Twists and Turns: How Fairy Tale Retellings Keep Us Hooked
The thing I love about fairy tale retellings is the way every creator puts their own distinct twist on well-known tales to make them feel fresh, new, and relevant.
These stories have been told so many times that we all recognize the bones of them, and there is comfort in that [familiar]. The excitement comes from the unexpected ways each other plays with the elements to surprise and delight their audience. New settings, unique characters, and unusual roles.
And each retelling reflects the time, place, values, and aesthetics of its creators.
Beauty and the Beast is a perfect example of this. Just compare Disney’s animated version to the 80s television series. Or Robin Mckinley’s Beauty to Alex Flinn’s Beastly. The same story, told in wildly different ways.
For the books in both my Dragon Ever After and Wolves Ever After series, I wanted to reinvent my fairy tales by setting them in a world of dragon shifters and create stories where it was the princes who often needed rescuing. I had a great deal of fun coming up with taglines to convey that:)
These are some of my favorites!
This Snow White is no damsel in distress. Jack is a dragon shifter on the run from the foster mother who wants him dead.
Caleb is no Sleeping Beauty. He’s a prince cursed in stone yet determined to protect his kingdom from an evil enchantress.
Maegna is no princess. She’s the illegitimate daughter of a viscount, and only she can break the dancing curse enchanting her half-brothers.
Wyatt is no trespassing Goldilocks. He’s an injured wolf-shifter seeking shelter from the storm.
Even when I write the same fairy tale over again for a new series, it gets a different twist.
In Once Upon a Dragon, Prince Ash sneaks into a ball to steal a magical glass pumpkin, only to fall for Princess Beatrix. Who imprisons him for the theft. Eventually, they reluctantly join forces, even though saving his family might end up destroying hers.
In my upcoming book, Masks at Midnight, Sadie is a palace guard undercover as security and disguised as a noblewoman when she meets future dragon clan chief Dogan. Then, she’s assigned to be his bodyguard on a trip to a country house party and must keep the secret of her identity even though it’s breaking her heart.
I love to see where new characters and new situations can take a story. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored with the possibilities fairy tales promise.
As an author or as a reader.
What’s your favorite fairy tale twist?
