{Guest Post/Giveaway} Combination Station: Mashing Up Fairytales by Danielle Shipley, author of the Wilderhark Tales

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Hey bookworms! I'm excited to welcome author Danielle Shipley back to the blog. She's stopped by previously during Fairy Tale Fortnight to give us a character interview, flash fiction featuring the tale One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes, and speculated on which fairy tale character's life she'd want to live! 

Today, we're discussing fairy tale mash-ups. 

....And it's starting off with a quote from Into the Woods, my favorite musical ever, so you already know it's going to be good! ♥

Visit Danielle's website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter

Combination Station: 
Mashing Up Fairytales 

by Danielle Shipley

“I wish… More than anything… More than life…”

If you’re already singing along, I venture to guess it’s either because you’re a minstrel – (like my Gant-o’-the-Lute, serenely strumming his instrument in the corner while I type up this guest post) – or because you’ve made the magical journey Into the Woods, courtesy of Stephen Sondheim. It’s a classic tale made up of classic tales – Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Jack (of the Beanstalk), and more, all thrown together into a story bigger than any one of their own.

And Sondheim isn’t the only one to run with the idea. From ABC’s Once Upon a Time, to Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, to my own Wilderhark Tales … (“Starring me!” Yes, Lute, featuring you) … it’s a premise that captures the imaginations of creators and audience alike.

Why? Well, as near as I can figure, there are three primary reasons.

“Naturally there are,” the minstrel agrees. “For fairy tales know of the Power of Threes.”

1 – Because it feels like home. For those of us who grew up with these stories – whether through an old illustrated storybook, an animated movie, or an onstage performance (or all of the above!) – we’re as familiar with the characters and their capers as we are our own names. So if in, say, THE SEVENTH SPELL (Book Three of the Wilderhark Tales), we encounter a spinning wheel in a king’s dungeon, an enchanted harp in a castle in the clouds, or a talking royal frog out in the garden, our hearts say, “I know you!” – perhaps going on to sing, “I walked with you, once upon a dream.”

We’re fond of the familiar. But the unfamiliar is no less a part of the fun. Because…

2 – New twists of the tale mean the thrill of new adventure. Thanks to Rumplestiltskin and Sleeping Beauty, we can predict the kinds of trouble a spinning wheel means. But suppose it’s something else that sends the beauty’s kingdom into a hundred-year repose? What if the hands that spin straw into gold aren’t the ones we expect?

“What if our Beanstalk Jack is a bard in blue?”

Indeed, Lute – what then?

He winks.

If nothing ever changed at all, we’d probably lose interest fast. But there are hundreds of ways – (thousands of ways – millions and billions and trillions of ways) – to take the straw of inspiration from the stories we know and spin it into the gold of a brand new plot. Because…

3 – “Once upon a time…” is just the beginning. Funny thing about a classic fairy tale: Its characters don’t tend to be people. They are The Prince, The Princess, The Tailor, The Witch… They are titles and roles. Archetypes larger, brighter, darker, and more magical than life. Wooden puppets and velveteen rabbits waiting to become fleshed out and real – and, in a fairy tale mashup, to interact with each other (and each other’s iconic story elements) like they never have before.

That’s the enchantment you get with the likes of Sondheim – and with THE SEVENTH SPELL, albeit with a little less singing. …No thanks to Gant-o’-the-Lute.

“None at all,” he laughs.

The woods are vast. The paths are many. We need never adventure the same way twice.

So into the woods we go and go again.

  ~*~

 

O F F I C I A L   I N F O:

Title: THE SEVENTH SPELL

Author: Danielle E. Shipley

Release Date: March 24, 2015

Publisher: Danielle E. Shipley

SUMMARY:

A witch’s attempt to cast one spell too many casts everyone touched by her previous spells into chaos. Scattered throughout each other’s pasts, Sula and Edgwyn, Villem and Rosalba, and the rest of the magic’s affected have a single chance to break this last enchantment before their “happily-ever-after”-s cease to have ever been. 

THE SEVENTH SPELL
Book Three of The Wilderhark Tales 

An enchantress’s curse turns a spoiled royal into a beast; a princess’s pricked finger places her under a hundred-year spell; bales of straw are spun as golden as the singing harp whisked down a giant beanstalk – all within sight of Wilderhark, the forest that’s seen it all.

You’ve heard the stories – of young men scaling rope-like braids to assist the tower-bound damsel; of gorgeous gowns appearing just in time for a midnight ball; of frog princes, and swan princes, and princes saved from drowning by maidens of the sea. Tales of magic. Tales of adventure. Most of all, tales of true love.

Once upon a time, you knew them as fairytales. Know them now as Wilderhark’s. 

~*~

GIVEAWAY

During Magic, Myth, & Mischief,

we're giving away a book of YOUR CHOICE

from the event!

It could be a book in the Wilderhark's series by Danielle Shipley!

This giveaway is INTERNATIONAL to any country that Book Depository ships to.  You can also claim an e-book as a prize; it doesn't have to be a physical copy!

You must be at least 13 years old to enter or have a parent's permission!

Enter now! 

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