Fractured Fairytales

Here are some more of my notes from LTUE (Life the Universe and Everything scifi/fantasy symposium). The presenters for this panel included:

Author Mette Harrison

Author Rick Walton

Author Danyelle Leafty

What is a fractured fairytale?

• Using a fairy tale as inspiration (a spin off)
• A modern adaptation
• A silly adaptation with very little to do with the original except on the surface
• For example: West Side Story=Romeo and Juliet
• Another example: from the stepmother’s POV
• A fractured story with elements of more than one fairy tale

Reasons for doing retellings:

• Using the established expectations you can twist people’s minds and create humor
• Hating fairytales gives one panelist the desire to retell them.
• They mirror truth and give you a conveyed theme. You can take your own twist of that version of truth.
• Original fairytales try to teach moral lessons with shock value. You can choose tales as starting point because of the horror element and start with the horribleness.
• They feel real even if they’re not. The characters stories feel well-rounded.
• Fairytales are part of the cultural consciousness and bring us immediate connectedness. They give us a common culture, a shared literacy.
• They show a mirror of humanity—some of the darker and lighter aspects.

Does a story need a moral?

• A story needs meaning and problems.
• There’s a difference between having a moral and moralizing (preaching).