Freshening Fairytales

Over the last few years, it seems as if the literary market has exploded with retellings. Whether it’s mythology, fantasy, or fairytale, a lot of familiar stories are back out at the forefront as authors try to work new angles or spin new plots around a classic. Now I guess a very cynical argument could be made that people are just putting out old ideas because there’s not anything new, or you could say everyone’s just trying to put their own spin on things. Though I’m not someone whose delved extremely deeply into the sea of retellings that’s happening right now, I have read several series lately that do play into that vibe that I wanted to talk about this week.

            Maybe it’s a murky line to begin with, but I know there are several categories of things when determining what kind of plot elements are what- in this case, the most relevant ones being tropes, archetypes, and myth/legend. My hope was to break this down so it would make a bit more sense, but even after some Googling, I was still a bit confused on whether there was a cut and dry difference between these. Here is my best guess:

·       Tropes: a commonly used story element used to propel the plot forward. Because they’re used a lot, readers should recognize them. Examples include: enemies to lovers, a kiss for cover, infiltrating a party, etc.

·       Archetypes: A commonly used character or idea meant to symbolize something to the reader. I didn’t immediately find a specific example of this, but I take it to mean, say, a character like J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” where he conveys youthful desires to have fun and not grow up, which is relatable but problematic in real life. That could be wrong, but I think that’s what it’s getting at.

I had hoped defining those would make this conversation a little clearer, but I’m not entirely sure it helped, as many things might be able to fall into both categories. Anyway, I’ll get back on track. Heads Up: there might be spoilers ahead for Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, Cornelia Funke’s Living Shadows (Mirrorworld B2), and Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince.

So, what started this whole musing on retellings in the first place was that I started reading Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles, which are essentially sci-fi retellings of popular fairytales. B1 (Cinder) is a cyborg retelling of Cinderella, and B2 (Scarlet) is Red Riding Hood- I’m not past those yet, so I’m not sure what characters the subsequent two books follow. (Are Cinderella or Red Riding Hood tropes or archetypes? Now you see my confusion, I’m sure.)

In general, probably everyone knows enough about how Cinderella or Red Riding Hood are supposed to go to have a basic understanding of certain things we’ll probably see within a story, even if it’s retold. For a Cinderella story, obviously it’s a not-so-great stepmother and two sisters, some sort of guiding figure to provide reassurance and a swanky dress, a prince, a ball, an unconventional way to get to said ball, and a shoe left on the stairs. There’s probably some others, but for me, those were the things that the word “Cinderella” immediately promised.

All of which fall within Meyer’s Cinder. Although the futuristic world provides a completely different setting and all sorts of new problems, we open on Cinder, a cyborg girl living with her not-so-great stepmother and sisters (one of whom actually wasn’t so bad, so I’m not sure if that’s going back to the original story or was Meyer adjusting for plot purposes). We have a prince and the promise of a ball. We have a little android named Iko as a stand-in fairy godmother by giving Cinder the means of having a dress for the ball, and a junk car (orange, of course) which Cinder fixes up in hopes of gaining her way to freedom but ends up taking to the ball. And, of course, the shoe…or, in this case, Cinder’s cyborg foot.

What I found really funny though is that as I read Cinder, I realized just how much I didn’t know about the Cinderella story. As I said, the second you hear the title character, you have an immediate idea of what high points to expect from the story, but because it was a retelling, I had no idea what to expect otherwise. Cinder is set in a futuristic world, there’s a plague, there’s a scary political game going on with the Lunar race- so there’s a whole lot of new stuff going on as well that affects the story and characters.

Also, with fairytales in particular, readers have a very striking dilemma expectation-wise, and that was kind of a constant in my mind while reading Cinder. When it comes to fairytale retellings, writers really have a major decision to make as they move forward as readers expect fairytales to go one of two ways: the “happily ever after, everything’s going to get fixed” way or the darker “magic has consequences” way. Let’s be real, I really like fairytales when things finally come out fine and everybody’s happy and the kingdom is saved. That’s great. We love it. But…traditional fairytales typically don’t go down that way. There’s usually some kind of life lesson and characters get their comeuppance because they’ve not done things the way they needed to.

So, as I was reading Cinder, I had this constant “Wait, how much do I really know about how this story is supposed to go down?” Did Marissa Meyer pick a happier version, a darker version, or did she rewrite it into a completely new thing?

That’s what I mean by writers having to choose which path to go down, which can really play into feeding and directing your reader’s expectations and assumptions. (We have a blog about that as well. If you’re interested, click here.)

For example, take two authors I’ve talked about quite a bit in previous blogs: Holly Black and Cornelia Funke. From what I’ve read of her work, Holly Black almost always leans into that darker side of fairytale retelling- there are specific rules to magic that are very dangerous if broken, there are dire consequences if you do something bad, magical creatures are typically selfish and unhelpful unless you do something for them- that sort of a deal. Cornelia Funke is a writer that can maybe go either way, most of which depends on what age level her books are at, I think. For instance, her Dragon Rider and Inkheart series might be a bit less on the dark side of fairytales, but her Reckless series deals a lot with characters making rash decisions and it biting them in the butt later on. Granted, if the main character is literally named “Reckless”, I feel like that should not be shocking to the reader.

