Fairy tales have been around in one form or another for centuries, even if they weren’t written down and compiled into collections like Grimm’s Fairy Tales. They’ve changed over the centuries as well, shifting from folk stories to morality tales to more sanitized or “Disney-fied” versions of what they once were. In the process of this sanitization, oftentimes the messages the fairy tales purported to dictate have changed. Gone is the Little Mermaid who watched her beloved marry someone else, at which point she cast herself back into the ocean and drowned, showing us that you shouldn’t change for someone you love. Instead, we get the version where the mermaid and prince live happily ever after, flipping the moral to be that you can (and should?) change in order to make someone love you.
“Original” versions of fairy tales can be a loaded term, in that most of the fairy tales we know today existed in an oral format prior to being written down. When the stories were written down, they were not always faithful to the original tellings. Charles Perrault’s versions of fairy tales were reworked so they would be popular amongst the seventeenth-century French aristocracy. In the nineteenth century, the Grimm brothers, in the first versions of their compilations of fairy tales, acted primarily as transcriptionists, interested in recording the stories as they were commonly told among the German populace. In later versions of the Grimm brothers’ collections, however, they began the sanitization process, making the tales more family friendly.
There is no denying that many of the “original” fairy tales were violent, sexist, and gruesome. They’re filled with death, abuse, self-mutilation, and more. Some of these tales were likely used by the tellers to imbue the listeners (or readers) with specific moral values or lessons or warn them against things like going into the woods alone at night or engaging in other dangerous activities. Perrault and the Grimm brothers also added to these moral lessons but shaped them to their own times and audiences. For example, stories that originally included birth mothers often were changed to instead include stepmothers, who were invariably vain, evil, and not interested in the welfare of their young charges. That the “original” stories ascribed these same motives to birth mothers is a fascinating bit of historical curiosity, but that stepmothers were so much more readily demonized might be even more intriguing as an avenue of study.
Beyond even the changes that Perrault and the Grimm brothers made to the “original” fairy tales, modern sensibilities have again shifted the telling of these stories, cleaned them up further, and completely rewritten them into things that barely resembles the “originals”. Like the Little Mermaid example above, the retelling of fairy tales as children’s movies, often animated and turned into musicals, can obliterate the original meaning, though not always for the worse. The “original” Beauty and the Beast story from seventeenth-century France was written to prepare young girls for arranged marriages, and had an emphasis on learning to love someone you didn’t know, whereas the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast involves character growth for both Belle and the Beast, who learn to love each other, rather than simply expecting the woman to do all the work. This example, in particular, also reflects the time in which it was turned into a movie, considerably different from earlier Disney films in which the female protagonists sometimes were denied the agency that Belle is permitted. Other retellings of fairy tales have stripped away the morality entirely, or occasionally taken a story that was more about avoiding dangerous activities, in a way that did not really require a moral, and added a moral in for good measure (like various versions of Little Red Riding Hood).
Though the origins of many fairy tales are lost to history, the ability to compare various versions of tales as they have been told over the centuries is a fascinating endeavor, both for what they tell us about broadly defined history and what they tell us about storytelling and writing in various times.
About the author: Dawn Vogel’s academic background is in history, so it’s not surprising that much of her fiction is set in earlier times. By day, she edits reports for historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business, co-edits Mad Scientist Journal, and tries to find time for writing. She is a member of Broad Universe, SFWA, and Codex Writers. She lives in Seattle with her husband, author Jeremy Zimmerman, and their herd of cats. Visit her at http://historythatneverwas.com or follow her on Twitter @historyneverwas. Dawn’s latest book is The Cask of Cranglimmering, Book One of Brass and Glass.
This was a guest blog post. Interested in blogging here?
Assembling an itinerary for a blog tour? Promoting a book, game, or other creative effort that’s related to fantasy, horror, or science fiction and want to write a guest post for me?
Alas, I cannot pay, but if that does not dissuade you, here’s the guidelines.
Guest posts are publicized on Twitter, several Facebook pages and groups, my newsletter, and in my weekly link round-ups; you are welcome to link to your site, social media, and other related material.
Send a 2-3 sentence description of the proposed piece along with relevant dates (if, for example, you want to time things with a book release) to cat AT kittywumpus.net. If it sounds good, I’ll let you know.
