Fairy Tales

Delvianna01 · Mar 8, 2012

I currently thought of some awesome romantic story line that I'm not quite sure yet if it's going to be YA or adult. I was wondering if anyone can point me to some adult romance novels that are similar to fairy tales. Not necessarily by the storyline but how the book is written. EX: Ever After ( the movie) Based on the classic Cinderella.

I'm not exactly sure what style I should write this particular romance in, being similar to the 'knight in shining armor' type. I'd love to read some examples. Thanks!

Dee Carney · Mar 8, 2012

Are you asking for fairy tale retellings? If so, there are about a billion.

Ella Drake redid Jack and the Beanstalk with Jaq (Carina Press). Lila DiPasqua's Awakened by a Kiss (Berkeley Sensation) features retellings of Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood. I did an overview of three author's retelling of Rumpelstiltskin on my blog.

These are just stories off the top of my head. There are lots to choose from.

Delvianna01 · Mar 8, 2012

Not re-telling just the style of how the story is written. Fairy tale Vs romance. Knights rescuing damsels in distress, fighting dragons etc etc. Not sure they even have them for adults so if they do that's what I'm asking to read.

san_remo_ave · Mar 8, 2012

Eloisa James is currently putting out a bunch of historicals based on fairy tales. I think the one based on Cinderella is called A Kiss At Midnight. 'Glass' slippers and all.

Delvianna01 · Mar 8, 2012

san_remo_ave said:
Eloisa James is currently putting out a bunch of historicals based on fairy tales. I think the one based on Cinderella is called A Kiss At Midnight. 'Glass' slippers and all.

Awesome Thanks!

job · Mar 8, 2012

Delvianna01 said:
just the style of how the story is written.

Looking at different styles --

You might check out Mercedes Lackey on this. Her Fairy Tale-based works are almost Omniscient. Very distant POV in any case. Try Beauty and the Werewolf.

Rice does Fairy Tale in The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Erotica rather than Romance, though.

ULTRAGOTHA · Mar 8, 2012

Terri Windling edited a Fairy Tales series of books. These are re-tellings of fairy tales but also, I think, give you a good idea of just how many ways there are to tell such a story.

All of Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters books are worth reading and might help you.

san_remo_ave · Mar 8, 2012

Oh, then there's that new one that looks kinda cool. Something fantasy and cyber/android-ish, called Cinder. Was thinking about trying it some day.

ClimbingMountains · Mar 8, 2012

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. The storyline is based on Beauty and the Beast and it's my favorite historical novel. I highly recommend that you read it.

Alison_Kale · Mar 8, 2012

Julia Quinn's An Offer From a Gentleman is a Regency Cinderella. Teresa Medeiros did a whole bundle of fairy-tale inspired stories - favorite was A Kiss to Remember. For a more YA feel, and fairy-tale elements, rags-to-riches and all those, try Eva Ibbotson. Those are all absolutely beautiful.

For actual magic elements? Try Lord of the Fading Lands, which has kings and queens and fey and destined love. Or Lynn Kurland's Nine Kingdom's series.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 9, 2012

This might sound like a silly question. But how can there be so many stories based off of fairy tales? I mean wouldn't there some kind of copyright issue, or is it because the copyright years passed that it's okay? So, if they wanted to, could someone write something similar to Alice in Wonderland, or does it just stick to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, etc.?

Ambri · Mar 9, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
This might sound like a silly question. But how can there be so many stories based off of fairy tales? I mean wouldn't there some kind of copyright issue, or is it because the copyright years passed that it's okay? So, if they wanted to, could someone write something similar to Alice in Wonderland, or does it just stick to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, etc.?

I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know, all of the "classic" fairytales are so old, they'd be well out of copyright. I believe Cinderella dates to a French story from the 17th or 18th century. The Grimm brothers went around and collected a bunch of the stories in the mid-19th century, and those original fairy stories were later "cleaned up" by the hypocritical Victorians, who thought the original tales too sexy and violent for children.

Anywho . . . you also might check out "Red as Blood," Tanith Lee's gothic retelling of Snow White, or Patricia McKillip's novels. She does interesting interweavings of fairy-tale and romance-inspired stories.

FoamyRules · Mar 9, 2012

I've been inspired by a few fairy tales to write a couple of romances. My favorite re telling of a fairy tale to date has been Beastly which is based off of Beauty and the beast.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 9, 2012

Ambri said:
I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know, all of the "classic" fairytales are so old, they'd be well out of copyright. I believe Cinderella dates to a French story from the 17th or 18th century. The Grimm brothers went around and collected a bunch of the stories in the mid-19th century, and those original fairy stories were later "cleaned up" by the hypocritical Victorians, who thought the original tales too sexy and violent for children.

Okay. I kind of heard of that.

Does anyone know anything about Alice in Wonderland(or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)?

san_remo_ave · Mar 9, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
This might sound like a silly question. But how can there be so many stories based off of fairy tales? I mean wouldn't there some kind of copyright issue, or is it because the copyright years passed that it's okay? So, if they wanted to, could someone write something similar to Alice in Wonderland, or does it just stick to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, etc.?

Yes, so long as it's out of copyright you can. That's why we have a glut of mashups like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and what-not. Jane Austen's works are well out of copyright.

But that applies if you want to re-write the story itself (of Alice, the rabbit, etc). A story idea isn't subject to copyright protection. The characters, words, world are, but not the basic idea (e.g., girl stumbles into a strange new world)

Silver-Midnight · Mar 9, 2012

san_remo_ave said:
Yes, so long as it's out of copyright you can. That's why we have a glut of mashups like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and what-not. Jane Austen's works are well out of copyright.

