned, remembering: red apple, blood falling on snow.

– Define: blemish

‘Definition input: Crease, line or wrinkles.’

‘Freckles,’ whispered the queen.

The girl nodded. ‘Definition continues: moles, warts, lentigines, skin tags.’

– Definition received

‘What is a lentigine?’ asked the Queen

‘Like a freckle.’ The girl pointed at a sunspot on the Queen’s hand. The Queen moved her hand quickly, hiding the imperfection. ‘So now, if you ask it to tell you who is the most beautiful in the land, it will tell you who has the clearest skin.’

‘Well,’ said the Queen, looking pleased, ‘that’s very clever. Back you go, girl, clean up that mess. The perfume is giving me a headache.’ The girl crept back to the floor and the scrubbing brush.

The Queen stared up at the mirror’s silver screen, tapped her finger and asked: ‘Mirror mirror, who is the most beautiful in the land?’

On the screen appeared faces, flickering in and out, changing too rapidly to recognize any individual. A montage of faces, from happy to sad, from fat to thin, in a rainbow of skin tones. All clear-skinned, all beautiful.

All of them children.

The Queen screamed, stood up, backed away from the mirror. She stumbled over the servant, still scrubbing the floor.

‘Your Majesty. What is it?’

The Queen pointed at the mirror. The menagerie of children floated past. But never her own face, never her own!

‘Girl! Make it stop!’

The servant sat back on her heels, called out: ‘Mirror. End query.’

The screen faltered, the faces disappeared. The Queen slowly straightened.

‘Beauty,’ she said crisply, ‘is in the eye of the beholder. And I behold my face, and I say I am beautiful. I do not need to ask any mirror anything.’

The girl returned to her scrubbing. ‘That’s what my Ma says. She says beauty isn’t that special. It’s what you do that counts.’

The Queen sniffed and returned to her dresser. ‘When you’ve finished clearing up,’ she said, ‘go and wash.’

The girl wrung her perfume-scented cloth into the bucket, picked up her brush and backed from the room. ‘That’s why she stayed with them. She’s never coming home. She’s no interest in your stupid kingdom. And we’re good at hiding. So stop trying to find us.’

The Queen spun on her chair, stared at the servant girl, creeping backward from the room with her mop and brush and bucket. She did look familiar; black hair, creamy skin. ‘Wait!’ she called. ‘Wait!’

But the girl had gone. Out into the corridor, merging with the other waiting staff. Hundreds of them, scurrying about like mice. Identical in their grey coveralls, hiding their faces. The Queen would never find her.

The mirror! The mirror could tell her.

‘Mirror, mirror,’ she said. ‘Show me…’

She stopped. She would never succeed. Curse the dwarves and their wretched technology! Only Snow White had ever managed to work with them.


Filed Under: Behind the Scenes, Fairytales, Fantasy, Writing tips Tagged With: Fairytales, Fantasy, How To, Urban Fantasy, Writing Tips

Old but Still Popular: The History of Fairytales

September 8, 2016 By Rachel Stedman

The History of Fairytales

The History of Fairytales
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Fairytales are really old. Some even lead back to the bronze age! Check out this article from The Guardian for more.

history of fairytales - 3 bears
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Back in 500BC, Aesop told stories. Remember The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? That’s a story from Aesop’s Fables. Most of the Fables were moral stories; a reminder on how to behave. Personally, I always found them a little boring, partly because they never have any romance, and they were pretty light on important things, like clothes and fashion.

Early fairytales were presented as framing stories: One Thousand and One Nights. (Also known as The Arabian Nights). Each story in the Nights is tale told by the main character, Schezerade. She’ll have her head cut off if she bores her husband. Each story is another night of survival.

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history of fairytales – Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights is one of my favourite original collections, partly because it’s just so bawdy. Check out my earlier post here for a recount of Abu-Hassan and His Tremendous Fart.

Brothers Grimm (et al)

But the fairytales we know best are from rural mid-west Europe. This is because in the mid 1600s – 1800s  collectors, like the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, travelled back-country regions of Germany, France and Austria, collecting and curating  legends.

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Image Source

A recent source of fairytales was discovered last year: The Turnip Princess and other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales is a translation from a just-discovered box of manuscripts from a seventeenth century collector. Hold onto your hats, fairytale lovers: this new collection is (apparently) even more violent than those of Grimm.

fairytale collections
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Romantic Re-tellings

In the 1800s, there was a rush of romantic fairytale-like stories (probably because of Hans Christian Anderson). I’ve never been a massive fan of Anderson. A lot of his stories are so bleak! I prefer  Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince.

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And then came moving images. In the 1930s Disney produced AMAZING movies. Here’s a clip from the 1937 edition of Cinderella:

The Present Day

Fairytales make great stories, and they take well to the screen.  I’ve written a couple of posts on books, movies and so on. But I’ve not talked about Television!

