If you follow my work, you probably know I have a completed manuscript (that is currently with my excellent agent Ben Grange) retelling the classic fairy tale The Little Mermaid. Originally by Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid is a beloved story that ends in a fulfilling, but not-so-happy ending. Disney came along in the 1989 and re-formed it into a more palatable American version, complete with a Happily Ever After.
Retelling fairy tale classics is a favorite past time of modern authors, especially YA writers like myself, and I think it begs the question of why. Why, in an age so obsessed with originality, do writers like myself continue to be drawn back to retelling old classics? Is it sheer lack of original ideas? Why bother messing with these classic stories at all? I mean, not a single one of us is really going to supersede the original, are we? Or reinvent the wheel, for that matter. Whether it's fairy tales, fables, myths, historical legends, or great tomes of Western Civilization (and beyond!) . . . Why bother retelling the classics? The first reason I'll offer is one personal to me: classic literature influences everything I write. Not only did I teach at a classical school for ten years, but I've always loved the classics. A friend gifted me a copy of Pride and Prejudice when I was 12 or 13, and I read that book at least once a year every year from that point forward. I read my dad's old college copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology until the cover fell off, and I can quote passages from Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Petrarch verbatim. Classic stories and literature run through my blood, so it's impossible for it not to bleed over into my writing. In one sense, directly retelling a classic story is like entering into the oral tradition of history, where stories used to be passed down parent to child, teacher to student, and undoubtedly often changed and influenced, at least slightly, by the storytellers and the times in which they lived. One thing that makes classic stories classic stories is in how they deal with big themes. To tell a classic story with a timeless big theme in a new era is to show your readers how certain things, certain truths, transcend time. Changing the particulars of the story doesn't mean you don't or can't still hold true to the essentials. Ergo, I think retelling a classic tale is following in the footsteps of the oral tradition. Another reason to retell the classics is because, through retellings, we can see them with fresh eyes, introducing them to a new generation of readers in a new way. How many kids in the last ten years have become familiarized with Greek mythology through Percy Jackson? It doesn't mean people won't go on to pick up and read the original texts themselves (hopefully they will!), but a retelling can be a revitalized way to look at an old classic and ease new readers into familiarity with it. Along those lines, the classics aren't as commonly read or studied now as they were long ago. Retellings, especially those done by YA writers, can introduce readers to classic stories they might not even know exist, or that they might not have ever considered reading due to intimidation or lack of interest. Some people, especially young readers, only read commercial fiction these days, and anything that looks too "scholarly" feels intimidating. Retellings take the edge off that intimidation factor, they exist in the commercial fiction market, and they can be a gateway into reading the actual original classic texts. So is it valuable to retell classic stories and texts? I think the answer is a resounding YES. I'm looking forward to introducing the world to my retelling of The Little Mermaid once we find it a publishing home, but in the meantime, you can know that all my works are influenced, and influenced heavily, by the classics.
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1/15/2018 0 Comments "Dobby is Free!"*This post contains spoilers for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets*
My oldest son is reading Harry Potter for the first time. He turned eleven this past week, and we gifted him book 1, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (as I feel I must call it, as an American, but everyone knows it should really be titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) for Christmas. He read it in about two days and declared it "the best book he'd ever read!" and my heart was happy, and I prepared to throw him his 11th Harry Potter Birthday Party Extravaganza that I've been planning for years. At the party, we gifted him with books 2 and 3, and he predictably disappeared into book 2 with nary a backward glance. I expected feedback from him as he read, but he was so engrossed, we heard not a peep until late at night, two nights ago, when he burst into the living room, eyes brimming with happiness, book clutched to his chest, and declared, "Dobby is free!"* Okay, I'll admit it. I'm still getting a little choked up typing this. Of all the twists and turns in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, of all the adventures and revelations -- mysterious journals, ghosts, words written in blood, kidnappings, basilisks, Tom Riddle! -- my sweet sensitive boy felt more sympathy for the plight of the downtrodden, and more cathartic joy for the release from slavery of the oppressed in the story than any other aspect that he rushed to share that joy with his parents. He didn't rush down to say, "Tom Riddle is Voldemort!" or "It was a basilisk all along!" or even "Ginny Weasley has been taken and they have to go and rescue her!" but... "Dobby is free!" And this is why our stories are important, especially in an age when the "least of these" in society -- and in the greater world -- are so often disparaged, not only in casual language, but by our actions, on social media, and sometimes grossly by the highest levels of our political leadership. Stories matter because they have the power to rightly -- or wrongly -- orient our empathies, manipulate our emotions, and challenge our world views. Stories teach people how to think and how to feel. If you love the oppressed people in Harry Potter's universe, it is difficult to turn around and hate the oppressed people in this one. My son was edified this week by reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. His heart expanded as he felt the joy of Dobby's release from slavery. He learned important truths about oppression and personhood. And I know he's now taken strides toward better appreciating the value of freedom. All because of a story. *Dobby, if you're unfamiliar with the story, is a creature called a house elf. House elves are essentially enslaved to old wizarding families and can only be freed by a member of the family offering the elf an item of clothing. Dobby belongs to the infamous Malfoy family and is horribly abused, but Harry comes up with a way to trick Mr. Malfoy into giving Dobby a sock at the end of the story, thereby freeing Dobby from his enslavement. Click HERE for more! 11/6/2017 1 Comment Trimming the FatPart of the process of growing as a writer is recognizing that writing is so much more than putting words on the page--it's also knowing when and where to take words off the page. This past week, I executed what my agent calls a selective edit. This was a process of combing through my manuscript and cutting several thousand words to bring it down to a particular length. I was looking for superfluous words, redundant dialogue, unnecessary descriptions--that sort of stuff. Now that I have been writing professionally for eight-nine years, I actually relish this sort of activity, but Young Author Me would have cried bitter tears over it.
Part of the process of growing as a writer is recognizing that writing is so much more than putting words on the page--it's also knowing when and where to take words off the page. I think creative writing is such a curious discipline for several reasons, but one of them is because it's a type of creative art where the Creative starts off believing they are experts at what they are doing. Speaking generally, creative writers tend to be resistant to instruction--resistant to being edited, resistant to being told what to do. Birth metaphors are frequently used for the process of producing books (we "birth book babies," as though they are products of our life and blood rather than subcreations of our psyche). Our stories are deeply personal, and this makes any suggestion that we need to change our mode (our words) personal, as well. Whereas I think people in other disciplines tend to recognize their ignorance and start off more malleable, creative writers often start off rigid and only become more malleable with maturity and time. That's certainly been my personal experience as a writer, at least, and my observations of my creative writing students over ten years teaching creative writing have reinforced this opinion. And I will say that I've never been one to write an initial rough draft that I junk entirely, but all writers have to be willing to hold their drafts in an open hand. Unless you self-publish and control every aspect of the process from beginning to end, your story ceases to belong solely to you the moment you sign with an agent, a publisher, an editor, a publicist. Your manuscripts will go through many revisions--many, many, many revisions--before they are ready for publication. If your words are so precious to you that you can't trim the fat--recognize and get rid of those unnecessary words and story elements--where necessary, then you have a lot of growth to go through as a writer (and you may be a little insufferable to work with). Editing is difficult. It is--whether you're editing your own work, or someone else is editing it for you. I'm not trying to say that you will (or should) always feel great about it. But I will encourage you to always enter into the editing process with an open mind and an eye to recognizing that editing is not about butchering your "book baby" or compromising your vision, but it's about clarifying your story, highlighting the very best of your words, and getting rid of the dross. In order to do that, though, you have to be willing to trim that fat! |
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