Reworking Fairy Tales

The park and ride bus into Cambridge yesterday made me think about that old writing prompt, the reworking of a fairy tale. The teenager next to me was reading a book where the heroine was called Ash and had a stepmother. Sounds familiar? I’m not sure if it was the book ‘Ash’ by Malinda Lo. If it was, the twist in the reworking has Ash ending up in a lesbian relationship, just one of endless takes made on this particular fairy tale over the centuries. With the current young adult interest in the supernatural, reworking of fairy tales is selling books, films and TV. A recent addition, proving to be very popular, is the American fantasy-drama, Grimm. I have not caught the series yet, but I like the premise of detectives investigating crimes based on fairy tales.

Reworking fairy tales is an idea I’ve always enjoyed, but then I have always loved the original fairy tales. One of the books I liked to read to classes of junior children was Kaye Umansky’s ‘The Fwog Pwince - the Twuth’, and I have used the reworking writing prompt in various guises with children and adults. The year 4 team I worked with in Leicestershire had great fun producing newspaper reports based on the events in nursery rhymes along the lines of ‘Fairytale News’ by Colin Hawkins, which has a mini-newspaper insert full of reports based on fairy tales.
 
Familiarity with the story is what makes this a good writing prompt and I have used it for a quick write, and for longer (homework) sessions with writing groups. What you are asking writers to work on is developing their version of a famous story, short or long, but with the aim of making it different and there are many ways you might do this. If you fancy having a go, think about one of the variations below:

1. Inject some local knowledge. Rework the fairy tale by setting it in a place you know well.
2. Bring the story up-to-date. How will you have to change the plot to make it fit in a modern setting? I think ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ would make a great basis for something set in the current political climate. Of course, reworking does not have to just be about fairy tales. ‘Gods Behaving Badly’ by Marie Phillips is about the twelve gods of Olympus, who are alive and well in the twenty-first century, unhappily crammed together in a London townhouse and holding down jobs.
3. Choosing to set the story in an easily recognisable time period also works well with reworking fairy tales. Victorian or Elzabethan London might make a good place for Cinderella to live, but then so would the Wild West. I’ve always wondered why the world around Sleeping Beauty never seemed to change much in the story. What would happen if she woke to the world of the 1920s, with flapper costumes and looser morals all around her?
4. Rewriting the fairy tale in a particular genre could bring interesting results. Ali Baba and the Forty Theives as sci-fi - or has that been done in the film ‘The Time Bandits’? What about Goldilocks and Snow White teamed-up as Philip Marlowe style detectives? Am I getting carried away here? Maybe I should stop watching all the Shrek films!
5. Rewriting a fairy tale as a poem can be fruitful. I stumbled across a website where the author has done just this (RewritingFairy-tales)  It’s certainly something which worked for Roald Dahl in ‘Revolting Rhymes’. If you haven’t read that, get down to your library straight away! 
6. You could try to write the story from a different point of view – first person is currently very fashionable, or do what Kaye Umansky does in her poem ‘I’m sick of that Hansel and Gretal’ (‘Witches in Stitches’) and write from the antagonist’s point of view.

There are endless variations on the theme of reworking an old tale and many bestsellers have been produced along these lines. A quick search will bring you up lots of original stories, but if your memory fails you and you can’t think of any off the top of your head, try some of the ones below. Above all, have fun. Right at the bottom of this post is a very short story I wrote after setting this writing prompt for a group.

Aesop's Fables The Ass in the Lion's Skin The North Wind and the Sun The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse The Sick Lion The Tortoise and the Hare The Boy Who Cried Wolf	Hans Christian Andersen The Emperor's New Clothes The Little Mermaid The Princess and the Pea The Snow Queen Thumbelina The Ugly Duckling
Grimms Fairy Tales Beauty and the Beast Cinderella Goldilocks And The Three Bears Hansel and Gretel Little Red Riding Hood Sleeping Beauty Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs The Three Little Pigs	Nursery Rhymes Baa Baa Black Sheep Little Boy Blue Little Miss Muffet Mary Had A Little Lamb There Was An Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe

 Trials of the Job

“Mirror, mirror, on the …”

“Get lost!”

          The mirror was entirely black. It wouldn’t even show Esmeralda her own reflection, let alone any magical revelations. Stamping her foot did nothing to galvanise the mirror either, though her broom began sweeping the kitchen floor, which was a small bonus.