I prefer essays fall into one of the following areas but I’m open to interesting pitches:
Interesting and not much explored areas of writing
Writers or other individuals you have been inspired by
Your favorite kitchen and a recipe to cook in it
A recipe or description of a meal from your upcoming book
Women, PoC, LGBT, or otherwise disadvantaged creators in the history of speculative fiction, ranging from very early figures such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft up to the present day.
Women, PoC, LGBT, or other wise disadvantaged creators in the history of gaming, ranging from very early times up to the present day.
F&SF volunteer efforts you work with
Length is 500 words on up, but if you’ve got something stretching beyond 1500 words, you might consider splitting it up into a series.
When submitting the approved piece, please paste the text of the piece into the email. Please include 1-3 images, including a headshot or other representation of you, that can be used with the piece and a 100-150 word bio that includes a pointer to your website and social media presences. (You’re welcome to include other related links.)
Or, if video is more your thing, let me know if you’d like to do a 10-15 minute videochat for my YouTube channel. I’m happy to handle filming and adding subtitles, so if you want a video without that hassle, this is a reasonable way to get one created. ???? Send 2-3 possible topics along with information about what you’re promoting and its timeline.
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"The Wayward Wormhole, a new evolution of writing workshops has arrived. And I’m here for it! Geared more towards intermediate speculative fiction writers, the application process doesn’t ask about demographics like some other workshops and focuses entirely on your writing. The television free Spanish castle made for an idyllic and intimate setting while the whole experience leaned more in the direction of bootcamp slumber party. Our heavy and constant workload was offset by the family style meals together with our marvelous instructors. The Wayward Wormhole is not for the faint of heart but if you’re serious about supercharging your writing, then this is the place to do it."
~Em Dupre
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Guest Post: Magical Crones and Adventuring Mothers by Catherine Lundoff
When I first began working on a story about women who turned into werewolves as they entered menopause way back in 2009 or so, there was not a whole lot of representation of middle-aged and older women to be found in science fiction, fantasy, or horror. I mean, there were the evil middle-aged queens with talking mirrors, out to poison their younger, prettier rivals and the ancient witches who popped up to do terrible things or sometimes, provide directions, as the case may be. But, with rare exceptions, they were never protagonists, and they were seldom more than cardboard embodiments of evil or just plain window dressing.
Around 2010, that started to change. A bunch of other things happened around then too, including a huge growth in ebook publishing by indie authors and indie publishers which brought in a lot of voices that were not previously being heard from in more mainstream science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Along with that came writers willing to take risks, to tell new stories, to tackle things like representation that had been pretty sparse up until then. Those writers included women who were middle-aged and beyond looking to see themselves and their stories in the pages of the genres they loved.
Amongst those writers was yours truly. As I entered middle age myself, I wanted to see more protagonists that were dealing with the same issues around aging that I was dealing with and still having adventures along the way. Entering middle age often brings with it some big physical and psychological changes, as well as the potential for having one’s traditional social roles (perceived desirability and childbearing, for example) reduced. Menopause is either ignored or treated like a medical condition, and middle-aged women who are still interested in sex are often treated as a punchline to a joke. Quite a bit of this is culturally specific to Western culture as we practice it in the U.S., but that also makes it pretty pervasive.
Inspired by a write-up that I found on a medical site for “symptoms” of menopause (“Unexpected hair growth! Mood swings! Receding gums which make your teeth look longer!”) I embarked on what was originally a novella about a woman who discovers that when she turns fifty, she also turns into a werewolf. She also develops a crush on her next-door neighbor and finds a whole new community of local werewolves, all middle-aged and elderly women, and confronts the people out to destroy her newfound family. After getting a lot of positive feedback for the idea, the novella was followed by the first novel, Silver Moon, and now, the second one, Blood Moon. Some of the themes and issues that I tackle in the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series include coming out at midlife, the physical and psychological experiences of menopause, a magical system that values older women and ways to combat the isolation that can impact women as they age. Also: werewolves, because they’re cool.
