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Wood the Writer

~ Author of Tales From Undersea

Wood the Writer

Tag Archives: fairy tale

Why is Fantasy Obsessed With Royalty?

22 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by Jessica Wood in author, Blog, Common Criticism, criticism, culture, fairy tale, fantasy, musings, romance, story, writing

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creative writing, culture, fairy tale, fantasy writing, royalty, writing

If you polled fantasy readers on the most overdone tropes in fantasy fiction, chances are that most of them will name something like ‘the rebellious princess’ or ‘the stableboy who becomes king’ or any of the other numerous royalty tropes which frequently appear in fantasy. Yet it doesn’t stop fantasy authors from churning out a constant stream of books about royals, or readers from consuming them. It has reached the point that members of a royal family have almost become the go-to cast for a fantasy novel, and sometimes it can be difficult to find a fantasy book which doesn’t feature a member of the monarchy in some form. If royals are such an overdone fantasy cliché, why are we still so obsessed with them?


Photo by King’s Church International on Unsplash

…And they lived happily ever after

It all goes back to where modern-day fantasy spawned from – fairy tales. The standard fairy tale plot is a princess gets captured or imprisoned, a hero shows up out of nowhere to save her, and he is rewarded with the princess’ hand in marriage and half the kingdom.

They may be old and horribly outdated much of the time, yet they are still the stories we are told as children, whether it is through bedtime stories or Disney movies. This teaches us from a young and impressionable age that being a Princess is something special and desirable and that a Prince is ideal marriage material.


Photo by Susanne Jutzeler from Pexels

The real-life fairy tale

This also explains why society is so obsessed with royalty in real life, despite several dark periods of history making royalty almost entirely obsolete in modern times. We’re well aware that modern monarchs are only figureheads with no real power anymore. Most of us are also aware that they’re living comfortable lives which none of us can ever hope for. Yet that didn’t stop tens of thousands of people from descending on London last year to watch the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in Windsor Castle, or thousands more from watching it live on television. They have what we’ve been taught to desire, but instead of feeling jealous, we adore them for it.

Escape into fantasy

Time Magazine explains that our obsession with real life royals is a parasocial relationship, similar to our relationships with our favourite fictional characters. We form one-sided relationships and become invested in the drama and stories of their lives without actually interacting with them or having them directly impact our lives in any meaningful way.

Whether they are real life or fictional, royals provide us with a necessary means of escapism. The British people don’t care that the royal family are costing them money at a time when their financial and political future is uncertain. They ignore the fact that high expectations and constant media bombardment probably make the life of a royal more stressful than it appears in pictures. They prefer to think about the dresses and parties and the smiling faces they see in the newspaper.

Carfax2 / WikiCommons

Fantasy is one of the prime forms of escapist fiction, and what could be more escapist than picturing yourself as the beautiful princess living in a fairy tale castle and falling in love with the handsome prince? Even the old fairy tales provided an escapist fantasy for regular people to envision themselves rising above their stations and becoming royalty.

Prawny / Pixabay

In reality, being a public figurehead would be incredibly stressful, a castle would be cold and drafty to live in, and falling in love at first sight with a prince you barely know probably wouldn’t work out in the long term. Yet even knowing all this, it’s still much nicer to just think about the happily ever after.

The media cycle

Media outlets know that royalty is used as a form of escapism and that they can use this obsession to increase their sales. Being fed a constant stream of articles, images, and news pieces about royals keeps them in our collective consciousness and keeps people buying newspapers or clicking on news websites. Disney keeps on making movies about princesses because they are fully aware that they will sell more toys and more trips to Disneyworld. Similarly, publishers keep putting out book after book featuring royals because they know that as overdone as it is, readers will keep buying them, and the publishing cycle will continue.

