Fortnightly Writing Competition: FAIRY TALE REVAMPED (Results)

Started by Sinitrena, Wed 31/01/2018 11:34:05

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Mandle

Best Character: Mrs Fizzlepink.
Best Writing: Rampion by Baron. Diggin' that alliteration!
Best Atmosphere: A Timeless Tale by Blondbraid.
Best Change: A Timeless Tale by Blondbraid.

Quote from: Baron on Wed 21/02/2018 03:55:54
If you think about it the story from anyone but Jack's perspective, it really is a story of larceny and murder.

That was the reason I wrote the story actually. You nailed it. At the school I run the story of Jack And The Beanstalk was banned by the original owner on the grounds that "The moral of the story is that if you are poor and have a hard life it's fine to break into someone's house, steal their stuff, and kill them.", and I must agree. It's a terrible story for kids. If you've ever seen the Disney version with Mickey Mouse as Jack you can see that they were aware of what a bad example the story sets and changed it up so that the giant was a bad-guy from the start who had stolen the kingdom's singing harp and caused it's ruin, making Jack into a hero. I wrote my story to set things right and give Jack the comeuppance he deserved.

Quote from: Baron on Wed 21/02/2018 03:55:54
I like how Mandle twisted it around to be so realistic as to be almost unrecognizable until you put your thinking cap on. ;-D

Spoiler
I did hide an easter egg in the story that links it to the original beyond any doubt. Nobody has mentioned it yet so I'm guessing nobody found it ;)
[close]

Baron

Quote from: Mandle on Sun 25/02/2018 07:50:22
I did hide an easter egg in the story that links it to the original beyond any doubt. Nobody has mentioned it yet so I'm guessing nobody found it ;)

Are you talking about the golden ovoid paperweight or the "flee my foe fum" line?  (Or, another more deeply hidden easter egg?!? :shocked:)


kconan

BEST CHARACTER: Frodo for Mrs. Fizzlepink
BEST WRITING: Blondbraid
BEST ATMOSPHERE: Mandle 
BEST CHANGE: Baron

Sinitrena

The number of votes doubled, so I think we have enough now.



In fourth place, with two points, we have DBoyWheeler with a retelling of Momotaro, a fairy tale I was not familiar with at all before. Reading the summery on wikipedia and comparing it with DBoyWheeler's take, I see very little impact of the sci-fi setting. The story goes exactly the same - which is a bis disapointing. That said, it is a nice little story and a good retelling. Technicall, fairy tales are meant to be repeated and retold verbally, and therefore change in the course of time. Somehow, I can imagine this version to be a fairly normal version in a few hundred years, when godly intervention and demons change to advanced technology.


Our third place and the bronze tower of Rapunzel (I had the trophies finished before Baron posted his story ;)) goes to Frodo with four points.

I think Hänsel and Gretel is one of the most commonly rewritten fairy tales, and I read several versions from the point of view of the witch and with the two children as the evil guys. It's interesting that these versions tend to age Hänsel and Gretel up and often remove the beginning where the parents send them away because they are out of food, therefore taking their original motivation away. I read your story before you changed your ending, and I must say, I prefered it that way. Mrs. Fizzlepink was just a victim in this version, the accusation that she's a witch was just random prejudice and the impact was stronger. Now, she really is a witch, maybe she's not evil, but the accusations are grounded in reality and due to her actions in the end, she loses a lot of sympathy from me. It's a good twist, though.


Six people voted and we still have a tie for second place with five points each (that's a testamenent to the quality of the writing): Mandle and Baron


Mandle: I must say, I don't know Jack and the Beanstalk very well and if you hadn't named your protagonist Jack, I wouldn't have recognized it. As the original owner of your school, I don't like the story very much - Jack is an idiot and an asshole, who gets wealth not because he has any good qualities but because he steals, plain and simple. (Banning the book on these grounds is a bit strong, though, never ban a book, read it and discuss why it is bad, but that's just my opinion.) You're obviously furthest from the original compared to the other stories and there is very little left - very little of the original plot and very little of what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale. It feels a bit like a comentary to the original tale, and it is a good story on its own. It's just very far away from its source material.

