Technical Aspects | |
Story length: | 5,607 words/17 pages double spaced |
Voice: | First person, past tense |
Genre: | Fantasy (Fairy Tale Retelling) |
Copyrighted: | © 2000 |
Story information | |
Main character: | Delia Morningstar/"Maleficent" (Note: In the expanded novel version of this story, the alternate name isn't used.) |
Character description: | The "bad fairy" from Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose, who is now telling her side of the story. |
Supporting characters: | The other fairies, including the "triplets" Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather; Aurora the princess and Phillip the prince; the kings and queens of the two kingdoms; other random people. (All these names are different in the novel version, except Aurora.) |
Setting: | Medieval times, about fourteenth century, but told in modern voice |
General Plot | |
Maleficent introduces herself as the storybook "bad fairy" and sets out to toss out that image and expose the truth. The story details her growing up and "fairy training," and shows the lack of acceptance she got from her older peers because of her lineage and choice of using shadow magick instead of light. The "curses" Maleficent put on "Sleeping Beauty" are shown to be a misinterpretation, and a whole new idea of "what really happened" is suggested. | |
Information, inspiration, and other notes | |
Francesca Lia Block released a book of retold fairy tales, The Rose and the Beast. I had not read the book by this point, but I was on a discussion group list about her books, and the list creator suggested we all re-write our own fairy tales. This is what I came up with. Of course some of my information was taken from Sleeping Beauty and some was "stolen" from Pagan mythology, and the rest is pure conjecture. I later expanded this to a novel and it is quite different and of course more detailed, over seven hundred pages. This story responds more to the Disney version of the story told in the movie (though not entirely), while the novel does not have any direct responses to that version at all. | |
Related Art: | [Short story concept art] |
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