Updating a tale as old as time

Yet a constant stream of books about royalty doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, or a sign of an unoriginal writer. Our knowledge of royalty also comes from history and folklore. Historically, a king was much more of an ‘everyman’ and representative of the people with a lot more say in the management and safety of his kingdom. This makes royals ideal protagonists for fantasy fiction based upon a historical setting, since they will need to make decisions which affect their entire kingdom. It provides more leverage for everybody’s favourite trope, the forbidden romance, with the royal finding a way to marry for love rather than political reasons. If you look closely enough at history, you’ll find that there are many more obscure royals or little-told-stories which would make for great fantasy books.

There are a multitude of creative ways that modern readers can use royalty to subvert the old tropes and put a fresh spin on them to attract more readers. This is why we are seeing more stories about overweight princesses, transgender princes, or royals from cultures which aren’t quasi-European. The beautiful princess and the handsome prince are still good starting points for writers, but it is up to them what to do with these old favourites.

Recommended fantasy books about royalty:

The Icemark Chronicles by Stuart Hill

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Pegasus by Robin McKinley

New short story – The Fox and the Illuminator

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by Jessica Wood in fairy tale, fantasy, Short story, story, writing

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children's fairy tale, fairy tale, fairy tale for children, new writing, short story

I’ve found another old short story which I submitted to a few contest then forgot about. Please enjoy!

The Fox and the Illuminator

The Royal Illuminator was working alone, as always, in the castle scriptorium, squinting against the dim light and coughing occasionally from the layers of dust which gathered on the towering stacks of books. He had been spending the past few months illustrating a book of the kingdom’s history, carefully painting each ornate letter with precision. It was an incredibly important book that the King himself had commissioned from him and was to be the grandest book in the royal library.

As such, the Illuminator put even more care into the manuscript than usual to make it exceptionally magnificent. The illuminations lit up the page, brighter and more beautiful than any book he had ever worked on before. Each picture reflected the glory and lustre of the event it depicted. He loved his work and was gratified by it, but the long hours spent in the silent, empty scriptorium often grew wearisome and lonely.

In the middle of one such day when the sun was high in the sky and the warm sunlight peeked in through the windows, the Illuminator found his hand steadying, his mind drifting, and his eyes drawn towards the garden outside the window. The trees gently swaying in the breeze and the sunlight sparkling on the lake looked particularly inviting that day. If only he could take just one day off from his work, he thought, to enjoy that sunshine, but the manuscript was close to being finished and the King was incredibly strict with deadlines. He noticed a fox wandering around the garden, thinking it strange that a fox should be out at that time of day.

His eyes followed the Fox as it prowled towards the lake where the swans were resting on the bank. With a single quick motion, the fox snapped up one of the swans in its jaws, sending the others flapping and squawking away in a panic. The Illuminator forgot all about his work, jumped to his feet, and ran outside.

“Stop that.” He shouted as he sprinted towards the Fox, who was dragging the dead swan away in her jaws. She looked at him curiously as he approached. “Those swans are the property of the King. It’s illegal to hunt them.”

“But surely that law applies only to people, not to foxes?” The Fox said, dropping the swan to the ground to speak.

“Well…yes.” Admitted the Illuminator, a little stumped to be talking to a fox who spoke his language. “But I still have to stop you. Those swans are protected by the law.”

“Why? Aside from their size, they’re not that different from the other birds in the trees, and there’s no law protecting them.” The Fox said.

“It’s the law. I have to uphold it.” The Illuminator replied.

“Do those trees belong to the King?” The Fox said, pointing her snout towards the forest of tall oak trees.

“Yes. That’s the King’s hunting ground.”

“And yet you would not stop a squirrel from gathering an acorn for its winter store.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“Most of those trees are there thanks to squirrels gathering acorns and forgetting where they buried them. If not for them, you wouldn’t have the berries that make the inks you use for your books.” The Fox said, noticing the coloured ink stains on the Illuminator’s hands which gave away his profession. “Killing this swan may be against the King’s laws, but if I don’t bring it back to my den then my cubs will starve.”