But that applies if you want to re-write the story itself (of Alice, the rabbit, etc). A story idea isn't subject to copyright protection. The characters, words, world are, but not the basic idea (e.g., girl stumbles into a strange new world)

Thanks. I was thinking about writing something kind of inspired by Alice in Wonderland, more specifically Alice: Madness Returns. (Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTOvloVjHm8) in sense that Wonderland isn't the nice, peaceful place. It's highly distorted. I've really only seen clips of the game, which I think benefits me, because from what I can tell Wonderland exists in her mind--and only her mind. However, I plan to do more research to make sure that's the case. In my idea, Wonderland does exist, but it is connected to Alice's descendents, and the descendent I was going to write about, surprise, surprise, is also named Alice. Is that infringing too much on copyright?

san_remo_ave · Mar 10, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
Thanks. I was thinking about writing something kind of inspired by Alice in Wonderland, more specifically Alice: Madness Returns. (Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTOvloVjHm8) in sense that Wonderland isn't the nice, peaceful place. It's highly distorted. I've really only seen clips of the game, which I think benefits me, because from what I can tell Wonderland exists in her mind--and only her mind. However, I plan to do more research to make sure that's the case. In my idea, Wonderland does exist, but it is connected to Alice's descendents, and the descendent I was going to write about, surprise, surprise, is also named Alice. Is that infringing too much on copyright?

Be careful about riffing off of something riffing off of the original. Because that Alice: Madness Returns will have it's own copyright, separate and distinct from the original one established by Lewis Carroll.

Read this wiki article on Peter Pan, which discusses the various copyrights established by the author, when they went into effect, out of effect, ownership transfers, etc. It's fascinating. http://neverpedia.com/pan/Ownership_of_the_Peter_Pan_works

I'm no copyright expert. You'll have to do your own due-diligence to determine what you can and can't do with a particular work. I'm just pointing out the basic tenants of copyright consideration as I understand them.

pareimi · Mar 10, 2012

"Cat's Tale" by Bettie Sharpe is fairy-tale influenced. The voice also sounds very fairy-taleish to me.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 10, 2012

san_remo_ave said:
Be careful about riffing off of something riffing off of the original. Because that Alice: Madness Returns will have it's own copyright, separate and distinct from the original one established by Lewis Carroll.

Read this wiki article on Peter Pan, which discusses the various copyrights established by the author, when they went into effect, out of effect, ownership transfers, etc. It's fascinating. http://neverpedia.com/pan/Ownership_of_the_Peter_Pan_works

I'm no copyright expert. You'll have to do your own due-diligence to determine what you can and can't do with a particular work. I'm just pointing out the basic tenants of copyright consideration as I understand them.

Yeah. I know. I want to make sure I can do it before I start writing it. I was going to look at everything for Alice:Madness Returns to know what I can't do.

Alison_Kale · Mar 10, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
Okay. I kind of heard of that.

Does anyone know anything about Alice in Wonderland(or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)?

It's in the public domain! That is, the Carroll text and the original Teniell illustrations. So as long as you're drawing from that, and not anything Disney threw in, you're good. There are plenty of Alice retellings already out there - Alice miniseries on the SyFy channel, Malice in Wonderland, Frank Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars, and, in fact, a whole wikipedia page's worth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_based_on_Alice_in_Wonderland

So you're in the clear. And good company.

absitinvidia · Mar 10, 2012

There are retellings of fairy tales all over everything. At least three or four times per year I see a call for submissions for "re-imagined" fairy tales.

As Alison mentions, the most important thing is to go back to the original fairy tale and make sure you steer clear of Disney elements: the names of the seven dwarfs, names for Cinderella's stepsisters, things like that.

Silver-Midnight · Mar 10, 2012

Alison_Kale said:
It's in the public domain! That is, the Carroll text and the original Teniell illustrations. So as long as you're drawing from that, and not anything Disney threw in, you're good. There are plenty of Alice retellings already out there - Alice miniseries on the SyFy channel, Malice in Wonderland, Frank Beddor's The Looking Glass Wars, and, in fact, a whole wikipedia page's worth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_based_on_Alice_in_Wonderland

So you're in the clear. And good company.

Thanks! I was kind of going to draw from the original by Carrol, but I wanted to have the distortion(of Wonderland) of some of the modern stuff.

FoamyRules · Mar 10, 2012

Is it common to do a story based on more than one fairy tale?

Talltree · Mar 10, 2012

Robin McKinley writes many books based on fairy tales

Bettie Sharpe's Ember(Cinderella) was a book I enjoyed very much and its free

recently there are books that are also based on fractured fairytales - i recall one by Nadia Lee, somewhat like Shrek

Raula · Mar 11, 2012

Cecelia Ahern is the most famous author I can think of for writing 'modern fairytales'. They are very popular.

I've also noticed a revival of 'adult versions of fairytales' in movies recently, with Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood out recently and I think there's an adult Sleeping Beauty coming out soon too. I would jump on the bandwaggon at the moment, if you have an idea you think fits

Fairy Tales

Delvianna01

Dee Carney

Bringing sexy back

Delvianna01

san_remo_ave

Back at it

Delvianna01

job

In the end, it's just you and the manuscript

ULTRAGOTHA

Merovingian Superhero

san_remo_ave

Back at it

ClimbingMountains

Alison_Kale

Silver-Midnight

Ambri

Plotting something

FoamyRules

Hamtaro Rules

Silver-Midnight

san_remo_ave

Back at it

Silver-Midnight

san_remo_ave

Back at it

pareimi

Silver-Midnight

Alison_Kale

absitinvidia

A bit of a wallflower

Silver-Midnight

FoamyRules

Hamtaro Rules

Talltree

Good readers make good writers

Raula