Tag Archives: Snow White Retelling

Sale! Accidental Enchantments – Volume 2

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I am pleased and excited to announce that the second installment of my series of fairy tale retellings has sold! Edits start in just a few weeks.

The tentative title is Face in the Magic Mirror, and it is a reimagining of the Snow White story. I don’t know yet if the title will change. It tells the story of that mysterious being within the magic mirror, how he came to be there, and why he finds the queen so lovely. It is also about the queen’s stepdaughter, and the problems extreme beauty might cause.

But mostly, it is about a young woman with achondroplasia who has never seen another person like herself, and who hears of a refuge for dwarfs. She travels to the refuge in a blatant search for a husband, but none of the men there are quite what she hoped for.

She thinks.

The Sevenfold SpellThis story was actually the inspiration for the whole Accidental Enchantments theme. I imagined this man in the mirror, on the run from the queen, bringing unintentional doom to people every time he is forced to respond to her questions. I couldn’t make the story work so I wrote The Sevenfold Spell, instead. And last year, when I started writing Magic Mirror again, it just flowed from start to finish. It’s funny how these things work out.

If you haven’t read The Sevenfold Spell yet, you can always — ahem — check it out now. ;)

Raw! Unedited! Snippet Sunday – From Snow White Retelling

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To celebrate sending my Snow White story to beta readers–which I plan to do before the night is over, I promise–here is a brief snippet.

Lars didn’t lust after his employer’s wife—not really. She was fifteen years older than he, and rather more matronly than he was yet ready for, with a double-chin, well-nursed bosoms and a large, round backside. But she did represent something very desirable to him.

He had never seen a woman shaped like her before. Men, he had seen aplenty—his own father, for one, plus other court dwarfs who regularly amused the royalty. They—most of them—had same thick torso, the same stumpy arms and legs, the same distinctive face.

But on the Frau … well, he tried not to think of what she looked like in the nude. Herr Dexter would thrash him for such thoughts. And so would that giant son of his.

He wondered what the other farmhands thought.

The four of them didn’t always work well together, but they knew better than to cause trouble. None of them wanted to be sent away. None really had anywhere to go, except back to whatever unpromising situation they had come from … except maybe Rudolph. Of the lot of them, Lars only really liked Gunther, who was also the oldest, except for Herr Dieter. Rudolph was pure trouble. Klause was quiet and sullen. Lars had only been among them for a handful of weeks. As the newcomer, he got the hardest work—plowing the field.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Which brings me to a request. I know there are a few German speakers who read this blog. I’d dearly love for a native German to proofread my incidental use of German. If you speak German and are interested, please email me at tia dot nevitt at gmail dot com, and I’ll send you a copy.

As I ran through this story one last time, I took notes on my process because I thought it might make an  interesting blog subject. I’ll post it later in the week. Plus, now that I’m done with this writing and editing marathon (it was more like NaNoEdMo for me), I think I’ll take a little break and breathe some life back into this blog.

This Week in Research – Little People

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When I’m doing research, I often find myself researching the small details. Well, but bulk of my research for my Snow White retelling has been big details about small people: namely little people.

I have become a frequent visitor to LPA, or Little People of America. It’s a fabulous website, chock full of information and things I, being typically sized, would never have thought of.

Achondroplasia is the most common form of dwarfism, but there are many different causes of short stature. Most of the dwarfs in my story have this form of dwarfism. Two characters are merely short. In my story, a female with Achondroplasia is married to a typical man who is short. They have a six foot son. When one person with this condition has a child with someone that does not, the chance of a child with Achondroplasia is 50%.

People with this condition often develop lower back problems. There are certain adaptive products available to little people. These chairs not only have short legs, but they have short seat backs, high arm rests, and sometimes built-in footrests. I never would have guessed the high arm rests, but I learned that many people with Achondroplasia have upper arms and legs that are shorter than their lower arms and legs.

I also looked into mobility products, but since my story takes place in times past, I don’t need to read about things like pedal extenders and extra seat cushions in cars to accommodate driving–but I did anyway. A good many people with Achondroplasia also have to use walkers.

But really, the reason I wanted to write about little people has little to do with the Snow White story. When I came up with the Accidental Enchantments theme, I drew some sketches of some characters I had in mind for four stories. One was the prince in Snow White, who I have mostly kept intact with my original vision. However, I only had 1500 words written. I couldn’t make the story work until I came up with Gretchen, a young woman with Achondroplasia. Then, I was able to write the rough draft in six weeks.

And I wanted to write about such a person because they are rare enough to be memorable, yet so rare in fiction. When I have an interaction with a little person, I remember it for years and years. I realize that this is probably both a burden and a blessing to such people. But because of these people who remain fixed in my memory, I wanted to write this story. I’m glad Snow White gave me the impetus to do so, but i wanted them to be genuine characters, not caricatures. And I wanted them to be the main characters.

I just hope I don’t botch it.