“I didn’t think of it that way.” The Illuminator said. He’d never realised how important those trees were to the work he treasured. The trees provided the wood for his pencils and the other equipment in his workshop. Without the inks, his pages would be dull and colourless. They provided him with shade in the summer to sit underneath them and read, on the rare occasions when he was free to read. “Go quickly then, before the guards see you.” He said.

“This will not be forgotten.” The Fox said before picking up the swan and carrying it away.

The Illuminator smiled and returned to his work, his mood lifted and his earlier boredom forgotten.

 

Not long after, the Illuminator’s work was suddenly interrupted when two armed guards burst into the scriptorium.

“What’s going on?” He said.

“You’re under arrest.” One of the guards said, grabbing the Illuminator’s arm and jerking him to his feet, leaving a large green smear across the page he had been working on.

“What, why?” The Illuminator asked.

“You were seen. Talking to that fox and letting it off with a swan without trying to stop it.” The second guard said as they dragged him out of the scriptorium.

The Illuminator desperately tried to explain why he hadn’t stopped the Fox, but they wouldn’t listen. They led him through the palace and straight to the King, throwing him down to the ground in front of the entire court, who all gazed down on him scornfully.

“Do you care to explain,” the King bellowed in his loud, imposing voice that made the Illuminator shudder, “why you allowed a fox to steal one of my swans?”

“Please your Majesty, the swan was already dead by the time I got there.” The Illuminator pleaded.

“The swan’s body is still my property, and you let the fox go unpunished.”

The Illuminator tried to explain and repeated what the Fox had said to him, but the King still wasn’t convinced.

“You disregarded my laws and for that you are banished from my castle and my service.” The King said.

“Your Majesty, can you not take comfort that one swan will save an entire litter of fox cubs?” The Illuminator tried one last plea.

“Foxes, horrible mangy things. Now I’ll have even more poaching my swans and raiding the chicken coop. Away with you. Go and live with the foxes if that’s what you want.” The King commanded. Before the Illuminator could say anything more, he was pulled away and forced out the gate into the street.

“Wait, at least let me gather my tools. I need them for my trade.” The Illuminator said, but the guards had already slammed the gates closed.

 

No matter how much be pleaded with the gatekeeper, the Illuminator wasn’t permitted to retrieve his tools, or even the possessions in his chamber. Some of the materials he used for his trade were incredibly rare. He had travelled far and searched wide to find them – gold leaf, dye from Mediterranean Sea molluscs, crushed opals, rich green cobra venom. He was the best illuminator in the kingdom, but without his tools and materials, he couldn’t find any work. Illumination had been all he’d ever known and loved since he was a boy and he didn’t have any other skills. Nobody wanted to hire a vagrant who claimed to be an illuminator.

With no money, no tools, and no job, he had to sleep in abandoned buildings and beg on the streets for pennies. He had to steal food from the King’s orchard, as dangerous as it was to do so, and went to sleep every night alone and miserable.

“If only I still had that manuscript I was working on before all of this happened.” The Illuminator said as he huddled in an old shed with a leaking roof, his stomach aching from hunger pains. “I spent six months working on that book, night and day, and I was so close to finishing it. It was the best work I ever did.”

But it wasn’t really his. It never had been. He’d merely been commissioned to make it. Eventually it would’ve been placed on a library shelf and he would’ve been handed another job.

“If I only had that book to work on and complete then I could at least keep my sanity. I would feel like I had a purpose in life again.”

He saw a dark shape slip underneath the half-rotted door and worried that it was another rat come to bite at his toes. As it came out of the darkness, he saw that it wasn’t a rat. He recognised the speckled red and brown coat. It was the Fox he’d met in the garden all those months ago.

“It’s you. I didn’t think I would see you again.” The Illuminator said. The Fox approached him and he saw that she was awkwardly carrying something large and cumbersome in her mouth, which she placed in his lap. He picked it up and tears filled his eyes as he recognised the illustrations, letters, and gold leafing he had spent hours getting just right. “This is my manuscript. The one I worked so hard on.” He looked up to the Fox, who had sat down next to him. “Why would you do this for me? If the King had caught you sneaking around his palace and stealing from him then you would have been made into a pair of gloves by now.”