My favourite TV retelling is Once Upon a Time : a whole town of fairytale characters, miraculously transferred to Middle America.

I love this programme. The hair! The clothes! The make-up! And of course, the miraculously perfectly good-looking characters.

Image Source
Image Source

All of which goes to show: fairytales, born in the Bronze Age, are as current as ever. In fact, in our new days of social media, they’re even MORE relevant.

Check out this Tale of Tinderella for a truly modern take on an ancient classic!

Fairytales definitely aren’t getting old anytime soon.

Over to you – do you have a favourite retake on a classic fairytale? Feel free to share in the comments!

Filed Under: Fairytales Tagged With: Children's Books, Fairytales

Why my Favourite Fairytale Is Better Without the Prince

September 3, 2016 By Rachel Stedman

My Favourite Fairytale is Cinderella — But I’m Not So Sure About the Prince.

5 Books I Fell in Love With

Although I’m partial to Ali-Baba, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, my favourite fairy tale is Cinderella.

The themes of Cinderella appeal: the envy of the stepsister’s, Cinderella’s desire for love and security. The events of the story are relatable: the resourcefulness of the fairy godmother (a pumpkin, into a coach! that woman, took recycling to a whole new level), the importance of footwear and the drudgery of housework. Any story that realises that housework is deeply boring has to be a winner.

One thing, however, always bothered me about the Cinderella story. That is the prince. Unfortunately, he’s not much of a hero.

This is not entirely his fault — I mean, “Charming”, what sort of a name is that? But when we reach the end of the story, and he starts trotting about with a shoe? That’s just weird. It’s also stupid. Why would anyone try and match a shoe with a foot to find the perfect mate?

Which brings me to the point of this post: my first ever fairytale retelling was a reworking of the Cinderella story, but sans prince. Although I kept the shoes. I have a thing about amazing footwear.

The story is called Ten Minutes to Go, and is the first of the fairytales in my FREE collection, Welcome to Faery. I’m updating this free collection next month with a new story, which is why I’ve been blogging so hard about fairy tales; they’re on my mind, you see.

 

Anyway, to give you a taster of this collection I’ve popped Ten Minutes to Go into this post. I hope you enjoy!


 

Ten Minutes to Go.

His breath stinks. I can’t wait to get out of here.

The unyielding shoes pinch my feet, and – ouch! – again, he stands on my toes. Despite their fragile appearance, the shoes are highly engineered and fortunately, they can handle the weight of his fat feet. The music stops. Thank God. How can one dance to the plucking of strings and the scraping of cat gut? I prefer something with a beat.

“Just one more waltz,” he pleads, wiping his face with his kerchief. I glance at the clock. Just ten minutes to go.

“I’m very thirsty, sir,” I say, fanning my face, curving my arm around its strong struts, so the dimples on my elbows show.

“My lady,” he says, “I will provide.” He bows, one arm crossed over his chest. I suspect he’s trying to hide his stomach, but he’s not successful. How could you hide something so large?

“How dare you?” A hiss from behind. It’s Seraphina, my so-called sister.

“You little slut!” Madelina, the other ‘sister’.

I smile and unfurl my fan. “My dear sisters. How lovely to see you. And are you enjoying this glorious evening?” I peer behind them. “And your partners? Are they absent, perchance? Or has,” and I close my fan with a snap, “no-one asked you to dance?”

They step towards me, nails outstretched. As if on cue, my partner returns and my sisters are suddenly all false smiles.

“Oh thank you, your Majesty,” I say, as he hands me a glass of champagne. He glances at my sisters, blinking at the glare from their jewel-encrusted bodices. They are far richer than I, but have no taste; like magpies, they value things only for their shine. Life can be unfair; my father left them all his fortune. How can you contest a will when you have no funds to do so?

“Allow me to introduce my sisters. This is Seraphina.” She drops a curtsey.   The girl is always untidy; this evening she has strawberry seeds caught in her bucked teeth, giving her a most unfortunate appearance.   “And Madelina.”

The warts on Madelina’s drink-reddened nose are highlighted by the candle glare. She spreads her skirts, essays a curtsey but her balance is worsened by wine and she stumbles. Reaching for support, she pulls on the King’s arm.

“Madam!” Horrified, he steps back. His glass goes flying, spraying champagne over me.

“My Lady Ella,” he appears distraught, and waves for a lackey. “Shall I show these creatures out?”

My sisters gasp and for a wonderful few seconds I savour their humiliation. But business is business, after all, and the interruption is very convenient, so I smile up at him most sweetly. “My Liege, I am sure it was an accident. If you could show me where I can freshen up?” I glance at the clock. Three minutes. I need to get out of here.

