Freebies and Re-writes!

Greetings, Champions! First order of business as I know many of you are chomping at the bit: the next freebie is out! Click here for part two of “The Best Friends!” I want to take this moment to add in a big thank you to everyone who has left a review–it is a huge help to me in more ways than I can list!

Next order of business: Like Red Rope of Fate, Beauty and the Beast has gotten a rewrite! The new version is not yet uploaded to Amazon! Currently I’m working to get the paperback updated first, and then I’ll be uploading the ebook to Amazon. Even after I upload it to Amazon, though, there will be a bit of a wait before you’ll be able to see the new version. (I have to convince Amazon that the changes are “major,” before they’ll be willing to push an update on to your account.)

It’s a little cruel to tell you such a long time before you’ll be able to read it, but I wanted to forewarn anyone who is considering purchasing the paperback version of B&B, so they know a new version (with a new cover!) is coming out soon. The changes will be very similar to what happened with Red Rope–a lot of stylistic fixes, and a few new scenes to help round things out and create a more cohesive plot.

I will make a big announcement when the newest version is uploaded and after I’ve chatted with Amazon, so stay tuned for more info! In the meantime, I hope you have a wonderful week, and thanks for reading!

Swan Lake: Rothbart

We’re approaching the end of the Swan Lake themed blog posts! Today’s topic is probably the heaviest and the most philosophical, but it also is filled with spoilers so I want to give everyone enough time to read the book before I broached the subject. So, be forewarned if you still haven’t had a chance to read it, this blog entry has some major spoilers about the ending of Swan Lake.

Let’s jump straight into it, Rothbart. Rothbart was one of the trickiest and most difficult villains I’ve written thus far, because he ends up being  sympathetic. At the very end of the book you learned that Rothbart was either told to take over the country, or his daughter would be in great danger. As he was unwilling to endanger his daughter, but also wasn’t twisted enough to follow through with whatever darkness is pulling the strings in the background, Rothbart uses Odette to accomplish redemption for everyone… Except for himself. As he dies he breaks the “quick release” strand of his spells that Angelique identified when studying Odette’s curse, freeing everyone and breaking any of his leftover spells. (Unknown fact: He had some nasty spells placed on his castle in case Suzu came sniffing around while he was out. He broke those as well so the castle wouldn’t harm anyone.)

I badly wanted Rothbart to be the reason why the curse was broken, because in the six previous volumes of the Timeless Fairy Tales, the hero and heroine are always responsible for breaking the curse. (As they should be.) Looking ahead, I know I will be writing several more stories that include breaking curses, and everything was starting to look really repetitive. So for the sake of interest, and to keep me from going as crazy as Angelique is over all these curses, I decided to mix things up a little bit.

But although this change made the story much more compelling and interesting, Rothbart’s character was extremely difficult for me to figure out how to write when I first started the book. How could I present him so everyone knew he was a villain, but still give him the freedom and ability to end strongly?

You see, I’m a big believer in darkness and light. I love Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings because they, like fairy tales, show how important it is that you don’t compromise with what is evil. However, one thing I’ve learned as an adult, is that individual humans don’t follow that kind of division. Some of the kindest, most compassionate people I know screw up– just as we all do. And some of the meanest people I’ve met have hidden soft spots. Humans can be gray. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s just the reality we live in.

More often than not, fairy tales follow the pattern of darkness and light, and the villain is always unsympathetic and horrible. Rothbart was a real challenge for me to craft when I place him in the shadow of every other villain I’ve written thus far. However, I also feel that as the villain he is the one that stands out most. He seems more realistic than the other villains. He was also the most secretive. Now that you know the ending of Swan Lake, if you take another gander at his scenes you’ll see tiny hints of his inner struggle. (In example, he commiserates with the wyvern in feeling imprisoned, the smugglers mention Odette is the only one he’ll tolerate–which you should now know why thanks to the In Search of a Hero extra–he openly talks about how fond he is of Odette and how much he values her ruthless protective streak, etc.)

In a totally unemotional/unrelated note, I’m sure some of you are wondering that if the original Swan Lake ballet said the evil sorcerer’s name was Von Rothbart, why did I drop the von? Kozlovka’s culture is very loosely based off historic Russia–I saw a few of you clever readers picked up on the Russian names, excellent observation! Russia does not use vons in their titles, that’s a German thing, so I dropped the von and kept the Rothbart!