“If it wasn’t for your kind act then my cubs would have starved. But now you are the one who is starving.” The Fox said, hanging her head. The Illuminator had never thought he would see a fox feeling guilt, and especially on his behalf.

“I do not blame you for that.” The Illuminator said, reaching a hand towards her head, which she leant into his hand, allowing him to stroke her soft fur. “The King would not listen to reason. He wouldn’t even forgive the death of one swan.”

“Indeed. But I fear this offering cannot fill you belly.” The Fox said.

“No, it can’t do that. But it is more than enough. It may still help me out of my poverty.”

 

“What do you call this?” The King said as the pages of the book in his hand fell apart as he flipped through them. “Not a single thing in this book is right. The colours are all wrong. The pages are out of order. And you didn’t even spell the name of the kingdom correctly!” He bellowed at the nervous apprentice illuminator at his feet, throwing the manuscript at his head. “Get out. Bring me another illuminator. One who can actually do his job.” He said as the apprentice gathered up his pages and fled from the throne room in tears.

“I’m sorry, your Majesty.” The King’s Advisor said at his shoulder. “That was the last illuminator in the kingdom.”

The King rubbed his temples. “Then hire back the illuminator we let go.” He said.

“We…We uh…” The Advisor said, hiding behind his ledger.

“What’s the problem now?”

“We tried to find the Royal Illuminator, your Majesty, but he’s gone too. He’s not anywhere in the kingdom.”

 

“This is the best work I’ve ever seen!” The Queen of the neighbouring kingdom said as she enthusiastically turned the pages of the history manuscript.

“Thank you, your Majesty. I admit it’s not quite finished yet.” The Illuminator said. He felt awkward standing in the opulently decorated throne room in filthy bare feet and clothes which hadn’t been washed in weeks.

“I can see that,” the Queen said as she turned to the page with the ugly green stain, which made the Illuminator blush with embarrassment.

He had long since heard that the Queen of the neighbouring kingdom loved books and had a vast library. Even her throne had a tall stack of books next to it, he noticed. As poor as the Illuminator was, he had taken the risk to travel to her kingdom for just that reason. With his treasured manuscript tucked carefully under his arm and the last of his pennies in his pocket, he had trekked over open fields, drunk rain water from puddles, and survived off berries (although he had kept a few that would make a fine ink). Finally, he had arrived at the Queen’s castle with bare feet and worn clothes but to his luck, it had taken only one glance at the manuscript for her guards to escort him straight to her throne room.

“But for unfinished work, it is still wonderful. The colours are the brightest I’ve ever seen. You must tell me how you do it.”

“I would be happy to, your Majesty.”

“Any king or queen would be honoured to have a book this marvellous in their library. Could you make me a history of my kingdom?” The Queen asked.

“Of course, your Majesty, whatever you ask. But it would take some time and I fear I don’t have the tools or the materials.”

“We’ll provide you with tools and anything else you need. And some new clothes and shoes, of course. I don’t want you to get cold. I’ve long heard of the great skills of my neighbour’s Royal Illuminator. I’m surprised the King fired someone of your talents.”

“There was a…small disagreement involving a swan.” The Illuminator said.

“How silly. Still, no need to worry about that now. I expect you’ll be wanting to see your workshop. And then you must join me for tea and tell me about these illustrations.” The Queen said, rising from her throne and handing the manuscript back to the Illuminator.

“Your Majesty, didn’t you say you wanted this book for your library?” The Illuminator asked.

“Yes, I would love to have this book for my library, but I feel that it belongs to you.” She said, placing it back in his hands. “Besides, you probably want to finish it.”

