Tag Archives: folklore

05.11.13
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Hansel and Gretel: Cheap Thrills Date Night

Okay, man, that was quite a ride – no pun intended, i.e., broomsticks. Having seen the trailers and read the critics’ reviews (14% at Rotten Tomatoes, ye gads!), I knew where to keep my expectations going into the movie. Yes, they were pretty darned low, and that helped a lot in making me sit through the whole thing laughing half the time (and half of that was sincere amusement, while the other half was more of the “Okay, that was bad” chortle) and predicting what was going to happen next to this character or that character. The only one I missed was the sheriff, whom I first suspected to be in cahoots with the witches. Well, dag nab it.

Looking back at the original fairy tale, though, I can see so many elements in it that would work pretty darned well when taken down a crazy path like what I saw in the movie. Hansel and Gretel turning into witch-hunting bounty hunters? Well, duh. Even without it riding the coattails of all those monster mash-up films and books, the logic’s there. Children and witches? Ayup, folklore from all over is bursting at the seams with so many possibilities, variations, and variations of various possibilities. Know what I mean?

One can take something in the folktale and play the “what if” game and follow that trail continuously to extreme lengths as long as the logic holds, and the writing and directing do it justice. Hansel and Gretel + traumatic experience in a witch’s cottage = vengeful bounty hunters. Vengeful bounty hunters + perfect track record = fanboy love with scrapbook and fanart = bounty-hunter-apprentice. Parents + children’s abandonment in forest = possibly misread cues by the kids who know nothing about their mother’s true nature. All right, so that last equation might not be correct as far as mathematical sequences go, but you get my drift. The logic in the choices the writers made with regard to plotting were there, but, man, so much more could’ve gone into it.

So yeah – I saw those elements in the film that would’ve turned out brilliantly had the writing and the directing been, um, different. I found some of the dark humor and the purposefully used anachronisms pretty funny, and I mean that sincerely even though I went into this expecting not to take the movie seriously (see: low expectations). Then again, I think that was the movie’s point – it’s all dark, trashy fun (though, as noted, it could’ve been much, much, much better in its darkly fun trashiness).

Back to reading M.R. James. I’m still on a ghost story kick, by the way. Because I’ll never change, and because… haunted houses.

05.07.13
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Gold in the Clouds Review and Tchaikovsky’s Birthday

Actually, it’ll be two reviews, with one of them being posted a little while ago. Unfortunately I’m no longer on Goodreads, so any review sites who post their reviews of my books there I don’t know about unless I actually pay the site a visit.

Firstly, from MM Good Book Reviews:

“I thought this story was vastly entertaining, with its down to earth characters. With the simple dreams of the characters and with its gentle learning curve for Blythe.” Read more

And from The Novel Approach:

“It’s a story that proves the point there can be only one hero in Jack’s quest, but Blythe has a journey all his own to realize, one in which he will find riches of a very different sort.” Read more

It was a fun book to write, and it was my mental health savior throughout my stint as a juror for five weeks.

Incidentally, today’s Tchaikovsky’s birthday, and since we’re on the subject of fairy tales, I’m re-posting this:

I just got guilt-tripped into realizing that I still have an unfinished draft of that Nutcracker and Mouse-King story I went on and on about last year. Looks like my WIP list will have to be re-shuffled a bit.

03.08.13
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Oscar Wilde and Public Spaces Don’t Mix

I made the mistake of reading my old, battered copy of Oscar Wilde’s Complete Short Fiction while enjoying a quick bite to eat on my way to work yesterday. Dear lord, and there I was, all smug and confident about my ability to harden myself against the manipulations of Victorian writers, but what happened?

First story, in the final scenes: almost burst into tears on the spot (thank you very much, “The Happy Prince”) and only managed to suppress everything so that the general public was subjected to nothing more than an epic lip-wobbling from me.

The next story after that? “The Nightingale and the Rose”. And the one after that? “The Selfish Giant”. And somewhere down the line is “The Birthday of the Infanta”. Oh, hell. My heart seized up once I got to work from all that desperate bottling up. And quoth the raven, “Nevermore (you dork)!”

Zoiks, I say!

I’ve been trying to get more inspired by rereading Wilde’s tales, but damn the man for rubbing my nose into the kind of heartstring-tugging that Victorians were so good at (like I said, “manipulative”). I really wish that 18th century satirists wrote their own brand of fairy tales because I’d eat them up. Scouring my library, I only have a book of French fairy tales from the 18th century, and those were written by bored aristocratic women and were meant to be shared in glittering, froufrou salons. Nah. Not today (though I read that book a long time ago and enjoyed it).

But the possibilities make me pretty damned giddy. Can you imagine Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, or Tobias Smollett putting out satirical fairy tales? Be still, my heart. I imagine them to be so catty and vicious in their snark.

Anyway, I’ve already begun working on my first novelette, which is called “The Weeping Willow”. My steps forward are very, very, very tentative with a good deal of nail-biting and hand-wringing in the bargain. Unlike novels, I’m severely restricted because of the target word count (to state the obvious), and I’m constantly tweaking with the text as needed before moving on to the next chapter in order to make sure that only the important stuff is there and that there are only enough descriptions to help each scene and no more.

I’m roughly midway through the first story, and I’d like to think that I’ll be a lot more confident after this and will be taking on the following ones with a lot less hesitation. But, boy, it’s a far, far cry from what I’m used to with novel-writing, which is like cavorting non-stop in a flowering meadow (sans the hay fever) until I reach the end and then surprising myself with the final word count.