Examples of these could be things like mortals being unable to stop dancing to faerie music once they’ve begun in Black’s The Cruel Prince, or in Funke’s second Reckless book (it’s also called the Mirrorworld series), Living Shadows, when Jacob Reckless makes a frantic deal to save his companion, Fox, from a Bluebeard. In his desperation, Jacob essentially promises whatever he has to in order to save Fox in time- which even if you don’t like fairytales, you should know that making a non-specific deal of “anything” with no knowledge of what the person helping you wants to be collected at any point is the literal biggest no-no you can make in fantasy. In a gut-wrenching reveal later on, Jacob finds out he’s inadvertently promised to give up his and Fox’s firstborn child. Oopsies.

That’s what I’m saying though. Fairytales have such variation and room to play around with, so I can see why everyone wants to put their own spin on things. Even beyond fairytales, something like mythology is really heating up right now. I find it a bit funny that as someone who really loves mythology, I’ve not really delved much into myth retellings, but I have been tempted a few times. Still, it’s the same deal: “Let me present you with a story you think you know, and completely try to flip it around.”

I’m not sure where exactly this type of trope/archetype/whatever it is fits, but one storyline I’ve noticed I’m partial to is the “Anastasia” retelling. (I suspect this is definitely because of the 90’s animated version and the later Broadway musical, but I digress.) Not really a myth or a fairytale, but an extremely common storyline.

In the same vein as Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles, Jay Kristoff’s Lifelike trilogy is a cyberpunk retelling of the Anastasia trope. Coincidentally, I started reading this series right after being able to see a touring production of Broadway’s Anastasia without realizing that’s what the book was as well, and so I had this very funny “Oh my gosh, it’s cyberpunk Anastasia!” moment. Still though, Lifelike is a completely different thing than what you might be expecting as a fan of, say, the animated movie. It’s sci-fi and violent and very, very different, but the typical “lost heir” plot is there fueling the story on.

Though it’s not an exact retelling, a series that follows the “Anastasia” or “lost heir” trope is Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince (or The Ascendance series), as three orphans are trained to fill the spot of the long-lost Prince Jaron. Essentially, we have a prince, who is presumably dead although rumor says he might have survived, who presents a direct path to the throne for those with perhaps not the best of intentions. One such nobleman intends to train and plant the orphan that does the most convincing job on the throne as a puppet while he rules behind the scenes.

I think the thing writers have to watch out for on the “Anastasia” trope is not to make things too obvious. In the cases of Cinder, Lifelike, and The False Prince, you really have to write in such a way that the reader doesn’t automatically go, “The main character is obviously the long-lost princess/prince” as that completely blows the big plot twist out of the water. If you want the reader to know that’s who the main character is the whole time, then revealing their identity can’t be the big thing you’re working toward story-wise. In the case of The False Prince, you’re operating on the assumption that none of the boys are the long-lost prince and the nobleman putting them up to said treason assures the real Jaron is dead, so that does present a bit of a different scenario assumption-wise to work off of. Lifelike as well kind of presents several characters in a certain light, then flips around on what you expected them to be- so letting readers assume one thing, then bringing new information to light can also offset that as well. Cinder was a little hard for me to get a read on in this regard as there was a “lost heir” plotline. Cinderella is obviously supposed to be a princess, so I had a whole dilemma of whether she was a princess without a prince or if she’d be there by the end of the book. Like I said, sometimes it’s hard to get away from your assumptions and I didn’t want to go “Oh, there’s a lost princess? Wonder who that could possibly be?” In the case of Cinder, Cinder did turn out to be a princess (I won’t say if she already was one or became one at the end of the story, so I won’t spoil it) but there was at least one moment where I thought I was getting faked out and that Scarlet (B2’s main protagonist) would actually be the princess or another character we’d not seen yet.

Mostly this week, I just wanted to jabber out some of my thoughts on retellings I’d read recently and some elements I think go into them. I think when writers look at retellings they’ve got to keep these things in mind:

1.     Reader Expectation: What are the “must haves” your readers expect from the story you’re retelling even if you change everything else around? What are they naturally going to assume? How can you manage assumptions and write them in a way that aids what you’re trying to do?

2.     Happily Ever After?: Is your fairytale going to stay pretty lighthearted or drag readers to the darkest part of the woods? What are you trying to say with your characters or story elements? Fairytales are notorious for hidden meanings and parables, so you have to determine what journeys your characters (and readers) will take and where they’ll end up at the end of the day. It’s fine if everyone’s happy and the kingdom is saved, and it’s also fine if maybe things didn’t end up quite the way we expected. A lot of how dark you go, as mentioned earlier, might be determined by target audience or what you’re trying to do with a specific character’s growth.

3.     Unique Spin: The entire point of writing a retelling is to tell the story your own unique way. The thing that constantly kept me guessing about Cinder was there was a familiar story wrapped up in a completely different world. You didn’t know how much would be the same or different. It’s always cool to see what writers do with a classic, familiar story to completely reshape what it is. Get as creative as you want and purposefully make it different. Give us unfamiliar settings and twists and turns. Maybe the idea might sound a little silly at first, but if you can find a way to make it work, then go for it.

This is in no way a comprehensive list. There are probably thousands of different ways to retell a story and turn it into something new. I think as long as you pull that off, you’re in good shape. Things are never as they seem when it comes to fairytales, so I think there’s plenty of room to spin your tale as you wish. (Inadvertent Princess Bride joke, but it’s fitting so I’ll leave it.)

Let us know your thoughts on retellings or any cool ones you’ve read! If anyone knows the difference between a trope and archetype and what qualifies as one, please let me know because I’m still confused.

As always, thanks for reading. Write on!

     -Kamryn