My Favorite Fairy Tale, a Blog Hop Party

Greetings, fairy tale explorers! Welcome to my portion of the fairy tale blog hop. I hope you have a good time exploring different authors this week, and I hope you find something new to delight you (better yet if it’s me!).

Thirteen fairy tale authors have gotten together to talk about their favorite fairy tales. Follow the links at the bottom of each blog post to hop to the next author’s website. Collect our favorite numbers to total up at the end and enter to win a print collection of our books! (There are several anthologies, debuts, and even an ARC for a BLINK YA book you can’t buy in stores yet!)

Favorite fairy tale? That used to be an easy question. “Beauty and the Beast,” of course. In college, as part of graduating with university honors, you had to write a thesis paper. I wrote mine on—you guessed it—“Beauty and the Beast.” Oh, I ate, drank, slept, and read that story for several months. So many different versions, with lots of contemporary ones. And the picture books! So many picture books. (Despite all this, I sadly left some ridiculous gaps, so please don’t ask me about Villeneuve’s version. I’m still embarrassed that I didn’t read that.)

Which was my favorite retelling? Definitely not the Disney film. I like elements of the Disney, but I can’t escape feeling like Belle is stuck up and just really not the Beauty that I wanted her to be.* My favorite version was easily Robin McKinley’s Beauty. And then, when I wrote my own (currently shelved) novel-length version, that was my favorite.  

I love “Beauty and the Beast” for its story of redemption, which was in fact what I wrote about. Here’s the TL;DR: The story is about more than falling in love with a beast. It’s about the power of seeing people truly and how that changes them—and us. There you go, about 64 pages summed up in a sentence (64, by the way, is 2^6; I love powers of 2, which is why 16 is my favorite small-ish number).**

But to make another long story short, years have since intervened, and the luster has faded from dear Beauty, the Beast, and all their incarnations. Asked today, I would be much harder pressed to answer, but I’m leaning toward “The Six Swans” (so much angst! so much sacrifice!) or “Diamonds and Toads” (my favorite theme—how gifts can be curses, and vice versa!). I even have a flash version of “Diamonds and Toads” here on the blog, if you want to check it out.

Which probably explains how I’ve ended up starting a novel based on a character from each of these tales. I love these characters so much, and if I can do even a little justice to who they are, you will too (someday).

So that’s it! Thanks for coming by. Now go visit Alicia Gale and find out what she has to say. If you’ve already been to all 13 stops and collected everyone’s favorite number, then go enter to win the grand prize.

As an added bonus, if you’d like to be included in an additional drawing (for an individual copy of Unspun), go to my Facebook page, follow me, and leave a comment letting me know what your favorite fairy tale is and why.

For an additional entry to my individual drawing (only available after Sunday, the 24th), go to Timeless Tales magazine and read some of the Snow White issue, which features my super-fluffy (and somewhat out of character for me) “The Nanny Job,” then come back to Facebook and tell me what you think of Snow White stories (doesn’t have to be mine).

And finally, if you just can’t wait and want to make sure you get a copy of Unspun, it’s on sale just this weekend. Go forth and purchase and enjoy!

Happy reading, all!

* On the other hand, in junior high I used to walk home from school while reading a book, and a boy I had a crush on called me “Belle” one time (just after we almost collided), and that felt like a compliment, so... mixed feelings?

** Which may also have something to do with why I’m a geek. (And yes, 16 is the number you’re looking for in the blog hop.)

Writing Process Linky Party!

Here I am, one in a long line of blog links talking about our writing process. I was invited by Heather Romito, who is a friend of the lovely Katy White, another MMW blogger. Go check out their blogs and keep clicking back if you want to keep discovering more cool writers!

What am I working on? 

My current project is titled (for now) The Price of Sight. It’s a loose sequel to Unsightly, a young adult retelling of “Beauty and the Beast.” It follows the daughter of Isabel (the Beauty) and the Beast. When she comes into some very dangerous and unwanted magical power, she does everything she can to deny it. But when she realizes that she and her loved ones are in danger from someone who seeks to control her power, she has to overcome her fear and learn to control her magic.

It’s part adventure, part coming-of-age, and part court intrigue, with the tiniest whiff of romance.