                       

“I need to see what she’s doing.” Esmeralda did not usually resort to begging.

          “Phone her.” The mirror replied in a flat, arms folded across the chest kind of voice.

          “Why are you being so awkward?” Strangely, Esmeralda felt tears pricking at her eyes and turned away from the mirror before it saw her weakness.

          “I don’t like being used.”

          “You’re a mirror for God’s sake. What are you for if not for using?”

          Esmeralda was feeling cross now and yet she knew that it was no use arguing. She just didn’t have any threats to hold over the mirror short of smashing it and that was the one thing she could never do.

          “She’s never been in this situation before.” Esmeralda tried appealing to the mirror’s better nature. “It’s not really sneaking. It’s just showing we care.”

          A small glimmer of light began to flicker in the furthest depths of the glass. That had sparked its conscience and Esmeralda quickly moved to press her point home.

          “What if she’s in danger? She could be lying in an alley, her life blood slowly seeping into the litter strewn gravel.”

          Suddenly the mirror flared into life, becoming a multifaceted diamond scattering beams of light in every direction, before settling down to a street scene where a small red devil was dragging a mini-witch by the hand towards a house. The windows were festooned with cobwebs and on the front step a particularly evil looking pumpkin sat grimacing at passers-by. Knocking on the door, the two cried in unison,

          “Trick or treat!”

          Sighing, Esmeralda returned to her cauldron. She allowed herself the smallest of smiles now that she knew her daughter’s first date was running smoothly.

In the background the mirror chuckled gently as it whispered,

          “Ah, the trials of motherhood!”

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I love this chap's face all squashed up against the glass, but just who is he and what's he doing?

Ten Minutes to Spare?

I love taking part in what I call 'quick writes' - taking a writing prompt and running with it for a set time. I use this with groups of adults and children alike. It's quite something to see everyone with their heads down and scribbling away. Somehow the pressure of working like this lights that creative spark for me, though I understand some people find the pressure a bit of a strain. The same activity would also good for a writing warm-up to be undertaken in the solitary confinement of your own writing space. 


For this activity you choose a storyline from one set of boxes and a genre from the other, then write for ten minutes without stopping. 

A woman/man walks into a room and finds a character of the opposite sex they weren’t expecting.	Two people meet on a bridge and one hands over a package.	A person climbs a cliff and someone is waiting for them at the top.
Something to do with the weather results in school girl being discovered as a blackmailer.	A group from a village Women's Institute win a competition to go on safari together.	While snooping around her employer's house a babysitter is and finds something disturbing.
A character hopes for a fresh start at their new school, but arriving on their first day they encounter someone they have met before.	Your character suspects their partner is having an affair and decides to spy on them. What they discover is unexpected.	A character buys an antique urn for their home, but when they get it home, they find there are ashes in it.

horror	historical	romantic
chick lit	sci-fi	fantasy
crime	rags to riches	war

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Who are these women? Why have they got together? Where are they?


Possible titles - Spring Chicks, Island Ferry, Old Friends, The Reunion

Picture This 1

Why is this old sofa out on the street? Who put it there? 

Creating Convincing Characters

This is an activity I used with a group of adult writers, but you could use it on your own. It’s a way of creating a new character, inventing their back story and generally getting to know them.

You will need to prepare some resources first. I made three sets of cards, using a different colour for each set (I’m used to working with children!), but you could just make three lists.  On set one I wrote a selection of names, on set two various ages and on set three jobs.

1. Draw a card from each set to get the basis of your new character.

It could be Joe – aged 9 – a shoplifter

Or Twister – aged 19 – a bodyguard

You might have to decide on gender if it’s not obvious from the name.

2. Now decide on the dramatic function your character will perform within the structure of a story. They could be the protagonist/hero, the antagonist/villain, the helper/guardian or the hinderer/trickster.

3. Listing six milestones on that character’s journey to their job. These should explain how a character ended up in that profession.

4. Draw around your own hand. Imagine it is the outline of a hand of the character in your story.

What is the hand used for?

Describe each finger in detail. If they are wearing rings, why are the rings there?

Describe any distinguishing marks.

What is the texture of their skin?

What does the hand come in contact with during the week? At the weekends?

