Fairytales have always been popular all over the world. Many of the stories (if not all) that we may be familiar with from Disney are actually retellings of older tales. For instance, Cinderella is a story that has versions in China (from the 9th century) among other countries and cultures.
They’ve continued to be popular with modern readers, which is obvious by the number of fairytale retellings that are available. Fairy tales are often used to teach us how to make our way in the world. They provide lessons and usually show the ways of human nature. So it figures that authors want advice on how to write fairy tales from a different point of view.
Another popular fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast can also be found across cultures. It may have different names – and sometimes the “beast” is the bride and not the groom – but they are characters readers can identify with. In fact, you could probably see similarities between that story and the myth of Persephone and Hades. A virginal young woman who is mated with a brooding and mysterious man. That pairing shows up in many genres (Jane Eyre, anyone?) so it’s not only in fairy tales!
In my Once Upon A Princess series, I wanted to show princesses who fall in love with shifter heroes.. In Heart of Stone the princess is in her 30’s and has suffered personal losses. She’s more skeptical and less innocent, but she’s open to love when she meets the “beast” who has been living in an abandoned palace.
In Beauty & the Faun a Cinderella-inspired heroine isn’t a princess when she starts out. That comes later. The heroine in Land of Dreams is a mysterious princess who has secrets of her own. In that story the hero is the POV character and, in a way, the roles are reversed. He must determine the magic and mystery around the heroine in order to break the spell.
The fun of writing these fairy tale retellings is that we can take the themes and characters and add our own twists. We can put them into the modern day to create a contemporary fairy tale or create a fantasy world of paranormal creatures.
Authors have centuries of storytelling to inspire us to take familiar stories and give them new interpretations. Learning from fairy tales can help us to write our stories from a different perspective as we tell familiar stories with new twists.
Originally posted at Long and Short Reviews
The Once Upon A Princess Trio Box Set
FORMULA FOR FAIRY TALE LOVE: 1 ADVENTUROUS HEROINE + 1 TORTURED-BUT-NOBLE HERO = HAPPILY-EVER-AFTER
For all the innate complications involved in finding the secret to blissful fairy-tale love with shape-shifters, three wise and discerning princesses trust their hearts instead of their eyes and fall in love with the unlikeliest of princes.
Box set includes books 1-3 of the Once Upon A Princess paranormal fairy-tale inspired romance novellas.
https://books2read.com/u/4Dg5xA