I also discovered that I like a break from the longer projects, so I’ve been doing more flash fiction lately, just for kicks, most of which I post here on my blog.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I love the stories behind the stories. Some fairy tale writers like to take just a little bit or hint of the original story and take off from there, expanding into a completely different tale. I have loved many of these stories, so I can’t complain. But I love looking at the questions that arise from the stories—Why would she do that? Would that really work? Then I try to figure out what pieces of the story are “missing” from the original and would suddenly make those events make sense. (For example, in the original “Beauty and the “Beast,” I was always bothered by the fact that she fell in love with her jailer. Can we say Stockholm syndrome? So in my retelling, I addressed that.)

I also like to think that one difference is the way I deal with magic. Most YA fantasy that I run across has a rather nebulous sense of what is and isn’t possible with magic in that world. That works fine in many cases, but I have always thought that magic, like science, has rules—even when you don’t understand them. The magic in my novels is rule-bound, which I think makes for a harder and more real world for my characters to live in, especially because they tend not to understand the rules.

Why do I write what I do?

Young adult fiction has always drawn me because I think that generally speaking it has a hope that isn’t always present in adult novels. YA can still be dark and painful, but most YA novels seem to say that things can get better. I love fantasy because, even though I don’t believe in actual magic, I do believe that the world can be a magical sort of place (I mean, have you seen fireflies?). So these are the genres that appeal most to me right now.

I also love retelling fairy tales because I think there’s something so wonderfully timeless about them. The themes and ideas just apply all over the place, and I think they endure because they appeal to our inner selves and have things for us to learn—but without having to be beat over the head by “the moral to the story.” They’re just good stories, but with meaning. (I wrote a whole honors thesis on this subject and the story of “Beauty and the Beast,” so just be grateful I gave you the one-paragraph version.)

Oh, plus, I think fairy tales are pretty. :)

How does my writing process work?

If I could tell you that, I bet I’d be getting a lot more done than I currently am. With Unsightly, I muddled through and found myself very frustrated a number of times when suddenly there were massive gaps in the plot and I couldn’t figure out how to fix them. When I was finally doing the first major rewrite, I discovered that when I outlined scenes and determined their purposes and the main actions in them, those scenes went so much better. So for the current project, I’m trying a new thing: I’m outlining much more extensively than I did for Unsightly, hoping that will help me cut back on some (not all, of course) of the frustration. We’ll see how it goes!

Next up in this fun blog linky thing is going to be FrankAdams, a funny guy who writes humor and horror together (because what’s funnier than absolute terror?). (I may also find another friend to link to and insert him/her here.)

I Spy . . . a Secret

Could you keep a secret from someone you loved? A big one?

A fellow writer (JordanMcCollum) is throwing a blogfest today, and I have joined in. The idea was to write on the topic “I Spy . . . a Secret”—a scene in which a character keeps a secret from someone they love—to support the release of her novel I, Spy.* Feel free to go check out her blog, read other people’s posts, and hey, buy her book!

It turns out I didn’t have anything on hand to contribute, so I whipped out a scene that is background to my current WIP, The Second Sight. It’s funny to me that this is the scene I’ve got for you today. It’s probably the most romance-driven scene in the entire novel (which is largely a court intrigue/magical mystery with a very small helping of romance on the side), and it involves a moment in which Tambre (one of the main characters) is quite overwrought, which is definitely out of character for her. In other words, it’s not much like the rest of the book. I actually don’t plan for it to be in the book at all (though that is subject to change, of course). It’s an event that occurs before the book starts.

It’s also a little cheaterpantsy, I must admit. This is not so much the scene in which the secret is kept as the scene in which it is revealed. Also, it’s Lan’s secret, not Tambre’s. Still, I hope you enjoy.

*I keep on typing “Soy.” I think that would turn out to be a very different story.

***

The gentle hum of the bees in the clover mingled with Tambre’s own nervous humming as she sat on the sun-warmed rock, waiting for Lan to come. There across the clearing was the first tree she’d climbed to the top while he watched. Back then she’d been so proud of herself, getting there without his help. At first she’d thought he wanted her to learn to be strong on her own—that was why he never reached down to pull her up a tricky spot, never even swiped a mosquito from her skin. She was good enough without his help.

Now, though, she wasn’t so sure. All that was years ago, and now the other girls in the village giggled over secret meetings and stolen kisses with the boys out behind the inn, where the shadows lay heavy at night. But even though Tambre had been his confidante and his companion, even though he looked at her with eyes that spoke more than friendship, still she had never felt the brush of his skin at all.