5. Draw an outline of the same character’s foot.

Describe their shoes. Where were they bought?

How many pairs of shoes does the character own?

What surfaces does the foot come in contact with?

Consider how connected the character is with the ground on which they walk: would they prefer to live somewhere else? Why?

Now you’ve begun to get to know this character you can start thinking about how you might use them in a story. Try one of these:

Choose one of the 6 milestones in the character’s journey into their job. Use it as a starting point for a piece of writing in which something happens to the hand and/or foot. Include at least four elements from the exercises you have just completed,  ‘showing not telling’, to convey an aspect of the character’s personality.

This character is taking part in a ritual (burying a pet, celebrating a divorce, exorcising a poltergeist, a Sunday lunch, a bikers’ initiation). The ritual is interrupted. How? What happens next?

Your character is on a plane and they begin to talk to the stranger sitting next to them. They don't have to be swapping confessions. One of them might be boasting or lying. You might want to think about a genre for the story, but aim to move your plot towards an outcome in which one of the characters is unexpectedly changed by the encounter.

Your character is flying to an exciting destination where they hope to act or feel differently. List five or six items associated with their old life which they cannot bear to leave behind. What happens to these items in the new setting? How does your character let go of them?

Strange but True 2

Here’s another 'strange but true' report that attracted my attention:

Worker dead at desk for 5 days

Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for FIVE DAYS before anyone asked if he was feeling okay.

George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers. He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was still working during the weekend.

His boss Elliot Wachiaski said "George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all that time and didn't say anything. He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself."

A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary. Ironically, George was proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.

 .... You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally.

Here’s the start of something I wrote after reading that report. It’s an unfinished first draft, and I’m not entirely sure where it’s going – perhaps a short story, perhaps the first chapter of something…

The Stamp Collector

        When Matthew Anderson died I lost my job and so began a very dark time for me. It wasn’t as if I’d even been directly responsible for his death. It was a heart attack for God’s sake. It could have happened at any time. The trouble was it happened while he was at work, in my section of the trading floor, and no-one noticed for four days.
        The unfortunate Matthew remained at his wretched desk for four days and nights, his computer screen still reporting the most up to date information on the stock market. No-one even commented on the hours he was putting in. That was totally normal for someone in derivatives. Only, for some reason, I was the one who got called into the office for an inquisition. I tried to open that final meeting with some sort of defence of my position.
       “Look, I know things have got pretty bad. I’ve been depressed. I’m not trying to get sympathy or justify anything, but I honestly don’t think this is my fault. Ok, I’ve stopped noticing a few things. I admit my eye’s been off the ball.”
        “He was dead for four days, Johnson.” The CEO’s face was taking on that thunderous look I recognised so well.
        “But no-one else thought it was odd. Anderson always worked long hours.”
        “He was one of your team for Christ’s sake. Don’t you even speak to your own people?”
        “We have motivational meetings every Monday morning, sir.”
        “Such a shame he inconveniently died on a Tuesday then. Look Johnson, the truth is you’ve become a liability. You’ve lost us money and now you’ve lost us a trader.”
        I stood looking at him with my mouth gaping open. The CEO went on to make further allegations about my performance. He mentioned the two warning letters that I’d already received. He brought up the matter of the unauthorised trading which had lost the bank thirty-five million. It was only luck that he hadn’t found out about my affair with Corinne, since romantic associations on the trading floor were strictly off limits in case the couple engaged in fraud along with their other activities. His parting words hit me in the gut.
        “Just hand your security pass over, Johnson.”
        And that was it. I was briskly escorted out by the security guard and chucked unceremoniously into the underground car park. I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to my team, though what happened next let me know that Corinne, for one, wasn’t going to be much bothered by my departure. As I heard the lift doors open I turned to look back and there she was, with a cardboard box in her arms. She must have been clearing out my desk while I was being hauled over the coals.
        “Don’t even think about getting in touch, Simon.” She stared at me with eyes like cold, blue steel.
        “But I thought we were going somewhere, Corinne. All those nights we’ve shared.”
        “All those nights where you’ve pawed me over you mean, the whole time refusing to take off your stupid white vest.”
        I flushed at her jibe. I could never let any woman see me fully naked. Not since the tattoo. How I had paid for getting drunk that night with the Crewe Collector’s Club. Their idea of a great joke was to get a penny black tattooed on my left shoulder. The thought of anyone finding out about my hobby filled me with revulsion, so I kept my back covered at all times.
        “Corinne, please…” I was not above pleading. I needed her.
        “Face it Simon, we’re over. We’ve been over since you lost your Midas touch. I don’t want to be shackled to some burnt out trader. I’m going places where you can no longer follow.” And she walked coolly back into the bank’s headquarters, leaving me to carry the contents of my desk to the nearest Metro station.

