The Summit

There are some serious SPOILERS in this post, so if you haven’t read Frog Prince yet, you’ll want to high-tail it outta here.

Alright, I’ve been hinting at the Summit ever since Cinderella and the Colonel came out, and as you can tell based on Lucien’s little talk, I’ve had the big reveal in place since I wrote Beauty and the Beast, and I’ve been actively presenting it in every book–though it’s most obvious in The Snow Queen books. How on earth did I do? The answer is a looooot of planning.

Seriously, I’ve had this reveal in mind for a long time. It’s changed a bit since I first started the series–originally Lucien was going to be turned into a frog later–during Angelique’s story to be precise–but I decided it was much better to have it happen during the Summit. However, I have had the Chosen reveal plotted out since the very beginning.

And as you can probably tell, everything still hasn’t been shown. There are quite a few more twists that will happen in the next few books, but Frog Prince sets the stage and gives you an accurate idea of what’s really been going on. It also marks the final book in the series’ shared time space. From here on out, things get much more linear. The events of the 12 dancing princesses take place in fall and early winter–pretty recently after Briar beats Carabosso in Sleeping Beauty–and events of Snow White will happen the following spring/summer.

As for the Summit itself, it will give you a little taste of what the final book in the series will be like. Because I’m absolutely insane, the final book in the series will bring back the hero and heroine from nearly every book in the series. Everyone will get their own little segment in the final story, and they’ll be interacting with each other–much as they did during the Summit, but on a far larger scale.

The Summit also introduces you to characters/concepts that will play out in future stories. Princess Astra–the summit representative for Baris–will get her own story in the future, though it will take place AFTER this current story arc. (Meaning you won’t be getting her story for a number of years.) Rider Neera comes from Farset–where the Twelve Dancing Princesses reside–but her role as a Rider also acts as a precursor for another book that will take place after the current story arc as well.

I had a few readers as about the politics of the Summit, more specifically how I came up with the political undertones and all the government references. It was actually really fun for me because I used to be a newspaper reporter, and my beat (the articles I was responsible for) was to cover all the governmental and school board meetings that took place in a small city I lived near. I sat through a lot of meetings, and while my fairy tale world is fantasy, it still needs a government that actually works, so I really drew on my newspaper experience when I was putting everything together.

Thanks for reading, Champions! I hope you enjoy the story.

Modifying Frog Prince

Previously we covered the original story, so today we’re going to take a look at the big changes I made and why I did them. To start with, I should probably admit that I pulled a bit of a Snow Queen on this story–meaning I took many elements from the original, but I changed it up quite a bit so it barely resembles it. It was partially because I wanted to fit the story in my world, but I also did it because it always bothered me that the original fairy tale never addressed the frog prince’s pushiness, or the princess’s selfishness. But I digress, let’s get started!

Out of all the changes, first–and probably most obvious–is I made my female character a maid, not a princess. This was for several reasons, foremost being all the available princesses at the time are actually already spoken for–the only free ones are the 12 Dancing Princesses and they are stuck in their castle at the time of the summit. A huge factor, however, is that I was sick about writing princesses and I wanted a down-to-earth girl who could call Lucien out on his bad behavior. (In a way I swapped Lucien and Ariane’s roles. Lucien is far more self-centered, like the princess from the original tale, and Ariane tends to be more on the pushy side–like the frog prince!)

Next up, Ariane is actually the one to retrieve the golden ball from the pond. This was mostly a character personality thing. ‘Cause there was no way Lucien–as he is at the start of the book–was getting in that pond, even if he promised to. Get-‘er-done Ariane, however, was not likely to leave the ball floating on the surface of the pond, particularly when there was a chance Princess Sylvie would fall in. I also wanted to use this moment to contrast the difference in their personalities. Up until the mid-way point of the book, Lucien is pretty selfish and doesn’t care much what everyone else goes through. The lost ball thing was the perfect way to display that. (Plus, I thought I would get extra points for having Sylvie, a princess, lose her ball so it was more similar to the original.)

I did use the whole ‘the frog eats from her plate’ thing that appears in the original fairy tale, but I once again swapped the roles. In this case it’s Lucien who lets Ariane eat off his plate. This has the reverse effect that it had on the princess in the original tale (disgust) and instead makes Ariane see that he really is capable of being kind to others.

Even though the whole “break his curse by throwing him at a wall” thing technically isn’t the true ending of the story anymore, I still wanted to include it because it’s so hilarious, and it actually seems like an appropriate response. (Seriously, go read the story. The frog dude is super creepy when he wants to sleep on the princess’s bed. He totally deserved the wall thing.) So I include it fairly early on in the story, and even have Ariane repeat the gesture a few times to really get the point across.

But Ariane breaks Lucien’s curse by kissing him–which doesn’t appear in the original at all. I again did this because Angelique–who is feeling pretty run-down and vengeful at this point–only knows a handful of ways to counter curses, and one of them is the kiss thing. I also wanted to use the ‘true love’s kiss’ thing because in modern society people use the “kiss a frog to turn him into a prince” analogy sooooo much. It’s so prevalent in books and television clips about the frog prince, that I was actually shocked when I first started researching the story and learned that kissing was never mentioned.