It wasn’t her alone, she knew. He touched no one. Gloved hands, long sleeves even when the other men were rolling them up in the summer’s heat—he said that the touch of skin made him feel queasy. She’d heard of something like that before, once, in a cousin on her mother’s side. So she’d believed him, all these years, until last night. She’d come up to his family’s home quietly, sneaking up to see Lan and his sister Alena talking in the yard behind their house. Tambre smiled, feeling smug about finally surprising him after all his years of jumping out to startle her.

But then she’d watched dumbly as he deliberately stripped the glove from his hand and poked his sister’s arm repeatedly, grinning mischievously, needling her as she got angrier and angrier, her face a bright red.

Maybe it’s just his family, Tambre thought. Maybe he can touch them but no one else. But she had seen him with them too much to believe that lie; he’d always avoided them too—at least, whenever she could see.

She looked behind her, back into the forest, listening carefully, hoping he would come soon. She didn’t know how long her courage would hold, and she was determined to confront him. She rose and stretched her arms to the sky, easing the tension from her shoulders. Waiting didn’t suit her, and she was already tired of it. She thought—

“Boo!” he cried out, his voice sounding from the trees just to the right of her.

She jumped and whirled to face him. The silly grin on his face told her he knew he’d caught her. Her natural instinct in this moment of surprise was always to smack him lightly on the arm as payback, and quelling it as usual was the last straw.

“Lan, is there something wrong with me?” she blurted.

His grin faltered. “Everyone gets startled, Tambre. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She huffed. “Not that. This!” She swept her hand back and forth between the two of them.

“What do you mean?” he asked. He looked genuinely confused, and she couldn’t help but think of the stories her friends told about clueless men. She’d always thought it was an exaggeration.

“I mean the space. Always the space. You said it was with everyone, but . . . I saw you last night, poking Alena like it was nothing.” She looked down. “If you can touch your family, why not me?” she whispered.

A moment passed, and he said nothing, just shoved his gloved hands in his pockets like he did when he got nervous, his face paling. She glanced up, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“Will it never be different with me?” she asked, staring at him, willing him to look up.

He kicked at a twig lying in the clover. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” she asked, her voice rising. “You don’t know?”

He sighed in defeat. “I want it to be.”

She paced now, the anger a form of energy in her begging for release. “Apparently not enough,” she snapped. “What’s wrong with you, Lan? I mean, really wrong? You say it’s that you can’t abide to be touched, but I don’t believe you. Tell me the truth.” She suddenly softened, reaching out to him. “I’ll help you.”

He looked at her miserably. “You would hate me. You do hate me, you just don’t know it yet.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I will never hate you.” She took a deep breath, let it out. “I love you, Lan.”

His eyes were sad, but they stared straight into hers as he replied. “I love you too.”

She didn’t think, didn’t give him a moment to think either. In an instant she had closed the distance between them. His eyes widened, but it was too late. Her lips were on his, awkward, uncertain, but with a devotion he could not fail to recognize.

He kissed her back, his arms snaking around her to pull her closer, and for perhaps three seconds there was bliss.

And then.

Then the sensation grew, overwhelmed her. Her head swam, her heart pounded too fast. There was giddiness, joy, adoration, passion she’d never felt before. She clung more tightly to him, but suddenly he pushed her away.

She gasped at the release.

She struggled to reach out to him again, but he held her tightly in place, the gloves and her sleeves forming layers between their skin. Her sight was filled with stars and the brilliant red light that comes of staring into the sun too long. She could barely see or think.

“Tambre, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I tried to stop it.”

“Sorry?” She shook her head to clear it. There was something wrong, but she couldn’t think what it was. The brightness in her mind faded to a dull glow, then with a snap it vanished altogether. She looked up at him in horror.

He shook his head mutely, begging with his eyes, but no words left his mouth as he released her and quickly backed away.

“Magic?” she asked. “You have the touch?”

He nodded, miserable. “It’s why I kept away.”

She looked around her wildly. The little clearing she had always found so cozy for their meetings seemed suddenly too small. “I can’t—I can’t do this, Lan. We can’t do this.” Her voice broke. “Why of all things? Why the touch?” But she wasn’t asking him. It was the whole mad universe, it was the magic at fault. It was wrong, all wrong. Again.

She took another step back from him, moving closer to the fringe of trees. He watched her go with acceptance in his face. Another step back from him, and she turned and ran.

Through the whispering of the leaves beneath her feet, she didn’t hear his whisper: “I’ll miss you.”