As the rest room door closes, I heave a sigh of relief. Two minutes. I struggle out of the lace confection of a dress and throw the uncomfortable glass slippers in the trash. Flinging open the window, I inhale the cool night air with pleasure. These balls are so stuffy; mannered and poorly ventilated, full of high-class idiots speaking in drawling accents. Really, they won’t be missed at all. Unravelling the rope that’s been tucked between my shoulder blades, I throw the weighted end out towards the castle ramparts. I’d practised this so often, and like a dream, it catches first time.

Inserting the groove of my carbon fibre fan onto the rope, I climb onto the window sill. Don’t look down Ella. I fling myself out the window, holding tight to the struts of the fan. The night breeze blows my hair into my eyes as I skim across the courtyard. My skin is dark and clad as I am in black leather undergarments, it would be hard to spot me against the night. I clamber over the ramparts unremarked.

At the other side of the wall, the coach is waiting. “Good timing,” says a cracked voice. “Drive on, Jerry.” The whip cracks and we lumber away.

“The slippers?”

“I left them in the trash can, like you said.”

“Good. Your sisters are there? And the King?”

I nod, then because it’s too dark to see, add “Yes. All three.”

“Excellent,” she says cheerfully and brings her wand down with a thwack! Stars leap from its tip, out into the night, reaching over the ramparts and into the castle, earthing in the special glass of the slippers, that promptly

Explode.

As I say, these are very well-designed shoes. Not comfortable, but oh, so beautifully engineered.

Behind us, the chateau is enveloped in flame.

We drive off into the night.

“The Prince will be pleased that tonight went well,” says my godmother. “And no doubt your father’s lawyers. They always felt his will was unfair.” She leans back against the cushions. “I think I’ll settle down.” She pushes back her hood and I can see her smile in the reflected light of the fire. “Grow pumpkins or something.”


PS. Just after writing this, I found an awesome Disney wikipage about Prince Charming (that’s where the image above is from, too). Do check it out. I think I may have been a little harsh about the guy. Perhaps I should write another story, and this time have him as the hero…

Filed Under: Fairytales, Upon a Time Tagged With: Fairytales, Upon A Time

How to Write a Fairytale (And Why You Should Try)

August 27, 2016 By Rachel Stedman

How to Write a Fairytale

I’m obsessed with fairytales.

writer's notebook

That’s because I’m writing my own right now, so they’re filling my head: Disney, Grimm, Arabian Nights.

I always put a twist on the original. So far I have a sleeping beast, a Charming Ball, a fairy godfather … and many more.

Fairy tales are surprisingly easy to write. This post shows you why fairytales make good stories, and how you can use their strengths to craft your own.

3 Reasons Why Fairytales Make Fantastic Story Starting-Points:

1.  They have strong character archetypes:

The hero (or heroine) is attractive: Snow White and Cinderella are beautiful; Ali-Baba is clever; Jack the giant-killer is strong.

The bad characters are altogether evil. Snow-white’s stepmother isn’t just vain and jealous; she’s also murderous.

2.  They have the classic hero’s journey plot structure:

This plot structure is like the Ultimate Guide to Great Storywriting. It’s the plot structure used by screenwriters — why? Because it works. More on that below.

3.  The themes are powerful:

The obstacles tap into deeply held terrors. Hansel and Gretel are small children, lost in a forest. Cinderella loses her mother.

The drama is intense and often horrific. Hansel and Gretel burn an old woman alive. The Little Mermaid walks on knife blades. Snow-white’s stepmother wants her heart.

4. Optional extras

Original folk tales (that is, the stories that fairytales came from) were frequently bawdy. In today’s world of political correctness we’ve lost that part of the story, but one version of Sleeping Beauty has the sleeping heroine being raped by the prince. In Arabian Nights a prince marries a virgin each day and beheads her the next.

Fairy tales used to contain barbaric violence. Cinderella’s stepsisters chop off their toes to squeeze their foot into the glass shoe (the prince notices the fraud when their blood seeps out).

The Hero’s Journey

Here’s a short summary of the classic hero’s journey plot structure, and how this is used in fairytales:

  • A likable hero (or heroine).
  • The hero has a Goal:  Cinderella wants to go to the ball. Sleeping Beauty wants to avoid a curse.
  • He faces MONUMENTAL obstacles: Jack doesn’t just fight an ogre; he fights an evil, man-eating, giant ogre.
  • He encounters set-backs: Cinderella gets to the ball, only to have to run away at the stroke of midnight.
  • He has to overcome a final, almost overwhelming obstacle: Hansel escapes from the cage, only to be caught by the evil witch.
  • He must overcome his/her internal demons: Cinderella gains the courage to defy her evil stepmother and set her foot in the glass slipper

How to write a fairytale

You can start by a small change, like the setting. Put Cinderella in the present day, for example, and then all of a sudden you’ve got The Bachelor on steroids. Kiera Cass did this very successfully, in The Selection.

