Marrisa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles is probably my favorite (sci-fi/fantasy) fairy tale retelling! It can be an exciting challenge to write your own unique fairy tale while giving the story familiar roots. What are your favorite fairy tales/retellings, and how might you make a retelling of your own?
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It may sound basic, but I've always liked Snow White. For a psychology class this past semester, I actually retold the story by giving Snow White a psychological disorder. I think maintaining the story but adding a new characteristic is really intriguing.
Not basic at all haha, I love Snow White too! I think there are honestly so many cool ways to retell her story - your's sounds super interesting! I completely agree that adding a new characteristic can make a fairy tale retelling so fascinating. Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples is one of my favorite Snow White retellings - it's really dark, but so intriguing because it's told from the perspective of the Queen and he writes a totally unique (and terrifying) take on Snow White's character. I recommend it, if you're interested :)
I actually have Cinder, haven't gotten around to reading it yet but I've heard great things. This is an awesome question because I love fairytales and I love retellings. On the top of my head I'd have to pick A Court of Thornes and Roses by Sarah J Maas (beauty and the beast retelling). I actually recently had an idea for a retelling, don't have much yet but I guess my goals would be to make it dark, make it relatable to our times, and make it feminist (I wish more fairytells were but alas those were the times...)
Cinder is really good :) One of my favorite parts about the series is how each book keeps the perspective of the last character and the world building just gets so good! I love how Marissa Meyer connects many fairy tale characters but makes them so unique and in a totally new world. A Court of Thorns and Roses has been on my tbr for a while! I'll definitely need to read it soon, especially because Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorites. Your idea sounds really cool, I agree that feminist retellings are the best. Angela Carter wrote some really cool retellings in the 1970s from more of a feminist angle, if you're interested :)
Despite never reading the original works, I love Sherlock Holmes retellings. Brittany Cavarallo wrote a trilogy with Holmes as a teenage girl. I also rewatch BBC’s Sherlock quite often. Both of the classic stories are turned modern so it’s fun to see how Sherlock would solve cases now.
I've never read the original works of Sherlock either, but I also really enjoyed the BBC show! With retellings, I agree that it's cool to take something and put it in a new, modern setting. I've heard of A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavarallo, I'll have to check that out - it seems really cool! That kind of reminds me of And I Darken by Kiersten White because she wrote Vlad the Impaler as a girl as well
Fables is a really great comic series by Vertigo and is a great case of retelling. It follows the Big Bad Wolf and Snow White and other fairy tale characters who live in a place called Fable Town. It's really creative and it also has a video game adaptation called the Wolf Among Us. As far as retellings go I think Frankenstein would be a really cool character to try and reinvent. It'd be fun seeing what things would change and what things would stay the same.
That sounds really cool! I love comics/graphic novels so I'll have to check that out for sure. I agree that Frankenstein would be a cool retelling, especially if certain themes would be emphasized or changed in a modern context. One Frankenstein retelling I've heard of is The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like a cool retelling where the perspective is changed to Elizabeth
I'm not sure if this counts, but ever since I was a kid I loved Wonder Woman and how various writers of those comic books reinterpret/retell a lot of Greek Myths in the context of a superhero world.
That's awesome! I love Wonder Woman too, and I think that's a really cool point about how myths can be reinterpreted in superhero contexts. I hadn't really thought of them as retellings before, but now that you mention it, that is so cool how they retold the stories into a superhero genre. Genre and changes in context are definitely a fun way to play with retellings!
I love to read retellings of fairy tales! Cinder is a really good example. In my highschool art class we were actually tasked with drawing alternate endings to fairy tales and writing a short synopsis. It was around Halloween, so I drew Alice in Wonderland if the Red Queen had succeeded in capturing Alice and...separating her from head. I drew her as a ghost that haunted Wonderland; waiting for the opportunity to get her revenge.
Woah, your art class sounds amazing!! Your art piece sounds SO cool! You should write that into a story :) An interesting Alice in Wonderland retelling you might like is Heartless by Marissa Meyer, which retells the Queen of Hearts story. It genuinely shocked me at the end of the book (no spoilers)
OMG this is my question! I love it. My favorite retellings include Once Upon a Time, Sherwood by Megan Spooner and Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron. I have thought about doing a retelling before but it kind of terrifies me. If I did, I'd do a Robin Hood retelling. I just love that whole world.
Ohh, I'll have to check those out! I love that you'd retell Robin Hood! I always absolutely loved the animated Disney version from 1973 :)