F is for Fairy Tales

Today’s letter in the month long A-Z challenge is F. (No, we’re not going there! Get your mind out of the gutter, people. LOL!) Our guest today is Oberon Wonch, lover of Medieval romance, Renaissance Faires, fairy tales, gardening, and a soon-to-be-published romance author.

 

F is for Fairy tales, those magical stories we all heard growing up, the ones that feature youngest sons, princesses, cruel stepmothers, and talking animals. The stories where good triumphs over evil and an honest knight or virtuous princess earns a blissful happy ending. 

Scholars who like to debate this sort of thing actually don’t agree on what exactly distinguishes a fairy tale from other folk tales. Though most agree an actual fairy needn’t be involved, they dispute whether magic is an integral part of a fairy tale and whether some form of mythical being—goblins or giants, for example—must be included. Despite the arguments, several motifs are common: a handsome prince, a beautiful maiden, a fantastic location such as a castle or a beanstalk that climbs to the clouds.

Though stories resembling what we identify today as fairy tales go back thousands of years, the term fairy tale was first coined in the 17^th century by Countess d’Aulnoy. She compiled anthologies of French folk tales meant to be discussed by adults in Parisian salons. Gathering her stories from nursemaids and other laboring class women who told stories to children, she emphasized the magical elements in such tales and built up the motif of strong female characters who prevail over evil stepmothers and overbearing royal fathers. (Perhaps because those were the subjects that appealed most to her fellow salon-goers.)

One thing that seems to be a modern invention is the idea of a happily ever after. This might be attributed to the Brothers Grimm, who in the early 19^th century recorded on paper many German folk tales from oral tradition. Hoping to market their books as family-friendly but finding the stories too gruesome for children, they took the liberty of cleaning up the tales. Stabilized through printing, their versions have become the standard in cultures of English descent.

Did you know Hans Christian Andersen mostly wrote new stories rather than relayed traditional fairy tales? He employed some familiar motifs, but the characters and plots were all his. Eloisa James did a series of historical romances where each book was founded upon a fairy tale. When Beauty Tamed the Beast was my favorite.




Let's chat: What are your favorite fairy tales, the ones that resonate with you? Do you recognize the fairy tales in your nodern reading?

A two-time Romance Writers of America^® Golden Heart^® finalist in Historical Romance, Oberon Wonch writes passionate tales about heroes, both modern and medieval, winning the hearts of their lady loves. Visit her at http://www.oberonwonch.com/ or her gardening blog at http://www.gardeningwithoutfairies.com/.

The "F" book list:

The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley: historical fiction, paranormal, romance all in one. I love just about everything this author writes.

Judi Fennell: lighthearted romance. Her early works are paranormal romance, and now she's coming out with contemporary romantic comedies about a group of brothers working as housemaids!

Firefly: Graphic novels, multiple authors/artist. The comic-book continuation of the beloved television space opera series that, like most of Joss Whedon's stuff, died a tragic and far-too-early death. They live on in these. Start with this one. 



Images: The Frog Prince y Anne Anderson (1874-1930) (http://www.artsycraftsy.com/anderson_prints.html) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Red Riding Hood: By Charles Perrault, Harry Clarke (ill.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

FELLOW WRITERS—A GREAT SUPPORT NETWORK

Emily Greenwood is a new voice in historical romance. She writes playful, sexy Regency romance. Emily has written a three book MISCHIEF series and I'm highlight the first, A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF. 

Emily's road to publication wasn't fast or easy but along the way she learn the value of associating with fellow writers. I'll let Emily tell you more about that.

Thanks so much for having me here today. Love the site music!

I’m pulling up my cup of herbal tea (wish I could drink coffee, but it does me in) and letting out a big sigh at the end of this month of promotion for my debut, A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF.

Seems like the release of this novel has been a long time coming. I started writing it several years ago, put it away for a while, reworked it, and sent it out. I got requests from agents for partial and full manuscripts, and some really helpful suggestions from a few agents that helped me improve the story, but no offers. There was a little angst J

So I put that book aside and started another one. But when the Golden Heart submission deadline was looming, it wasn't ready to go. A writing pal suggested I enter the first book, A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF, and I figured I had nothing to lose, so I made another pass at editing and entered it in the 2008 Golden Heart under a different title. It finaled! I was surprised and delighted.

Finaling brought me some great attention and also allowed me to connect with the other writers who finaled that year. We called ourselves the Pixies, and were immediately a great support network. Having this connection with other romance writers really made a difference in my publishing journey and helped me keep motivated as everybody shared inside knowledge and successes and failures on the road to publication. Finaling in the Golden Heart also helped when querying A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF and the book I’d written after it. Two years later I signed with a terrific agent.

Then began the process of reworking my stories with my agent’s suggestions, which took a number of months. If there’s one thing I can say about writing, it’s that it takes a lot of time to get a finished product! Also, I hadn't really picked up on the whole “books in a series” thing, even though as a reader I’d enjoyed, like, Mary Balogh’s Slightly series. Somehow I hadn't figured out that I needed to write books that were linked together. A little slow on the uptake, wasn't I?

Finally the books were ready to go out on submission, and Sourcebooks picked up A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF as part of the three-book Mischief series. Yay! The publication date was two years off, which is not uncommon, and it was a good thing, because it gave me extra time to write those other two books in the series.

Balancing writing and life is a struggle, but I suppose if I truly had loads of uninterrupted time to write, what I wrote would get stale. Or at least I tell myself that when I can’t write because I need to cook dinner, take kids to appointments, exercise, and do all the other things that can nibble up a day. They’re all also things I’m grateful to have in my day J

But it can be very hard to get back into the story when I've been away from it for a day or more. And it’s especially frustrating when I need to read all the way through to get a sense of how the story is working and I have to keep putting it down for interruptions. I try very hard to do something with whatever I’m working on every day.

So, there have been tears and smiles, and I’m sure there will be more, but one thing that is definitely a fun part of publication is interacting with readers through blogs like this one!

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

A LITTLE NIGHT OF MISCHIEF

Emily Greenwood

Every Prize Comes with Complications...

A game of chance saves James Collington from the prospect of debtors' prison, and grants him ownership to Tethering estate. Little does he know that his winnings come with serious complications--not least of which is a beautiful but impoverished young lady who insists his new manor belongs to her.

If He Can't Stop Her, He Might as Well Join Her...

Felicity Wilcox is determined to run Mr. Collington off her land, Though James's charm and devilish good looks are a serious distraction. What she doesn't know is that she may be haunting him right back.

EXCERPT (scroll down to excerpt heading on Publisher site)

BUY: AMAZON, B&N, BAM, INDIEBOUND

                                                                                                                             

Emily Greenwood has a degree in French and worked for a number of years as a writer, crafting newsletters and fundraising brochures. Bur she far prefers writing playful love stories set in Regency England, and she thinks romance is the chocolate of literature. A Golden Heart finalist, Emily lives in Maryland with her husband and two daughters.

You can find Emily on Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and her website.