Baron: A gender-flipped version of Rapunzel, which is my favourite fairy tale, by the way, is very refreshing. I saw the "twist" coming a mile away, but maybe I was just in a dirty-minded mood when I read it. I find it a bit sad that you limited your version to one scene. Espacially the beginning of the tale, how Rapunzel's father stole from the witch and she took the girl as payment/punishment and named her after the thing the father stole, could be interesting in a gender-flipped version. Was it the mother who stole? Did the witch know the unborn child would be a boy? Did she intend to raise him as a sex-toy? Or is it just (un)fortunate that the magic affected his manly parts instead of his hair? So many questions, not least of all: Why did you gender-flip the prince and Rapunzel but not the witch? And how strange is it that the trophies I drew are Rapunzel's tower with a pointed roof? :-[


And our winner, this time around, is Blondbraid with an impressive eight points. Congratulations.

This poor fairy tale! 8-0 Never, ever let it get in the hands of this executive. I really like the duality (so to speak) of this retelling, on the one hand a fairly faithful summery, that might be directly from a wikipedia entry, and on the other the abysmal absurdities someone just interested in money could do to it. While the retelling of the writer is a bit dry and unemotional, this is of course due to the setting. She states the events of the fairy tale as facts, she doesn't exactly tell them as a story. I also like that the executive, while mainly interested in money and without any understanding of the fairy tale, still has at least some good points. (Wait, so this princess just exist to look pretty and fall head over heels for the hero? That's such a shallow and outdated character archetype and not a very inspiring character for young girls to identify with.)


And with that, we close another Fortnightly Writing Competition. See you next round!

Mandle

Quote from: Sinitrena on Mon 26/02/2018 07:05:50
never ban a book, read it and discuss why it is bad, but that's just my opinion.

That's actually exactly what I do with it now, with kids who are old enough to understand, so 3-4 year olds and upwards...

Congratz to all and seeyas next time around!

Oh, and the easter egg in my story was:

Spoiler
"His minder, an experienced second story man, had been stalking up and down the block for half an hour."
[close]

Baron

Quote from: Sinitrena on Mon 26/02/2018 07:05:50
Baron: A gender-flipped version of Rapunzel, which is my favourite fairy tale, by the way, is very refreshing. I saw the "twist" coming a mile away, but maybe I was just in a dirty-minded mood when I read it. I find it a bit sad that you limited your version to one scene. Espacially the beginning of the tale, how Rapunzel's father stole from the witch and she took the girl as payment/punishment and named her after the thing the father stole, could be interesting in a gender-flipped version. Was it the mother who stole? Did the witch know the unborn child would be a boy? Did she intend to raise him as a sex-toy? Or is it just (un)fortunate that the magic affected his manly parts instead of his hair? So many questions, not least of all: Why did you gender-flip the prince and Rapunzel but not the witch? And how strange is it that the trophies I drew are Rapunzel's tower with a pointed roof? :-[

Mostly due to time constraints I had to cut a bunch of my original plan, including the gruesome blindings (although I did try to reference them ;-D).  My original idea always revolved around the princess's motivation for courting the mysterious prince, but after that there were quite a few radical changes.  At first I had conceived of the prince as having absurdly long moustaches (that would be during the first, more serious half of the piece...).  But then on the night of the deadline I was really struggling with carrying on the alliteration and the story kind of lapsed into dialog and got a bit silly and then a whole lot silly.  A little bit of channelling our gracious administrator's phallic trophy design, a little bit of back editing to make it make all make sense and -Boom!  We've got an instant classic! :P

Blondbraid

Thank you so much for your votes everyone!
QuoteThis poor fairy tale! 8-0 Never, ever let it get in the hands of this executive. I really like the duality (so to speak) of this retelling, on the one hand a fairly faithful summery, that might be directly from a wikipedia entry, and on the other the abysmal absurdities someone just interested in money could do to it. While the retelling of the writer is a bit dry and unemotional, this is of course due to the setting. She states the events of the fairy tale as facts, she doesn't exactly tell them as a story. I also like that the executive, while mainly interested in money and without any understanding of the fairy tale, still has at least some good points. (Wait, so this princess just exist to look pretty and fall head over heels for the hero? That's such a shallow and outdated character archetype and not a very inspiring character for young girls to identify with.)
Thanks! (laugh)
I got the idea from seeing so many animated kid movies trying far too hard to be the next Shrek, plus the executives line about the princess was a jab at writers wanting to appear progressive,
but instead of actually writing strong female characters just made them into inconsistent damsels pretending to be strong. (roll) The fun thing is, I found out this fairytale already has been made into an
animated movie, though it doesn't have very positive reviews from what I can tell. Hopefully there isn't fidget spinners in it at least.

I'm glad you all liked my entry and I'll try to come up with a good theme for the next round!


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