Beauty<\/em> by Robin McKinley, which I love. This retelling of \u201cBeauty and the Beast\u201d hews close to the original and yet stands as a unique creation. I\u2019ve never managed to be that faithful. It\u2019s an achievement\u2013<\/p>\n\u2013that we don\u2019t have to achieve\u2013<\/p>\n
\u2013unless we want to.<\/p>\n
Most fairy tales have been around for hundreds of years. They\u2019ve lasted because they\u2019re exciting; they\u2019re generally short and packed with action. And they touch deep places in us. For me, the original \u201cCinderella,\u201d for example, is at bottom about feeling unappreciated\u2013even though I didn\u2019t take the story that way. Cinderella does everything right and tries so hard, and all she gets is grief. We aren\u2019t told if she loves her stepfamily, but they certainly don\u2019t love her. Everybody (or almost everybody) has felt undervalued and misunderstood.<\/p>\n
We can use those deep meaning to fuel our plots. The meaning you take from a fairy tale is likely to be different from mine. For me, for instance, \u201cHansel and Gretel\u201d is fundamentally about abandonment, but for someone else it might be about poverty. \u201cSnow White\u201d makes me think about jealousy and rage, but others may find kindness and love\u2013in the generosity of the dwarfs.<\/p>\n
If we go with abandonment, we can give Hansel nightmares and make Gretel more conscientious than a child should be, because both children sense that their parents are unreliable. We can invent earlier incidents during good times when the parents behaved irresponsibly. We can bring in the witch during one of those incidents. If we know what the underlying big issue is, we can figure out how to structure our story. Once the two of them are in the witch\u2019s cabin, knowing what we know about each of them, we can decide how they\u2019ll be together in that very small space. If we\u2019re following the fairy tale, we can plan how the two children manage to stay alive but almost fail a few times. It\u2019s all informed by abandonment and, possibly, their commitment to never abandoning each other.<\/p>\n
I also do as Melissa Mead does: look for leaps of logic, plot turns that make absolutely no sense. Why does feeling a pea under twenty mattresses prove royal blood? Why does the prince fall in love with Sleeping Beauty when she\u2019s, well, asleep and he\u2019s never met her and she\u2019s about a hundred years older than he is, even if she doesn\u2019t look it? Why does the Beast frighten Beauty\u2019s father and threaten him if he (the Beast) is really a good guy at heart? Why, oh why, does Snow White fall for the evil queen three times in a row?<\/p>\n
We can contemplate these goofy parts and see how we can explain them. Let\u2019s take the prince and Sleeping Beauty. Why does he go on the crazy quest in the first place? We can make a list! Remember nothing is stupid on a list:<\/p>\n
\u2219 He\u2019s on the lam. He stole the golden astrolabe of the Admiral of the Fleet. A party of knights is after him, and there\u2019s this hedge.<\/p>\n
\u2219 His mother insists he marry his distant cousin, Merna, whom he hates. He\u2019s refused, and now he\u2019s been exiled. He\u2019s been riding for days, and there\u2019s this hedge.<\/p>\n
\u2219 He lives in the next town over, and the hedge has grown so high that it blocks the sun from the wheat fields. Crops are failing. He hacks his way through the hedge to find the authorities and tell them to trim the darn hedge!<\/p>\n
And so on. A nice list has ten to fifteen possibilities. As you can see, these possibilities are complicated. We probably have to set them up, which could take half a novel. Meanwhile, we have to keep an eye on the sleeping princess and decide how she can complicate the problems and then lead eventually to their solution. I happen to love this approach.<\/p>\n
Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write the abandonment story of Hansel and Gretel.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write a version of \u201cHansel and Gretel\u201d using poverty as the underlying problem. Or pick another issue that strikes you as at the core of the problem.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write seven more \u201cSleeping Beauty\u201d possibilities. Pick one of yours or one of mine and write the story.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write a version of \u201cSnow White\u201d that begins in the dwarfs\u2019 cottage and explain SW\u2019s behavior each time the evil queen shows up.<\/p>\n
Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First off, I hope everyone is well, staying safe, and contributing to the safety of others. David and I are okay and very grateful that dogs don\u2019t get the virus. And, letting you know, in addition to my ongoing daily Facebook reading of a chapter of Ella Enchanted,\u00a0last week I did a Q&A talk, also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[85],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1148,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions\/1148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}