Stories that use fairy tales

I would think that the story of Pinnochio is pretty old. So, there aren't bastion of Pinnochio purists with blogs, Web sites and e-mail capability read to blast you if you decide to color outside the lines.

Parallel to this, Hollywood seems to be doing this again and again -- reinventing stories. Take Ocean's Eleven for instance. I Am Legend. Others. There is a precedent for changing or altering old material (what some might spin as "freshening up").

Pinnochio might be one of those stories that gets told as more fable than entertainment ("Lie and something bad will happen to you. The End"). So, restructuring parts of it and coming out with the same moral certainly wouldn't be out of bounds. And, to that end, isn't the original Pinnochio in the public domain by now?

I'd doubt you'd get burned by this, especially if your treatment is done well. As always, I offer my "focus on the market" addage (which can be found in various BWQ posts). And watch out for those crazed Pinnochio comments on your blog.

Mystic, great question.

Do you read Neil Gaiman? Because he uses fairy tales ALL THE TIME as elements in his stories, from MC's to minor plot points. The one that comes right to mind is Snow, Glass, Apples, a retelling of Snow White from the POV of the Step Mother and Snow White as the villain. Wow. Talk about a leap. It's excellent. You can find the text here: http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/stories/snow.html or you can find it in Fragile Things (I think.)

I love stories that twist fairy tales. The series I wrote for my daughter also does that with a lot of stories. I say go for it! Ever notice how many versions of Peter Pan are out there? Have fun!

Oh Hey! I just remembered that at the end of the AW Idol Contest, Jenna had the contestants continue fairy tales. See them here:

Tom Thumb and the Conscience of the Crown

and

The Princess and the (Thera) Pea: A Fairy Tale in Three Sessions

Mystic Blossom said:

Okay, so, usually when one is writing a story that incorporates elements from a fairy tale (Ella Enchanted comes to mind), certain details can be changed because fairy tales tend to change with every version. But right now, I'm writing a story that uses elements from Pinocchio, which, while considered a fairy tale, was published as a book with a very definite storyline. Now, I realize the Disney version took a LOT of liberties with that storyline, but I'm just not Disney. So my question is, if I have to fudge details here and there for the sake of the storyline (like stretching the amount of time between Pinocchio's creation and when he wanders off), am I going to get burned?

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I was planning to start a thread with almost this exact question.

I'm writing a Pinocchio story as well... It's kind of along the lines of Gregory Macguire's works (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Wicked), but for children. It's not a retelling, but a continuation. I'm kind of curious about how rights work. I never call my character Pinocchio, but it's obvious that's who he is. Were I to get it published, would I need permissions from anyone, like Disney?

How do authors like Macguire and Robin McKinley handle rights and such, or is there nothing to worry about?

(Pinocchio was first published in 1883 by Carlo Collodi)

Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber comes to mind here. It's based on classic fairy tales, but she doesn't re-tell the stories. Instead she takes elements from the tales and creates her own adaptation.

Oooh, Mystic, take a look at this account of Peter Straub's Shadowland:
http://www.peterstraub.net/vault/texts/shadowland_main.html
and here's a quote:

"Traditional fairy tales, which I began to investigate soon after I started making up my own, pervade this novel. The beautiful story called “The King of the Cats” is the novel in miniature. Rose Armstrong is Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid, who accepts human form and ever walks across nails and razor blades. Tom Flanagan and Del Nightingale step in and out of the skins of the lost, wandering children inhabiting the Brothers Grimm’s compilations of folk tales, and the Brothers Grimm inhabit Coleman Collins’ mansion."

Fairy tales are public domain stories. You can do whatever you'd like to them, so long as you're using the older fairy tales as opposed to rewriting a specific, copyrighted retelling. (I.e., writing about the Disney version of Cinderella 3.)

I've sold three such retellings to my publisher (first one comes out next January), and believe me, I take an awful lot of liberties with the characters

Anyone interested in the subject might also check out this project from CatsCurious Press.

jchines said:

Fairy tales are public domain stories. You can do whatever you'd like to them, so long as you're using the older fairy tales as opposed to rewriting a specific, copyrighted retelling. (I.e., writing about the Disney version of Cinderella 3.)

I've sold three such retellings to my publisher (first one comes out next January), and believe me, I take an awful lot of liberties with the characters

Anyone interested in the subject might also check out this project from CatsCurious Press.

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Congratulations and thanks for your input!

JChines pretty much covered the legal aspects.

I try to be as strict as possible with my fairy tale retellings, but your story takes precedence over the inspiration, or the original incarnation. So when my story dictates that I change a little detail, or sometimes a big one, of the original, I just do it. No use stilting my story for the sake of a handful of purists who might email me complaining. Because of this, I've deviated so much in some of my stories that only the themes remain, but in others I stick very close to the story.

The key is to be educated about your subject, like with a lot of sci fi. If you understand every aspect of the fairy tale you're changing, then I think you're in the clear, way more than someone who watched the Disney version when they were 8, remember that they liked it, and wrote a continuation based on what they remembered.

(The weird thing is, I take lots of liberty with the fairy tales I retell, but I'm absolutely anal about the Greek mythology in which I repackage them. Lucky that there were so many conflicting ancient stories, huh? I get to pick and choose when it comes to mythology. )

I've taken quite a few liberties with Beauty and the Beast.

For futher reading, there are two other threads down in the SF/F Genre forum that discuss similar things.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85041

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86363

Saritams8 said:

Do you read Neil Gaiman? Because he uses fairy tales ALL THE TIME as elements in his stories, from MC's to minor plot points. The one that comes right to mind is Snow, Glass, Apples, a retelling of Snow White from the POV of the Step Mother and Snow White as the villain. Wow. Talk about a leap. It's excellent. You can find the text here: http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/stories/snow.html or you can find it in Fragile Things (I think.)

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I love Neil Gaiman. "Snow, Glass, Apples" absolutely blew my socks off. Wicked, wicked, wicked.
I read it in "Smoke and Mirrors".

Oh! Right, I got them mixed up. I read Fragile Things and Smoke and Mirrors back to back...