GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY with Michelle Davidson Argyle: A Different Kind of Cinderella

Welcome to A Week of Cinderella!  Grab some promotional buttons for your blog HERE and stop back all week long for fun guest posts, exciting author visits (because, after all, Marissa isn't the ONLY author with a kick-ass Cinderella to celebrate!), giveaways, reviews, and a blog tour stop for CINDER! 

 

Michelle Davidson Argyle started out as a self-published author and has now found a home with Rhemalda Publishing.  Her novel MONARCH is available now and her contemporary YA THE BREAKAWAY is coming out May 1, 2012.  BONDED, an omnibus that includes CINDERS and two other fairy tale short stories, comes out May 1, 2013.

 Michelle can be found at her blog, on Twitter @LadyGlamis, and on Facebook. 

A Different Sort of Fairy Tale

Many readers have asked me how I came up with the idea for CINDERS, and I always tell them, “I got it from my daughter.” She was obsessed with watching Disney movies for quite a while, and since my computer is near the television set in our living room, I would get to watch all those Disney movies with her. One day, for the 25th time, a trailer came on for the movie CINDERELLA III. And snap! The idea came—what did happen after the happily-ever-after? My imagination went wild after that. 

 

Although my idea for  CINDERS came from a Disney movie, my execution of the novella did not. I began the story as a short flash fiction piece, but it evolved into a novella. I had one idea that seemed to outshine the rest—reality. I wanted to weave a tale full of magic, but also grounded in reality. I wanted Cinderella’s journey to be about discovering herself as a person, and what defines happiness and love. In my tale, magic is what secures the prince to Cinderella, and since she knows magic is what has given her everything she has, she begins to long for something more real. But is it the magic that feels shallow to her, or something far deeper? Does her prince only love her because of the magic, or are feelings strong enough to move past that? These are things I explore in  CINDERS. 

 

I often ask people what they want in a story. Some say they want entertainment. Some say they want insight. For the stories I write, I like to combine both as much as I possibly can.  CINDERS is suspenseful, but it’s also a quiet story about a young woman who has a lot of growing up to do. My Cinderella is deeply flawed—to the point where many readers dislike her. But since her story is one focused on self-discovery, I find her flawed character perfect for what I wish to convey. 

 

One of my favorite reviews of  CINDERS explains perfectly how I delve beyond a simple fairy tale and tell a story that will hopefully stick with the reader for a long time. 

 

“While you think for a time that you're simply hearing another classic tale, slowly, you begin to see another layer--the bones beneath the flesh--and it is this layer, that adds the most brilliant aspect to Argyle's prose. With this layer, she breathes life into characters that we've become all too familiar with and gives them new purpose. This layer presents to us another fairy tale, a slightly darker, more visceral one...read carefully and you'll see exactly what I mean. There is no question that each and every line was arranged with clear purpose and if you look closely, you'll see the reason for the novella's title.” 

Thank you for having me as a guest here! I adore fairy tales in all their forms and cannot wait to read more of them. They truly are an impressive base for modern-told tales in which we can all relate.

Check out my review of CINDERS HERE!

And now, a giveaway!!

Enter to win your own copy of CINDERS by filling out the following form!

Contest ends January 31st, 2012!