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Excerpt:
At first blush, Grimms’ fairy tales are some strange stories. Adults plot against children. A knocked-off head can be reattached with a life-giving root. And the amount of rust on a knife will tell you if your brother is alive… or mostly dead.
Unusual they may be, but these fairy tales have stood the test of time. There are two hundred and ten fairy tales in Grimms’ final collection. They’ve been enjoyed by generations of readers and sparked many a writer’s imagination.
Today, we can use these stories to master the basics of storytelling. After all, when Grimms’ fairy tales are boiled down to their simplest components, we have a pattern:
Once upon a time there was a character who lived in a setting and had a problem (plot). Fairy tale magic intervened/interfered and everyone learned a lesson (theme).
In Lessons from Grimm we’ll do a deep dive into each of these components to study how the Grimms handled genre, character, setting, plot, magic, and theme. We’ll make note of repeated patterns that we can use in our own stories so we can become better writers. Whether you are working on a retelling, an adaptation, or a brand-new fairy tale, there is something you can learn from these master story tellers.
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Also in the works (available in August):
- A companion workbook. This workbook will have plenty of space for figuring out your personal fairy-tale voice as well as plotting three fairy tales (stand-alones or a trilogy). It is based on Lessons from Grimm but is primarily meant to be a space for guided brainstorming and applying what is taught in the text.
- High school workbook. This workbook will contain additional instruction pulled from the Lessons from Grimm text, but simplified. Room to brainstorm one fairy tale.
- Elementary and middle school workbooks. These workbooks will be guided and age-appropriate.
