Once Upon A Time: the Dark Fairy Tales Challenge

[Yogma]

As fantasy tends to be one of my go to subjects, I'm tempted to make this my first contest to enter.

I have two ideas in mind, so just checking to see if there is any rule against multiple entries?

Ta.

 

[StillStunned]

As fantasy tends to be one of my go to subjects, I'm tempted to make this my first contest to enter.

I have two ideas in mind, so just checking to see if there is any rule against multiple entries?

Ta.

It's not a contest, just an author-organised challenge. So no winners, no prizes. Except we're all winners, and our readers are winners, etc.

Write as many fairy tales as you like. The more the better, in fact!

 

[PennyThompson]

It's not a contest, just an author-organised challenge. So no winners, no prizes. Except we're all winners, and our readers are winners, etc.

Write as many fairy tales as you like. The more the better, in fact!

The real prize is the friends we made along the way

 

[StillStunned]

The real prize is the friends we made along the way

The real treasure was inside us all along!

 

[Bamagan]

The real prize is the friends we made along the way

The real treasure was inside us all along!

Taken together, I think I'm detecting cannibalism. Seems dark enough.

 

[Vammatar]

I'm up and running already, combining a classic fairy tale with elements from a mud I play and putting my own twist on it, having a lot of fun with it so far.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm up and running already, combining a classic fairy tale with elements from a mud I play and putting my own twist on it, having a lot of fun with it so far.

Wonderful!

 

[Rustyoznail]

Hmm... I have a dark, medieval-ish short story written for elsewhere. It's not really a fairy tale, but it does mention the Gods.

I'll see what I can do with it.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Ooh, so there's this amazing taxonomy system for fairytales that I've gotten lost in before, the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index. It's a system for categorizing and collecting common themes and tropes in folklore.

Here's a great non-academic guide for understanding and using it!

It's not perfect. It was invented by a bunch of european dudes in the 1900s, it's fairly eurocentric and it intentionally ignores a lot of gay and queer folklore tropes. But it's a cool framework for thinking about different fairytale beats!

This is amazing. And formidable. It's sort of a Dewey decimal system for fables. I see some suggestions right away:

• The Obstinate Wife Learns to Obey 900-909
• Lucky Accidents 1640-1674
• The Clergyman is Tricked 1725-1774

But I'm intrigued by the stupid ogre tales. I had no idea that was a major category. There are 200 of them!

I think in might be ogre-ing time.

 

[PennyThompson]

This is amazing. And formidable. It's sort of a Dewey decimal system for fables. I see some suggestions right away:

• The Obstinate Wife Learns to Obey 900-909
• Lucky Accidents 1640-1674
• The Clergyman is Tricked 1725-1774

But I'm intrigued by the stupid ogre tales. I had no idea that was a major category. There are 200 of them!

I think in might be ogre-ing time.

You could mix and match too, The Obstinate Ogre Wife

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Would a Just-So Story (tm Rudyard Kipling) count? Eddie has an idea for "Why parrots can talk."

-Annie

 

[VallesMarineris]

You could mix and match too, The Obstinate Ogre Wife

I think that concept strays to close to the Lincoln's Doctor's Dog fallacy:

Lincoln's Doctor's Dog

 

[StillStunned]

But I'm intrigued by the stupid ogre tales. I had no idea that was a major category. There are 200 of them!

I think in might be ogre-ing time.

From what I remember from my uni days, ogres generally represent authority figures. Fathers, oppressors and so on. The stories are often about a plucky hero realising that he's not powerless, and that guile and courage are a match for power and strength.

Of course many of those tales come from society's underside, and are intended as comfort for people who think themselves helpless.

Would a Just-So Story (tm Rudyard Kipling) count? Eddie has an idea for "Why parrots can talk."

-Annie

I'll allow it. They have that fairy tale quality of formulaic phrasing and repetition. Also, my mum read the Just-So Stories to me when I was little, and I have a fondness for them. So please, go ahead!

 

[crazyness1]

1. Stay more or less on theme: dark, erotic, disturbing, traditional or modern - above all, try to capture the spirit of the fairy tale.

Oh wow I LOVE this idea. Dark fairy tales. Already have a few ideas in mind though probably going to be over done. I'd love to see a retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - Horny, Sleazy, Lusty... I forget the other dwarf names.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Oh wow I LOVE this idea. Dark fairy tales. Already have a few ideas in mind though probably going to be over done. I'd love to see a retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - Horny, Sleazy, Lusty... I forget the other dwarf names.

You could keep Grumpy and have him spank Snow when she annoys him.

-Annie

 

[crazyness1]

You could keep Grumpy and have him spank Snow when she annoys him.

That would be hilarious if all the other dwarves had different names and Grumpy just stayed the same. Just sounds so on brand.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

This is how my plotting brain works: I thought about Snow being annoying, and realized something.

Snow White is literally a pampered princess. In this very-not-Disney version, she acts like it, and the Surly Seven Dwarfs have to ... let's say, "persuade" her to clean their little house and provide other personal services in exchange for risking royal anger.

(Why didn't the evil queen ever punish the stupid dwarfs, now that I think about it? That might be a fun thing to have happen in a fractured fairy-tale kind of way, she sees how much Snow enjoyed their attentions in the end [pun intended] and makes them her harem.)

--Annie

 

[crazyness1]

Snow White is literally a pampered princess. In this very-not-Disney version, she acts like it, and the Surly Seven Dwarfs have to ... let's say, "persuade" her to clean their little house and provide other personal services in exchange for risking royal anger.

That sounds like a twist on Cinderella I was thinking about doing as well. Honestly there are so many great stories to be had with fairy tales. I never thought about it until I read this challenge.

 

[StillStunned]

Just a gentle reminder that, while these ideas all sound like great fun, there are thousands of fairy tales untouched by Disney's hands. And millions of fairy tales still waiting to be written.

 

[PennyThompson]

Just a gentle reminder that, while these ideas all sound like great fun, there are thousands of fairy tales untouched by Disney's hands. And millions of fairy tales still waiting to be written.

Yesss this! Get weirder! Fairy tales aren't just cutesy media IP, they're deep expressions of cultural fears and desires and disgusts!

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I got curious.

Literotica has 77 pages of search results for "Snow White".

-Annie

 

[VallesMarineris]

That sounds like a twist on Cinderella I was thinking about doing as well. Honestly there are so many great stories to be had with fairy tales. I never thought about it until I read this challenge.

I thought for a long time that Cinderella's prince must have a foot fetish.

 

[PennyThompson]

I thought for a long time that Cinderella's prince must have a foot fetish.

Ok, that's one Cinderella variant that I might read... Prince Charming PoV but he just really wants to find the owner of those sexy feet

 

[crazyness1]

Perhaps a Cinderelliot version instead where Cinderelliot sleeps with Princess Charming but before he sneaks away at midnight his condom slips off and now she needs to find who this condom belongs to. Possibly through a police lineup. You know, something romantic and classy.

 

[StillStunned]

In case anyone's interested in what it might look like to write an original fairy tale, here's one I wrote for the 750-word event: The Hardwood Son: A Fairy Tale.

Without the constraints of the word count I'd have ramped up things like repetition and formulaic descriptions in the early part of the story. You know, the things that tell you straight away that it's a fairy tale: "Once upon a time" and "In a small cottage under a tall tree in a dark forest there lived a dirty old man."