Something To Think About
Quote: If you don't see the book you want on the shelf, write it. Beverly Cleary
That's a wonderful quote isn't it? I love the simplicity of it as well as the practicality of it. That is one of the best ways to find an idea for a new book. I've gotten many an idea myself that way. People are always asking me how I come up with all this stuff I write about, and sometimes it is simply a plot I wanted to read about but couldn't find. The easiest fix was to tell myself the story.
Another method that works great for me is if you don't find the ending you want, write your own story. I can't tell you how many times I have gotten to the end of a book and thought alright that's good, but it could have ended this way or even that way. The longer I think about ways it could have gone, I stumble upon a twist to start an entirely different book.
Or the guessing game . . . Half the fun of reading a suspense novel is guessing who done it, right? Sometimes in the midst of a book I will come up with so many ways it could go, so many twists or turns it could take, that I end up with a fully different story line than the author intended, and that leads me to the idea for another book. That is actually how I ended up writing Wrong Turn Fairy Tales. I was going through a phase where I was reading a lot of fractured fairy tales. For anyone who might not know, that is when an author takes a classic fairy tale and changes it into something quite different. Anyway, as I was reading all these fractured fairy tales, I kept coming up with different ways the authors could do it until finally Wrong Turn Fairy Tales was born.
Wrong Turn Fairy Tales is a story about a girl from a wealthy family, who is expected to marry someone who was also from a wealthy family. After a bump to the head she finds herself falling from one fairy tale to the next, except something isn't quite right. The same person keeps showing up in each tale, the gardener's son. His role is not the same in each tale, and he certainly isn't the love interest. nevertheless, it broke the girl's heart each time to leave him.
Being a bit of a purist, the fairy tales follow the originals a little more closely than the classic Disney versions we all know and love. I did my research, and studied the Grimm's brothers' tales as well as Hans Christian Anderson's tales before I compiled a few selections and added my own twist. If you like the originals or are curious about them, this would be a great book for you! I should warn you, however, Disney cleaned them up and sweetened them up considerably. Hans Christian Anderson and the Grimm brothers' were down right gruesome at times.
I think it is a fun book, and I had a blast writing it. It was our first venture into the wild world of self publishing. Unfortunately, it is currently only available on nook, but we are learning as we go. Maybe someday it will be more widely available!