Silver Moon originally came out in 2012 (it was reissued by Queen of Swords Press in 2017), joining a small list of novels and stories with female protagonists forty and older in sf and f. These included Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2003), a fantasy that sends a middle-aged noblewoman on a quest, and Remnant Population (2003) by Elizabeth Moon, which is a first contact novel featuring an eighty-year-old human colonist as the protagonist. There were also Nancy Springer’s middle-aged ladies of the fantastic featured in such titles as Fair Peril (1996), Larque on the Wing (1994), and Plumage (2000). YÅ«ya SatÅ’s Dendera (2009) is about a group of elderly Japanese women banding together to fight a supernatural bear, and most popular of all, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld witches, which were first featured in Equal Rites (1987) and Wyrd Sisters (1988).
Armed with the knowledge that there might be more stories out there, I went looking. I started a bibliography of the stories I found featuring science fiction, fantasy, and horror tales with female protagonists over 40 where I listed everything I knew about (10 books and/or stories) and then I asked for suggestions. And it turned out that I wasn’t the only one looking for more older women in speculative fiction. Suggestions trickled in and I checked them out and added them if they seemed like a good fit. The two biggest reasons for not adding a title were unspecified age (character felt “older”) and a misinterpretation of what a “protagonist” was. Middle-aged and older women apparently occupy an outsized role on the fictional page, such that even a walk-on and a couple of lines is as good as being a major player for some readers.
After the initial growth spurt, there were new and rediscovered works popping up every time I asked for suggestions. A nice fan I met at Helsinki Worldcon offered to create a Goodreads list, and things took off from there. The list has taken on a life of its own as people add books and readers discover it.
But apart from the obvious interest in the topic, there still remains the question of how broad and deep the representation these books and stories provide. There are, for example, still not many characters who are women of color and even fewer who are written by writers of color. There are some queer women, but not many. A list of trans women who are also elders in spec fic and protagonists, while longer than it would have been a couple of years ago, is still very short. Representation of aged characters is also full of magical and technological “cures” and other miracles.
There have also been some challenges making readers aware that the books and stories that do exist are out there. I, and now we, have been adding to and publicizing these lists for years and yet every six months or so, I encounter a post or commentary somewhere online to the effect that there are almost no older women featured as protagonists in sf and f. This is invariably followed by people suggesting the same five or six books, many of whom are amazed that there are many more stories than they thought out there.
As writers in the field age, their characters often age with them (sometimes subconsciously), so I think that we will see more of these stories in the future. Add to that the works that we have not yet discovered and included, particularly those from outside the U.S., perhaps not originally written in English, and there is fertile ground for exploring older women as central characters in speculative fiction.
Bio: Catherine Lundoff is the publisher at Queen of Swords Press, a Minneapolis-based small press focused on fiction from out of this world. Queen of Swords publishes work by A.J. Fitzwater, Alex Acks, Catherine’s own work and that of other authors. Catherine is also an award-winning writer and editor who works in IT and lives with her wife and their kitty overlords. Her books include the Wolves of Wolf’s Point series, Silver Moon and Blood Moon, Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories and Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic and as editor, Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space). She is the author of over 100 published short stories and essays which have appeared in such venues as Fireside Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, the SFWA Blog, Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, American Monsters Part 2 and World of Darkness anthologies Haunting Shadows, The Cainite Conspiracies and Ghosthunters. She teaches writing classes at the Rambo Academy and Springboard for the Arts.
Guest Post from Rob Dircks: 8 Ways to Make Your Writing Funnier
First, I didn’t set out to be a humorist. And I’ve only got one sci-fi comedy novel so far, Where the Hell is Tesla?, so I’m not sure I qualify as anyone you should listen to. But I’ve always loved funny sci-fi, like Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or John Scalzi’s Agent to the Stars, or Pratchett and Gaiman’s Good Omens, and I love the process of writing humor. It seems like a fit. I’m sticking with it.
Along the way, I’ve learned a ton from great writers, and great teachers, and from screwing up in every conceivable way. So here are a few of my favorite little nuggets that you might find it useful in your own writing:
1. Exaggerated Contrast.
Imagine you move into your new apartment, and you go next door to ask if they signed for a package you were expecting. You’re invited in, and you find yourself in the middle of four adult males playing Dungeons and Dragons. With costumes on. Hmm. This might make a funny story to tell your friends later. But let’s exaggerate the contrast more by making all four of these guys over-the-top-crazy-smart scientists who revel in everything tech and sci-fi. Now what’s your story? The Big Bang Theory. A huge comedy hit, in its ninth season. A classic fish-out-of-water story pitting poor Penny against the ultimate geek squad.