Finally, I did include–to a certain extent–Henry the valet’s part in the story. I decided to make him a taciturn veteran instead of rather dramatically needing iron bands around his heart because–let’s face it–Severin and Princess Sylvie were probably the only ones who were sad to see Lucien as a frog. AKA: the Crown Prince totally deserved what he got!

And that’s all for today, Champions! I hope this shed some light on my reasoning. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

If you'd like to read my heavily modified retelling, you can find it in Kindle Unlimited or in ebook and paperback.

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Frog Prince: the original fairy tale

I love writing sarcastic summaries of popular fairy tales and this time it's the Frog Prince's turn!

This summary (and the factoids I share in it) is based on the research I compiled as part of writing my own retelling of this fairy tale, The Frog Prince. Before we get started I would like to note that I really gutted this fairy tale when I created my own version. It still has most of the important parts, but I broke them up and made some pretty drastic changes because:

1. Both of the main characters in the original story are pretty detestable

2. My prince (Prince Lucien who appears as a side character in my version of Beauty and the Beast) arrogant(?) personality and my world itself wouldn’t have allowed for me to neatly adapt the original story.

Okay, are you ready? Let’s dive in!

The “original” Frog Prince story was recorded by the Brothers Grimm, but it was known as “the Frog Prince or Iron Henry,” and it actually has two different endings running around. I wasn’t able to track down the year the original story was released, but the modified version (the alternate ending that is now considered the “true” ending) was released in 1823 by Edgar Taylor.

All versions of Frog Prince begin with a young princess who ventures outside and sits next to a well (Grimm version) or a spring (Taylor version). She has a golden ball that she throws up in the air and then catches, but while playing she fails to catch her ball and the thing drops into the deep well/pond.

The princess concludes she won’t be able to retrieve it, and declares she would give up her clothes, pearls, anything to have this ball back. (It seems to me someone needs to learn the evils of materialism. And impulsive decisions. I mean, really?!)

A frog hears the princess and asks her what is wrong. The princess nastily calls him ugly and explains what happened. The frog offers to retrieve the ball if she lets him eat from her plate and sleep in her bed, and treats him like a companion.

This should have been the princess’s first warning, because any living creature that demands a payment like that obvious has some wacko motives, but the princess rather craftily realizes the frog has no way to make her carry out this payment as he is stuck in his well/spring, so she agrees. (She’s actually quite verbally abusive to the frog, and insults him a lot.)

The frog retrieves the ball, and as soon as the princess recovers it she runs off before he has a chance to stop her or remind her of her promise.

The princess is pretty happy because she thinks she’s home free, but unfortunately for her the following day when she is at dinner with her father the King, there’s a knock on the castle door. The princess answers the door (You’ve got some lax security there, oh King) and sees frog sitting outside waiting for her. Frightened, she slams the door shut and returns to dinner. Her father asks her why she looks so frightened, and she explains the promise she made to the frog.

Next the frog shouts this weird poem-ditty through the door like a total creeper-stalker, and the King tells the princess she better open up the door and keep her promise. So the princess goes and gets the frog, who gets super pushy and demands that he sit on the table and she move her plate so he could also eat from it.

I understand this is just an artist’s mental image of what happened…but that spring/fountain/well does not look THAT deep.

When dinner is over the frog demands that she take him to her bedroom to sleep in her bed with her. (This would be a great time to step in, Dad!) The princess doesn’t want to, but the king tells her she must keep her promise. (Okay, that’s not what I meant when I said step in!)

So the princess carries the frog with two fingers because she doesn’t want to touch him, and when they get to her room instead of putting the frog on her bed, she throws him against the wall. Surprisingly, this makes the frog transform into his true form: a prince!

In the modified version, which is now usually considered the true ending, she lets him sleep in her bed with her and goes through this torture for THREE DAYS before the frog transforms into the prince he really is. Also, the modified version says the prince was turned into a frog by a vindictive fairy whereas the original gives no reason for the transformation.

The following day the Prince and Princess come down to the castle entrance where Henry–the prince’s faithful servant–is waiting with a carriage. Henry had been so sad when the prince was turned into a frog he had to have three iron bands placed around his heart so it wouldn’t break. When he sees his master fully restored, he is so happy that the iron bands break. Henry then drives the prince and princess back to the prince’s lands.

So that’s the original fairy tale! Did you notice that despite the popular "you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your handsome prince" type sayings there was NO kissing at all involved in the original story?

Though I do have to say this is a very rare case in which I think the two main characters actually deserve each other. The prince is waaayy beyond pushy, but the princess is little more than a harpy as she constantly insulted the prince when he was a frog. They're a perfect match!

Anyway! I hope you all found that amusing! If you're interested in the ways I adapted the story for my retelling you can check out this blog post.

Or if you'd like to read my retelling, which is a fantasy + a sweet romance story, you can read it in Kindle Unlimited or in ebook and paperback.

Click here for Amazon.com or Click here for other Amazon storefronts