 

And so, the Illuminator completed his most precious manuscript of all, and many more besides. The Queen of his new kingdom had the most beautiful and well-crafted books in her library that were admired by all who saw them. She and the Illuminator spent many happy hours together discussing books and illustrations. On days when the weather was bright, the Queen demanded that it was too nice a day to spend with work and they spent the day strolling through the gardens and relaxing under trees, talking and laughing together and feeling complete with one another.

As for the Fox, she and her cubs were never again bothered by the King’s guards, and neither they nor the Illuminator ever had to go hungry again.

Why I love fairy tales (but I hate fairy stories)

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by Jessica Wood in anime, Blog, criticism, fairy tale, fantasy, musings, villain, writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

fairy story, fairy tale, fantasy, writing about fairies, writing fantasy

I love fairy tales and love writing stories adapting or subverting their tropes. But one thing you will never find me writing is stories about fairies, or even featuring fairies, because personally I can’t stand them and have no interest in writing about them.

If this may seem odd, consider the difference between a fairy tale and a fairy story. In his essay On Fairy Tales, J.R.R Tolkien defined a fairy tale as a story dealing with the land of faery and mankind’s relationship with it. They often work as cautionary tales about wandering into the realm of the fae and not being able to return to the ‘real’ world.

‘Faery’ is a fairly broad term but it generally refers to what ancient cultures believed was a world parallel to but connected to our own filled with other-worldly creatures. Fairies were one such creature, but not the only ones which were said to inhabit it.


By contrast, Tolkien defined fantasy as something set in an entirely invented world, like his own Middle Earth. More authors are making subversions by returning to the fae variety, but what we now call fairies tend to be creatures of fantasy rather than mythology. They tend to be small, humanoid beings, usually with wings and some form of magical powers.


The reason these fairies never resonated with me is because each interpretation tends to fall into one of these categories:

1. Too generic. It’s difficult for me to love any fantasy creature if the author doesn’t do at least something new with it.
2. Too girly. Not that I’m against girly (I’m a big fan of My Little Pony) but so many writers try to make their fairies too saccharine and sweet, which makes me feel like they just vomited glitter all over the page.
3. Too bitchy. I guess this is supposed to be a subversion of the girly variety, but it tends to come across to me as making them overly mean for no real reason.

This doesn’t mean that I hate all stories with fairies, however. I like the weather fairies in A Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar and the sweets spirits in Yumeiro Pâtissière since despite being overly cutsy, they were still different than the standard fare and their story arcs were just as strong and significant as those of their human friends.


By far my favourite fairies in any form of fiction were the three good fairies – Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather – in Disney’s version of Sleeping Beauty. This is because they were well-rounded, funny, and interesting characters, in fact they were far more heroic than the incredibly bland and useless titular character.


While their magical powers were fairly generic and the film does rely upon incredibly black and white ideas of good and evil, the three of them avoided being either too girly or too bitchy by becoming developed characters rather than fairy archetypes. They had positive and negative qualities, they created some of the best comedy that’s ever been seen in a Disney film, they were loving to Aurora despite her complete lack of a personality, and when the time came to it they were completely badass. Really, the King and Queen should have given control of the kingdom to them at the end, since they were the only ones who had any sense (destroying all the spinning wheels in the kingdom both destroyed the economy and left everyone naked, your majesty).

The villainess Maleficent is also technically a fairy (which is why the re-make made her more like the fae variety) but also greatly different than most ‘bad’ fairies in fiction. True her motivation is for incredibly petty reasons, only because she wasn’t invited to a party, but she is still one of the most memorable villains that Disney has ever made. Even sixty years later, she is still the benchmark against which all other animated villains are measured. The strong characterisation of both the good and evil fairies is what makes Sleeping Beauty into both a fairy tale and a good story about fairies.


What are your thoughts on fairy tales and fairy stories? What are your favourite and least favourite fictional fairies? Tell me in the comments below!

How to Write Love at First Sight

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Jessica Wood in Common Criticism, culture, fairy tale, fantasy, film, musings, romance, story, writing, writing advice

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

fairy tale, fantasy, fiction, historical fiction, love at first sight, romance fiction, story, storytelling, writing, writing advice, writing fairy tales, writing fiction, writing tips

Can you guess how this is going to work out?

