Twisted Fairy Tales
Twisty like Red Vines!
Twisted fairy tales are one of the more common literary genres to bridge juvenile literature and things a little more mature, like YA fiction. And they're just getting more common.
When I was a kid, I read the classic book, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. I loved it. I enjoyed the fact that we could see a classic story from a different point of view, especially with a healthy dose of humor. More recently, Marissa Mayer's Lunar Chronicles series has hit this genre out of the park.
But taking a well-known story like Cinderella and adding a cyberpunk twist, or changing the POV of the Three Little Pigs isn't a simple thing. If you're not careful, you can run into a whole lot of problems and the story will fall flat, no matter how well-written or immersive the world. Here's what I mean:
When I was in college, I took a puppetry class. The professor taught us a very important thing: you need the most prominent elements of a story to stay in the story, but the other aspects are workable. For example, the most well-known elements in Cinderella are: 1) wicked step-mother, 2) mean sisters, 3) Cinderella getting worked to the bone 4) handsome prince, and 5) the glass slipper left at the ball. If you're missing any one of these elements, people will go away thinking the story is incomplete because one of those classic ideas wasn't included. But if you include all those things and give the story (or world) an interesting twist, people will be satisfied that they've read a classic story with a fun change.
Crap. My ride's here.
Well, until next time, thanks for wreading!
Jeff
Twisted fairy tales are one of the more common literary genres to bridge juvenile literature and things a little more mature, like YA fiction. And they're just getting more common.
When I was a kid, I read the classic book, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. I loved it. I enjoyed the fact that we could see a classic story from a different point of view, especially with a healthy dose of humor. More recently, Marissa Mayer's Lunar Chronicles series has hit this genre out of the park.
But taking a well-known story like Cinderella and adding a cyberpunk twist, or changing the POV of the Three Little Pigs isn't a simple thing. If you're not careful, you can run into a whole lot of problems and the story will fall flat, no matter how well-written or immersive the world. Here's what I mean:
When I was in college, I took a puppetry class. The professor taught us a very important thing: you need the most prominent elements of a story to stay in the story, but the other aspects are workable. For example, the most well-known elements in Cinderella are: 1) wicked step-mother, 2) mean sisters, 3) Cinderella getting worked to the bone 4) handsome prince, and 5) the glass slipper left at the ball. If you're missing any one of these elements, people will go away thinking the story is incomplete because one of those classic ideas wasn't included. But if you include all those things and give the story (or world) an interesting twist, people will be satisfied that they've read a classic story with a fun change.
Crap. My ride's here.
Well, until next time, thanks for wreading!
Jeff
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