Shannon Hale (Ever After High series) moderated the Fairytale Remix panel on Thursday 7/24/2014, featuring Cornelia Funke (Mirrorwold series), Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles), Ben Tripp (The Accidental Highwayman), Danielle Page (Dorothy Must Die), Tony DiTerlizzi (The Search for WondLa), and Katherine Harbour (Thorn Jack), during which they discussed the differences between ancient, traditional, and modern fairytales, why they chose to rewrite certain stories, and their inspiration behind writing as a profession.

They all agreed that reading those long, boring books as child is what makes a person hardy, from such authors as Dumas to Mark Twain. What fairytales bring into the reader’s library is a sense of magic and wonder that may not have been there before. Grimm, Anderson, and Perrault all bring something extraordinary to the table. For many writers, the darker and weirder the story, the more likely it is to stick with them throughout their life. And fairytales are definitely dark and weird.

So why rewrite fairytales to begin with? You may love the story of Rapunzel, but question the validity of her remaining in the tower without trying to escape. Or you might wonder why the prince never tried to rescue her. Loving a story isn’t always enough of a reason to retell it; you may have to despise an aspect of it and want to tell it a different way, to prove a different point, in order to retell it effectively.

There was some discussion about adding to characters, making them more than one-dimensional. Take an aspect of a character and exaggerate it. Danielle, the author of Dorothy Must Die, for example, took her characters to the extreme: the Tin-man has an obsessive crush on Dorothy, the Lion has a steroid problem, etc. Marissa Meyer took the character of Cinderella and expanded her personality, making Cinder subservient but inwardly defiant, secretly saving money and parts so she can rebuild an old car to escape the city of New Beijing.

Main characters are the heart of the story, of course, but you can’t forget the villains! What do the wicked witches do when they’re not baking children into pies? They can’t be rocks stars all the time, right? They can’t have wild parties every day, looking for children to cook and eat. So what do they do? That’s another way to look at remixing a fairytale, if you’re wanting to rewrite one. One panelist suggested that maybe the witches spend the rest of their time spooling milk, and the entire room laughed.

Do we have a right to rewrite fairytales? The panelists said YES! The characters and even the plot can be twisted to fit your genre, but they suggested keeping the heart of the story intact, so that readers can still connect it to the original.

Research is an important part of writing, and many of the panelists agreed that publishers underestimate readers too much. The worlds and characters you create need to be thick and rich with detail and complexity, otherwise readers will lose interest. I have found this to be true, especially as an adult reading and reviewing young adult novels. Don’t underestimate your readers, no matter your target audience. As Cornelia said, “You want to weave a make carpet, not a napkin.”

This panel was very informative as a reader of fairytales and their modern remixes. The panelists were very engaging and fun to listen to, and the moderator was wonderfully energetic and, at times, hilarious. Make sure too check out all the authors and their books!