        The Midas touch. It had been true. Every deal I was involved in had flourished and grown and made Barnabus Credit a fortune. Yet here I was, 32 and out of the game, and it was all down to my hobby.
        The truth is I’m addicted to the unlikely passion of stamp collecting. It began as an extension of my stock portfolio, then turned into a way of making social contacts who were outside the aggressive world of stock trading. I made some good mates in stamp circles, though some, like the Crewe crowd, could be a bit mad. I’d also made some enemies. Serge, for one. He’d dogged my bidding footsteps since I’d first started going to auctions here in Paris. He took great pleasure in taunting me from across a crowded hall and raising the stakes ever higher until I had to bow out. That’s what made me take risks at work, I guess - the desire to build up enough in my bank account to blow Serge out of the water. I’d nearly done it too, except I crashed and burned before all deals were closed, and now I had to think of something else to do. My name was blacklisted across the whole of the financial world and all doors there would be forever closed to me.
        I walked down Rue Neil clutching the groceries I’d bought at my local Monoprix. They mainly consisted of cheap red wine, but I’d thrown in a baguette and some goat’s cheese to line my stomach. I’d also bought the local rag and planned to spend tomorrow searching the jobs page, but tonight I was going to get spectacularly drunk. 

So there you go. Try it yourself. If nothing else, you’ll have some fun reading some of the many the strange but trues that are out there, and you never know, it could be the start of your next bestseller.

Strange but True 1

I enjoy 'strange but true' newspaper stories and have found them to be a good place to get ideas. I usually search the internet with some arrangement of the words ‘strange but true newspaper reports’, and I’ve built up quite a collection of these now, although I haven’t always followed them up with some writing. Every now and then I come across a real gem though, which sparks up something in the creative process. The common theme in stories resulting from these  'strange but true'  accounts does seem to veer towards the dark side of life, with just a smidgeon of humour alongside.


Here's one I like but haven't yet found time to use directly, although it did spark a short story. I guess it attracted me because up until 2010 I was a deputy headteacher and the idea of school improvement through the use of black magic struck a chord. I’m not sure how it would go down with OFSTED, or how I would keep a data trail as evidence, but the whole idea got me thinking about using black magic to change something in your life. That led to me Googling 'voodoo'. You can see the results in my e-book A Wry Smirk from the Dark Side in the story The Spell.

Principal Tried ‘Magic' To Cure School

A principal who took an unusual approach to improve her TriBeCa high school — allegedly hiring a "black magic" practitioner to cleanse evil spirits through a ceremony involving sprinkled chicken blood — is being forced out a month before the school year starts. A replacement principal has not yet been named.

"There was always a running joke that, because many of the students were ill-behaved, we should use sage to cleanse the building," an assistant principal at the school told city investigators. Then, during midwinter break in early 2006, the principal invited her assistant to a Santeria ceremony that would involve chicken blood.

The assistant said she did not attend that ceremony but did go to a second rite where a woman shuffled Tarot cards under a cloud of cigar smoke. The assistant principal said she was later pressured to pay $900 towards the fee for this service.

Investigators did not interview anyone who attended the first Santeria ceremony, but a computer technician told them he saw the principal and two women walk into the school over the midwinter break dressed in white clothing and white headdresses. One balanced 40 lighted candles on her head atop a stainless steel tray, he told investigators. The principal introduced these women to him as "black magic" practitioners.

A Los Angeles man who identified himself as a high priest of Santeria, said chickens are commonly used in cleansing ceremonies. "All the negativity passes into the chicken," he said. Then the chicken is slaughtered. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said that the principal has already been pulled from the school and steps are being taken to ban her from working in other city schools.

So there you go. Try it yourself. If nothing else, you’ll have some fun reading some of the many the strange but trues that are out there, and you never know, it could be the start of your next bestseller.