One thing I’m taking away from Wilde’s short stories is that I prefer his brand of fairy tales (along with Hans Christian Andersen’s) to the Grimm brothers’. Mind you, that’s almost like comparing apples and oranges since Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected traditional folk stories, while Andersen and Wilde wrote their own, and they were also artists of the 19th century (versus folk stories that date way back). But I love the emotional complexity of Wilde and Andersen’s tales despite their brevity and, in Andersen’s case, whimsical simplicity (as I interpret his stories).

Those are the kinds of fairy tales I’d love to see more of today, with a vivid Old World setting while exploring contemporary issues (preferably LGBT fiction). I desperately want to read them and just lose myself the writers’ worlds and find inspiration in them. Wistful sigh.

And as a final note (since we’re talking about fairy tales): for you romantics out there, Joseph Atkins put together a site / blog on LGBT relationships. ♥

03.04.13
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From Vivaldi to Anaya

Firstly, today’s Antonio Vivaldi’s birthday, and I’ve been listening to his works in hopes of getting some inspiration from them. Yep, I’ve got a pile of cheap classical CDs, and I love ‘em. Thanks, Best Buy, for that awesome section you had once upon a time – seriously, ninety-nine cents for a classical CD? This little peasant girl was thrilled speechless.

I’m trying to gear myself up for what’s next on my plate, which is a series of short fantasy stories (original folktales), and I’ll admit I’m a bit freaked. I hope I’m able to write to length again like I used to. Egad, those days feel like a lifetime away. Since I plan for them to be about three times longer than the average short story I published last year, I’ll have a lot more wiggle room with the narrative structure, and people won’t have to pay a cent more since they’ll all fall within the same word count range that the previous stories were written in.

And if that last sentence was in any way grammatically iffy, I blame another soul-crushing shift at my day job. That plus Mercury in retrograde.

Anyway, maybe indulging in Vivaldi’s stuff will help (did I mention how cheap my classical CDs are? They’re cheap!). I usually listen to classical music to get myself going with fantasy fiction, especially since the stories tend to be historical fantasy.

And moving on from there, I never knew that a film was made on Rudolfo Anaya’s novel! I want to see it!

Actually, I wonder if it’s best to reread the book first since it’s been almost twenty years since I first picked it up. My memory of the story runs more along emotional lines than actual plot. I remember telling myself that this was the strangest coming-of-age story I’ve ever read and at the same time marveling at the imagery.

I’m really not doing the book any justice by admitting to remembering only one aspect of my reading experience, but the effect on me was strong enough, even after all these years, to draw out a pretty positive response when I stumbled across the trailer.

03.03.13
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Oh, No, Not Again!

Natch. I’m creating drama where drama doesn’t exist, but I did experience a fleeting moment of deja vu this weekend.

Just got the heads up that Gold in the Clouds, my next fairy tale retelling, is set to come out on April 14. I’m kicking myself for the massive chasm between releases (five months between Rose and Spindle and Gold in the Clouds), which is probably the biggest gap I’ve had so far. I really wanted to keep the momentum I had last year, but I failed. Large time gaps in between releases, especially for those like me who aren’t published by mid-sized and large presses with all the pre-book buzz stuff going for them, is a killer.

And speaking of killer (and deja vu)…

Jack the Giant Slayer opened this weekend. The instant reaction I had reminded me of the same experience way back, when Perry Moore released Hero just before I debuted with Masks: Rise of Heroes. Moore enjoyed a great deal of pre-publication buzz, and his novel was widely celebrated for its focus on a gay teen superhero.

Unfortunately for me, I was in my corner the whole time prior to the release, quietly doing my own thing regarding my books (writing and editing and going over the cover art thing), so I was completely out of the loop as far as Moore’s pre-publication buzz was concerned. I was excited after I found out about it, and I was thrilled when it did come out and quickly got myself a copy, but, man, the nagging feeling of being regarded as a bandwagon jumper with my own novels really ate away at me.

“Oh, great, she’s riding Perry Moore’s coattails with her own gay teen superhero stuff.” And so on, and so forth.

Don’t get me started on quality comparisons (largely due to the lurking demon from the realm of Big Publishing Trumps Small Press Publishing), which made me want to apologize to everyone who’d mentioned Moore’s book after finding out about my own superhero series (“I’m published by a small, indie press. I’m so sorry.”).

I grew up pretty quickly. One can’t help but do that in the publishing business.

Then Jack and the Giant Slayer came out in theatres this weekend, and there I was, blinking and going, “Ah, buggrit!” Before reaching for the package of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate crisps for comfort, I realized that fairy tale retellings are the current “hot trends” and that I shouldn’t kick myself for enjoying writing in a genre that happens to be Ze Beeg Theeng right now. That said, there’s still that lingering, nagging little fear of people seeing Gold in the Clouds and sighing, “Oh, no, not another ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ story!”

At the moment, the ghost of my debut self is weakly warring with the hardened, battle-scarred veteran sitting in the corner and dourly watching the world through the smoke of my big, fat Havana. And I guess posting this blog entry is my way of exorcising such a petty, petty little wisp of a thing because, man, I don’t need it darkening my hours now or ever.

. . .

What ho, it works! Of course, it doesn’t mean I don’t have to reach out for those dark chocolate crisps. My tea desperately needs a companion.