How to write a fairy tale

You could change the hero’s gender (I did this once, and made Cinderella a man, and called her Cynders).

You can play with the technology of the tale, and what it means. Marissa Meyer did this really well in her Lunar Chronicles series. In Beauty is a Subjective Term, my Snow White retelling, a mirror needed reprogramming. Because what does ‘fair’ really mean?

The Lunar Chronicles

But the best way is to change a fairytale is to consider the motivation of the character.

For example, Cinderella. In Ten Minutes to Go, Cinderella is no longer interested in the prince; she’s interested in his prince’s money. And so, in Ten Minutes to Go, Cinderella was a contract killer with a deadline of midnight.

So if you want to write your own fairytale, first think of the story. Think about the characters. Change their names if you want to; their gender; their setting. But most importantly, consider what they want to achieve.

And really, that’s how you write any story. The fairy tale is just a scaffold that, fortunately, usually leads to a bloody good story.

More information?

If you want to read some other examples of fairytale retellings, check out this blog post here. And if you want to read my stories that are mentioned above, you can download them for free here. And now, what are you waiting for? Go away and write your own!

writer's notebook
Image from Pixabay

Filed Under: Fairytales, How To, Writing tips Tagged With: Fairytales, How To, Upon A Time

Book Review(s): 4 Unusually Good Fairytale Retellings

August 22, 2016 By Rachel Stedman

4 Unusual (and Exciting) Fairytale Retellings —

I’ve been reading a lot of fairytales.

5 Books I Fell in Love With

This is partly because I’m writing my own collection, and it’s always helpful to see another author’s work.

But mostly I read fairytales because they’re just darned fun! Even though the ending is never in doubt, still, its great to anticipate the twists. And think, wow, how did they come up with that?

There are a host of fairytale retellings to choose from, from Marissa Meyer’s science-fiction cyberpunk Cress to Gena Showalter’s White Rabbit in Zombieland series.

The four books here are some of the best of the genre that I’ve read in the last two years.

One you’ve probably heard of, but two were totally random finds on the library bookshelves, and one was such an unexpected treat that I wanted to share it here.

Book Reviews (In No Particular Order)

1. Nameless: A Tale of Beauty and Madness by Lili St Crow

This little gem is a Snow White retelling. A battered child is found alone in the snow by the godfather of the Seven — one of the powerful, mafia-like families, that rule the magic-ridden city of New Haven. The child, Camille, does not remember her real name, nor why she has such terrible nightmares. And always there’s the smell of apples, oh and yes she has to be careful of mirrors… Nameless is a grim-dark kind of story, set in an alternative reality, and the world-building is truly fantastic. If anything, I’d love more information about the Seven and all the other characters that dance in and out of the story with no explanation, but have strange, mysterious pasts. Like Marya, the fey croissant-making housekeeper and the Potential, that turns adolescents into magic workers, sometimes with unexpected results.

Nameless - Fairytale retellings

2. The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

This beautiful book has stunning illustrations by Chris Riddell. Although the story begins as a Sleeping Beauty retelling, it quickly morphs into something much more interesting. It’s a very short read, but its the sort of story you can turn to again and again. And like most of Gaiman’s works, The Sleeper and the Spindle is pure, beautiful, quirky escapism.

The Sleeper and the Spindle

3. Enchanted by Alethea Kontis

Enchanted suffers from an unremarkable title, but don’t let that put you off. The story is about Sunday, the seventh-born daughter of a woodcutter and a very strict Mama. Kontis skilfully weaves Jack the Beanstalk, the Princess and the Frog, Little Red-Riding Hood and a host of other fairytales; there’s even a nod to the original Grimm Brothers versions. This is a funny, quirky and exciting story and its well worth reading.

Enchanted

4. The Snow Queen: Heart of Ice by KM Shae

KM Shae specialises in fairytale retellings, and they’re all great reads. Heart of Ice is my favourite — even though it’s not a strict retelling — but I totally recommend Rumpelstiltskin too. Heart of Ice tells the story of Princess Rakel, exiled from the palace because of her magical control over snow and ice, and how she overcomes the distrust of her captors to save them from an invading army. The story is really about learning to accept who you are, and its both entertaining and fun. It’s a clean read, but not a dumb read, and its the sort of book that mothers and daughters can both enjoy. Plus, its cheap (!) and there’s more in the series to try!

the snow queen

 

 

Filed Under: Book Review, Fairytales, Reading Tagged With: Book Review, Fairytales, Teen Reads

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