Or take Dortmunder, the cat burglar hero from the old Donald Westlake novels. He’s literally the only sane person in an insane world filled with incompetent crooks, bungling cops, and inept villains. The result? He had so much comic potential he starred in twenty-five novels and short stories.
Why does fish-out-of-water work? Because the greater you can make the gap between the normal person’s perspective (Penny, Dortmunder) and the crazy world’s perspective (the four scientists, incompetents in general), the richer the vein of comic possibility. And science fiction can be even better, as your worlds are only limited by your imagination. Just look at Hitchhiker’s Guide’s hapless Arthur Dent, thrust into insanity on a galactic scale. And in my novel, the “fish” are two regular joes who find themselves trapped inside an “Interdimensional Transfer Apparatus” ““ where each dimension they visit is strange, and rife with comic opportunity.
2. The power of three.
Take a look at this exchange between two friends on a bridge.
Murph smiles. “Look. It’s only forty feet, and the water’s plenty deep. You first.”
Andy peers down, with one eye closed, gripping the railing for dear life. “What are you crazy? No way!”
“Come on. Okay, we’ll jump together. It’ll be fun.”
Andy shakes his head. “No, It’ll be death. Forget it.”
“I’ll buy you Skittles.”
“Hmm. The big bag?”
The first time Andy says no is the setup, describing the conflict. The second time he says no, it ratchets up the tension and validates his convictions ““ there’s no way he’s backing down. And the third time is the release and the punch line ““ not only has Andy reversed, but he’s made risking his life contingent only on which size bag of Skittles he gets out of the deal. (He must really like Skittles.) That’s the power of three.
Let’s not stop there, though. Who did you think this was? A couple of teenage boys? Now imagine they’re seventy-five. Suddenly we’ve added exaggerated contrast to goose the humor (old guys don’t jump off bridges, and I don’t know any that eat Skittles). Even think about the word “Skittles.” Okay, it’s cheap comedy, but the sound of the word “Skittles” is kind of funny. Different. The way it rolls off your brain when you say it. Plus, their little exchange is also”¦
3. Two friends arguing.
Listen to Where the Hell is Tesla?‘s heroes, Chip and Pete, after Chip discovers directions to Tesla’s interdimensional portal in a journal and tries to talk Pete into investigating:
“So, you want to check this thing out, right?”
“F**k no. What are you, an idiot?”
“Dude. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Classic. Cut to scene of us in jail. Or scene of us dead. Or scene of us God-knows-where in space-time.”
“Well it would be space, not time. It would be the same time no matter where we went. It’s a dimension machine, not a time machine. “
“Oh, gee, now I totally want to go.”
The comedy tradition of two buddies who love each other but bicker like an old married couple goes way back to Laurel and Hardy’s “here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” (I’m sure it goes back even further, like ancient Egyptians had plays about roommates who couldn’t agree on how many humps a camel is supposed to have.) Abbott and Costello, Crosby and Hope, Chandler and Joey, the angel/demon couple of Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens, and David and John in John Dies at the End. The list goes on and on and on.
Why does it work? There is something about friendship (which we all love) and bickering (which we all indulge in) that feels familiar, and when exaggerated, reminds us how the foils of life, the things we fight about, are silly and kind of funny. And it creates conflict where the stakes aren’t too high. And it allows us to live vicariously through characters who say and do the things we secretly wish we could in real life.
4. Surprise.
There are a lot of things I love about Audition, Michael Shurtleff’s book on how actor’s should audition for roles (though it’s really about how to craft a good story). But my favorite is probably what he calls “Discoveries” ““ remembering always to ask yourself “what is new?” Surprise creates new ““ and potentially funny ““ conflict in a scene. An example: deep into Where the Hell is Tesla?, Chip wakes up from a particularly shocking experience with a surprise: he has a new foot. A furry one.
“I don’t care. I’d still rather have no foot. Nikola, you’re a man of reason. Would you want a furry alien foot? Truly, deep down in your heart? Wouldn’t you rather have a nice pair of crutches? Or a hand-carved mahogany peg leg? Please cut this thing off, will you?”