So, please tell me Champions, what did you think of Rothbart? Did you find him interesting, or did you think I was attempting to be too clever for my own good? Until next time, have a lovely weekend everyone–and happy Fourth of July to my American Champions!

Swan Lake: Character Changes

The next short, Best Friends Part 1–Click here for the PDF, is now available! This short are told from Odette’s POV, and they follow her around, but they focus on getting you caught up with what’s happening to some of the secondary characters. Now, on to today’s post!

Finally, the topic I’ve been itching to write, Swan Lake’s characters and changes!

First, I’m going to assume you read my previous post that took a look at the original Swan Lake ballet. This is important because I’m going to look at the differences my characters make in the story.

One of the biggest things I changed was that I made the crown prince’s little brother Odette’s romantic love interest. (Also, I ditched the name Siegfried and made the crown Prince be called Yakov. This is mostly because I really like the name Siegfried and I suspect I will want to use it in the future.)

I did this because, as some of you might have noticed, I modeled Alexsei after the winning entry for my “Most wanted Hero” poll from January—the overlooked good guy. The easiest way to make him overlooked was to make him the second son of the Emperor and Empress, and depict his older brother as larger-than-life. I had some problems with this because if I made Yakov likeable, then you guys would be rooting for him, not Alexsei! So Yakov got a bit of a bossy makeover to help me with that.

Another big change I made was in organizing Odette’s people and making them smugglers. I looked at the original ballet and I saw how the Swan maidens followed Odette, and I realized she would’ve had to have some pretty incredible organization skills to keep all those ladies alive considering they had been cursed for a while. I took that into account when I crafted my Odette, so I made a girl who’s much more cunning and street-smart than the typical dewy-eyed Odette you see in the ballet.

Also, after quite a bit of deliberation, I turned Benno, Siegfried’s best friend, into a girl. Part of that was for balance–though Alexsei is smart he is overly courageous, if it weren’t for Benno’s female-born-practicality, Yakov  and Alexsei would’ve gotten themselves killed or seriously injured when they were little.

Also, because I was very tired of creating parent characters who are either dead (Like Cinderella’s parents) or not the most supportive people in the world(Like Gemma’s parents) I made up my mind to make Empress Sonya the most rocking, epic empress in the Timeless Fairy Tale world. She was so fun, and I was both disappointed and relieved I could only work her into a few scenes. (Relieved, because whenever Empress Sonya shows up, she’s a total scene stealer!)

I actually kept fairly close to the original plot line, and included the ball scene in which Rothbart attempts to disguise Odile as Odette  and the end in which someone falls into the lake and Rothbart’s spells are broken. However, those scenes are vastly different from the original source material due to the characters and their personalities. Alexsei doesn’t fall for Odile’s disguise because 1) he’s known Odette for more than a day and 2) he is very perceptive, and very much in love. Also, Odette doesn’t get her tail feathers in a bundle about the disguise because she’s a lot more mature and logical.

To me, this is a perfect example that shows how slightly tempering character reactions but keeping all the events the same will give you an extremely different end result. It’s the same in real life. If you and I play a chess game, and then you play a chess game with Myrrhlynn, you will get two very different games—and that’s not just because I always have a massive crush on my knights and tend to humanize my pieces.

What I’m getting at here is that personality makes a big difference. Benno the best friend went from being the idiot–or at least the idiot when compared to the brilliance of the original ballet’s Prince Siegfried–to self composed and respectable. Empress Sonya is fun and sassy instead of being moderately nagging about her son getting married–even though Sonya voices those same complaints. Rothbart is also an excellent example. I made a few strategic changes to his character, and as a result it really changed the end of the story, so much so that Rothbart is going to get his own post!

So if you’ve always wanted to do your own retelling, but you’re worried you won’t come up with anything new, just start thinking how you would change the characters, and ponder how that would affect the story.

Well, there you have it, Champions! Those are some of the biggest changes I made to my version of Swan Lake, and explanations of why I made them. I hope you found it interesting, and maybe a wee bit entertaining. Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the freebie!