A Big Decision

                        As some of you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month.  Thousands of people are taking this month to write a 50,000 word rough draft, no editing, no "but that paragraph would go much better further up", just writing a novel in the roughest form.
                        I have decided to take this challenge.  I will be focusing on Jack, the character I introduced in yesterday's post.  I'm off to bit of a late start, I know, but with some determination and a lot of denying my inner editor, I am confident that I can do it.  In addition to this blog, I will be updating my progress at http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/jeferragut so you can take a look there if you like.  While you're at it, explore the rest of the site!  You might just be inspired to take up the challenge yourself.

Jack: The True Story

                         "The stories are wrong of course.  It did all start with me selling a cow.  And it did end with a giant dying.  But that's just about all they got right."
                         This is the beginning of a story about a man named Jack, the same Jack that turns up in all the stories.  But he's here to set the record straight, because whoever circulated the stories (possibly that singing harp he's accused of stealing) mucked them up something awful.
                         What exactly did happen?  I don't know.  He hasn't told me yet.

Vampires and Rapunzel

                   Today is a test of my resolution to write every day.  After a ten hour shift worked on five hours of sleep, I am finally writing something.  With the help of my wonderful boyfriend, who has been pestering me to quit being distracted by webcomics and work on my blog post, of course.
                   He says I should write about vampires, but I don't really have any ideas for vampires - not so much as a character quote or story concept.  I don't like working with a subject that has been done so many times unless I feel I have a unique twist to add to it.  And while I may personally hate the Twilight conception of vampires, I do have to admit that Stephanie Meyer at least gave an old idea a new life.
                   Lately, I feel that most of my best ideas have to do with reinventing classic fairy tales.  For instance, what would happen if Rapunzel was actually a spoiled teenager, and not the innocent captive so typically portrayed?  How does it change the story, and the characters, if the moralities are reversed in that way?
                   The first problem I run into with this concept, is that I don't know how to write a spoiled teen without making her sound like a child.  Every attempt I have made to script this Rapunzel, even just in my head, makes her sound about six years old.  Since I imagine that this would probably be a third-person perspective following Rapunzel, that makes her speech a crucial part of the story.
                   I also don't know the setting.  Is it a classic medieval fantasy setting, or a more modern one?  If I attempt a modern (or even science fiction) fairy tale, how do I incorporate the sense of isolation that is so crucial to the storyline?  In our ever more connected world, how can that isolation be anything but illusory, and how can the character of the prince fail to notice it?  But in a classic fantasy setting, the prince should be able to spend five minutes with Rapunzel and decide that she's not worth rescuing, causing him to ride off on his white horse and never return.
                   With a little luck, I'll glean some of those answers from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, the book I am reading right now.  The character of Estella is not dissimilar to the Rapunzel I want to create, though unlike Miss Havisham, the "witch" character should not actively encourage Rapunzel's worst qualities, simply fail to curb them.

.                  .                 .

                   And with that, my train of thought has reached an abrupt end of the line.  Perhaps tomorrow I will have more to say on this subject.  Or perhaps I will end up talking about something completely different.

The Fairy Tale Storeroom

                 The door to the storeroom is nothing special: just a rough wooden door, the wide boards ill-joined and ill-fitted to the frame.  It might be the entrance to any random broom closet.  Yet, when opened, a golden radiance streams out, one that ought to have been impossible to miss through the gaps and cracks in the door.
                 Should an observer, eyes watering in the sudden glare, summon the courage to step inside, he would see an assortment of priceless items tumbled in careless heaps under the magical light.  A pair of glass slippers, one with a broken heel, perch precariously upon an enormous mound of braided blonde hair.  A red woolen riding cloak, sized for a child, hangs from the spindle of a large spinning wheel.  The spinning wheel, in turn, balances atop a large stone bearing an inscription, the words half-hidden by a large black cauldron with three clawed feet.
                 This is where the discarded odds and ends of fairy tales ultimately come to rest.  Forgotten and abandoned by the heroes that relied upon them, they make their way here, waiting to be needed once again.