“Chip. We are obviously not going to cut off your new foot. Can you not see even one positive thing in this?”
Hmm. I hesitate. I look down at it. “Well, it’ll never get cold.”
5. Don’t be afraid of slapstick.
People fall down. Kids accidentally hit their parents in the crotch with frisbees. Moms drop birthday cakes on the floor. And you know what? It’s funny. It just is. America’s Funniest Home Videos is based entirely on that premise, and it’s in its millionth season. So don’t shy away from it ““ embrace it. Have your main character slap someone by accident while making a point. Have your villain bend over and split his pants. Have your hero drink what she thinks is lemonade, until the lab guy tells her it’s poison, and she spits it out in his face. BUT keep it relevant to your characters’ personalities and motivations, so it’s not just a one-off visual joke. Because”¦
6. It’s not about “jokes.”
One-liners are for stand-up comedians and movies like The Avengers. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fun of The Avengers, but I avoid things like serious action sequences punctuated by zingers, like this one after Thor hits Captain America’s shield: “It’s all in the swing.” In fact, that whole trailer is a great example of joke overkill – there’s a snappy one-liner every five seconds. Be careful of “jokes.” Jokes are empty unless they’re a natural extension of the situation and the character’s state of mind.
7. Playfulness.
There’s a security in writing comedy, knowing that as bad as it gets, even if minor characters die, it’ll never get THAT bad. So don’t forget to let them have fun. I love the way John Scalzi does this (I’m thinking about Agent to the Stars and Redshirts in particular.) Even in their lowest moments, trapped in an underground chamber, your characters can talk about how they hated the movie Ghost. Or during a torrential downpour on a dark night on a dangerous planet, have your hero skip through a puddle, remembering that was her favorite thing when she was a kid. In Where the Hell is Tesla?, I had the main characters, right in the middle of all the tension, have a pillow fight. The world is your oyster ““ slurp it up.
8. Heart.
Maybe the biggest thing with comedy (as with all storytelling, I guess), is instilling it with heart. Without real living, breathing characters with real feelings, you wind up laughing at them, instead of with them (if you laugh at all.) Think about all the characters I’ve mentioned in this post, or ones from your favorite sit-coms. When you get to know them, you bond with them, and when they fall down you feel bad (even though you’re laughing), and when they’re climbing a mountain you’re rooting for them, and when they say or do something funny, not only do you laugh, but you feel good about it.
Wow. I didn’t realize I’d actually have a point, but I guess that’s it. That it’s not about the laughs. It’s about the feeling that comes with the laughs: that kind of giddy, warm connection to a story and a character, that makes you feel good, feel a little glow, even after you’ve closed the book.
Reading Recommendations
If you’re interested in humor writing, I highly recommend:
The Comic Toolbox, by John Vorhaus (indispensable, and the source of several of these concepts)
Audition, by Michael Shurtleff (not specifically about comedy, but awesome for scene writing)
About Rob Dircks
Rob is author of the science fiction comedy novel Where the Hell is Tesla? His previous work, an anti-self-help book titled Unleash the Sloth: 75 Ways to Reach Your Maximum Potential By Doing Less, has the distinction of being the very first self-help book to prescribe taking a nap instead of mowing the lawn. Both books have been bestsellers (depending on your definition of “bestseller.”) He’s a member of SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America), and owner of Goldfinch Publishing, a small (very small, wee in fact) assisted publishing service. He also owns and operates an ad agency, Dircks Associates. You can follow and contact him on RobDircks.com.
About Where the Hell is Tesla?
SCI-FI ODYSSEY. COMEDY. LOVE STORY. AND OF COURSE… NIKOLA TESLA.
I’ll let Chip, the main character tell you more: “I found the journal at work. Well, I don’t know if you’d call it work, but that’s where I found it. It’s the lost journal of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors and visionaries ever. Before he died in 1943, he kept a notebook filled with spectacular claims and outrageous plans. One of these plans was for an “Interdimensional Transfer Apparatus” – that allowed someone (in this case me and my friend Pete) to travel to other versions of the infinite possibilities around us. Crazy, right? But that’s just where the crazy starts.”