The winners of our Fairytales & Myths Competition put a twist on classic stories from around the world to create new and poignant narratives. “Fairytales often paint rosy pictures of Happily Ever After, but reality doesn’t always provide such good outcomes for everyone,” says Charmaine Tan Shiyan, winner of the competition. “I wanted to break this utopian portrayal of life in fairytales.”
Read on to learn more about Charmaine’s writing process and hear from Best Peer Review winner Ximena Cab!
Fairytales often paint rosy pictures of Happily Ever After, but reality doesn’t always provide such good outcomes for everyone. I wanted to break this utopian portrayal of life in fairytales, and the tale of the River Snail Maiden gave me a lot of room to explore the story behind the silenced woman. More pertinently, I didn’t want to limit this tragedy to simply fiction, which was why I switched back and forth between the POV of the fairytale and the present day to display the commonalities between them. I have personally witnessed women being told to tolerate an unhappy marriage “for the sake of the kids” and that they were “simply overreacting.” I sincerely hope that the revised fairytale I wrote can show that the tragedies of fictional characters can still be very real to many people out there in society.
I don’t think there’s a specific technique that I used, but I just tried to put myself into the shoes of my characters and speculate what their mentality, incentives, and emotions may be. I wanted to ensure that the actions and words of my characters were reasonable and logical. Hence, I attempted to let the emotions of the characters flow out as naturally as possible within the constraints of the word limit so that it wouldn’t seem too rushed or awkward.
I’m hoping to learn how to write a film analysis because I absolutely adore watching films! I think it’ll be very interesting to gain the ability to pinpoint and pen down the components of a film that make me feel a certain way.
My process is pretty straightforward. I usually read the piece first and then a second time, looking for spelling errors, grammatical errors, etc. I try not to focus on that too much because it can be discouraging to read about everything “wrong” with your writing and have no positives to compare it to. So, I also say some encouraging words and express what I like about the writing, the feelings I have, and what I want to know more about. Very simple steps: read, read a second time, suggest or correct, question, and then praise.
I do really feel like questioning the author about their writing is so important. It really challenges the writer to think more in-depth about their piece and really solidify what they’re trying to achieve in their writing. I used to hate being asked questions because it challenged me to go deeper in my writing. However, I think it really does make you a better storyteller, poet, etc.
My favorite genre to write in is poetry. I also occasionally enjoy writing short stories for fun and to challenge myself, but I don’t normally write anything longer than a page to a few pages. I’m not too keen on writing fantasy, world-building, romance, or anything like that, so I stick to my poems mostly. I also love to review poetry too. Out of all the genres, poetry takes the cake for me.