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It's Elementary, Dear Watson

It's brainstorming time, guys!

     We have a story to write.  It must be based on Snow White (here is the original tale).  The rules dictate that we include the original elements of the tale in a recognizable way, even though we are given creative license in that.  So here is our brainstorming for the day:

What ARE the key elements of Snow White?

     In other words, which parts of Snow White make it Snow White?  What characters or items or pieces of story line are important to keep (even if you recreate them in a new way)?

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  1. Sophia WhiteJune 8, 2017 at 10:41 AM

    Jealousy because of beauty, I think, is essential to the story, though by no means unique to this fairy tale. The dwarves, and their number seven; and three times where the evil queen comes close to killing her; and the setting with the dwarves being in a place she's run away to, from the palace --- I think that change of place is important, though I'm not sure why. A prince is always handy to have around in case you need the Heimlich done, of course. (Too bad the poor guy's always showing up late.)

    Evil stepmothers and princes who save the day are in a lot of fairy tales, and saying "It's a story with an evil stepmother and a good prince" doesn't tell your hearer "This is Snow White". But if you say "The princess runs away from the evil stepmother and seven little men take her in", that's likely the sine qua non of it. Although there's probably another story somewhere that can be described the same way. (I should check the Coloured Fairy Books.)

    Is the poisoned apple essential? I'm not sure. I love hearing "poisoned apple" because that concept on its own could make a great start for an allegory. Unfortunately, where it comes into this story is the wrong place for that. (In my idea I'm trying to experiment with a metaphorical apple that's present from the beginning. . . we'll see how that works.) But lots of other stories involve poisoned fruit, too, and as I happen to think the plot of Snow White gets a bit weak toward the end, I'm sure playing around with the witch's attempts to get rid of her could help in more ways than one.

    The glass coffin/being woken with a kiss --- that I always found to not fit the mood of the rest of the story for some reason, so I don't think that needs to be there. Another part I'd like to see made more reasonable is how the dwarves knew she was only unconscious the first two times, but didn't know it the third. She was only unconscious, like the first times, so that doesn't make sense. The dwarves were smarter than that.

    https://ofdreamsandswords.wordpress.com

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    Replies
    1. Esther Brooksmith (wisdomcreates)June 9, 2017 at 9:18 AM

      Hahaha! Poor, late prince!
      I've worked on some of the elements of the story that didn't make as much sense to me, and I'm kinda excited about the new explanations I've come up with! Hopefully they'll make as much sense to the reader as they do to me.

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  2. Skye HoffertJune 8, 2017 at 11:22 AM

    A beautiful girl, her jealous/evil stepmom, a poison apple, dwarves.

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