Can you guess how this is going to work out?

People seem to be in one of two camps when it comes to love at first sight. Either it’s the ultimate epitome of romance and true love or it’s a creepy, unhealthy fixation that will never work out. This is why the fairy tale image of love at first sight leading to an instant happy ever after is going through a deconstruction in recent years and most modern readers are turned off by it.

There is a reason why it emerged as a literary trope and even why it still appears in some stories today. First meetings are emphasised in fiction because they are important in real life as well. Our first meeting and first impressions of someone will determine what our future relationship with them will be like. As much as we’d like to think we’re completely objective, scientists do say that it takes as little of one tenth of a second to decide if we like someone upon first seeing their face.

From a historical standpoint, it’s easy to see why this used to be a more acceptable form of storytelling. People used to die sooner and were expected to marry young so they had to latch onto the first piece of marriage material they came across and not let go. Divorce was also frowned upon so they were expected to be happy with their chosen partner for their whole lives, or at least pretend to be.

As society has changed, the idea of love at first sight has changed with it. Just as we aren’t expected to settle down with someone we’ve just met, so we don’t expect fictional characters to either.

Even so, there are still people who believe in love at first sight and it apparently does happen to some people. Some of these relationships do work out but others end horribly. So can it ever be pulled off in fiction? I’ve found that there are some cases when it can:

When to write love at first sight.

Short time frame. This is why love at first sight is so often associated with Disney films. The writers only have an hour and a half to make you buy into a relationship and love at first sight saves them a lot of time on development. This is why it rarely if ever works in a novel or long running television series because there is plenty of time to develop a relationship naturally.

A legitimate reason. To use Disney as an example again, Frozen did a very good job of establishing why Anna would fall instantly in love with Prince Hans – she’s spent most of her life isolated from her sister and only has one day to find a husband to keep her company throughout the rest of her lonely days. Of course it doesn’t work out but her reasons for falling instantly in love still make a lot more sense than the classic Disney Princesses.

Magical power. Maybe a character can predict what their true love’s first words to them will be or they were star crossed lovers in a previous life and have been sub-consciously drawn to each other. There is some room for creativity here. Magical powers can be a satisfactory explanation but if done badly they can come across as lazy writing, obvious plot devices and an excuse to skip out on the development of the relationship. In the worst cases they can also be downright creepy. Remember how appalled everyone was by the ‘imprinting’ scene in Twilight?

It’s not supposed to work out. Maybe the reasons why people are against this trope are the very things you are going for. It could be a villain with an unhealthy fixation on someone or a clueless romantic with no idea how true love really works. Even Romeo and Juliet, the most famous and glorified example of love at first sight was actually supposed to be a warning against hasty marriages.

Lust at first sight. This is a legitimate excuse because it does happen and lust is different than love. A crush at first sight is also understandable. I think all of us can say we’ve gotten a crush on someone just by looking at them, even if we later found out that their personalities weren’t as great as their looks.

Historical fiction. As I said, people’s attitudes to love at first sight have changed so you might be able to explain it in a historical context. But keep in mind that aside from different attitudes, people in the past were still the same as us in every other way and their hasty marriages didn’t always lead to happily ever after.

So there are some instances when you can write a character falling in love at first sight, but these are just starting points to the development of a relationship. In stories, build up is everything so you have to make your readers believe why somebody is worth going through a whole book’s worth of trials for.

I mentioned in a previous article that love triangles only work if they are written well. This is perhaps even truer for love at first sight. It’s not that writers can’t use it but it needs to be handled in a precise way to work effectively. Sometimes it can be done successfully but it is very rare and attempts to do so more often fail. If your character does fall in love at first sight and you want the readers to support their relationship then at least spend time developing it and the characters properly and have the characters decide if they want to make the relationship work in the long term.

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