Creating
a Cinderella Retelling
Cinderella
Is Dead is the story of 16-year-old Sophia Grimmins, a young girl living in the
kingdom of Mersailles—this is the place where Cinderella lived and died 200
years before. Cinderella’s story has become the backbone of this society, and
young women are expected to follow in her footsteps by attending the now
mandatory, annual ball, to be chosen by prospective suitors. This kingdom has
used Cinderella’s story to manipulate and control the women and girls who
reside there. As Sophia is preparing to attend the ball she grapples with how
this story doesn’t speak to who she is. She’s in love with her best friend,
Erin, she doesn’t want to be married, and she watches the people around her
fail to help her at every possible opportunity. The ball is a turning point for
Sophia. She makes some decisions that put her on a collision course with
Mersaille’s ruler, and in the process she uncovers some earth shattering truths
about Cinderella, Prince Charming, and the fairy godmother.
There
are versions of what would become Cinderella that date back hundreds,
even thousands, of years. In preparation for writing my own retelling, I read
the many stories that came before the version we’re now familiar with; the
Brothers Grimm version from 1812, the Charles Perrault version from 1607, and the
story of Ye Xian from around 850 AD first published in the Tang dynasty
compilation Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang written around 850 by Duan
Chengshi. Around the first century AD, the story of Rhodopis was popularized.
It’s about a Greek woman living in Egypt whose sandal is carried off by a bird
and dropped in the lap of the Pharaoh who then sets out to find the owner of
the shoe. And there is a similar story recorded five centuries before, by
Herodotus in his Histories. This version eludes to at least a part of
the story being an account of a real life event. Through all of its iterations,
over the passage of so many hundreds and hundreds of years, common threads can still
be found, the most prominent being a young girl mistreated by other women in
her own family is saved by a prince or king and lives happily ever after.
One
of the reasons I wrote this story was because I
really enjoy a retelling that makes me rethink earlier versions of the tale. Wicked
(more so the stage production than the novel) is one of my favorite retellings.
It did so much more than simply rework The Wizard of Oz. It opened up the world
around it and ultimately made me see the Wicked Witch in an entirely new light.
She was a one dimensional villain in one story and something completely
different in another. That’s what I wanted to do with Cinderella Is Dead. I
wanted to approach this retelling in a way that would make readers question
everything they thought they knew about the Cinderella story.
Cinderella is highly visible in the pantheon of children’s tales.
That’s Cinderella’s castle at Disneyworld! Her blue dress and glass slippers
are iconic. I wanted to retell a story that was instantly recognizable and
deconstruct it in a way that centered the kinds of people who are nowhere to be
found in the story itself, mainly Black, queer people. I wrote this story that
explores not only how fairy tales have the power to personally affect who we
become, but also allows us to see this fairytale world through the eyes of a
young woman who is actively harmed by the societal norms the fairytale
perpetuates. It’s a continuation of the story and a kind of expanding of that
already established framework. Because this is a bit more of a
reimagining than a retelling, I kept the entire Cinderella story intact but
with the idea of it being a sacred, historical text and ultimately a piece of
propaganda used to further the will of this kingdom’s rulers. When my main
character Sophia is navigating this world there are callbacks to Cinderella
herself, Prince Charming, the fairy Godmother, the ball, but as she begins to
uncover the truth, we pull back and see the bigger picture—that all that
glitters isn’t gold.
Storytelling
is fluid. It’s constantly evolving, stories are constantly changing. Even a
story’s origins can change through retelling. Things become canon that weren’t
before. Other elements are cast aside in favor of new ideas. I think that’s
what I’m trying to do—changing stories in a way that allows me and my readers
to have access to them in a way we didn’t before.
Wow - I love this. And I really can't wait to read this story!
Plus, it's perfect for the summer reading theme this year of Imagine Your Story.
About the Book:
Title: Cinderella is Dead
Author: Kalynn Bayron
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.
