Rewriting the Glass Slipper: Feminist Fairy Tale Retellings
During Women’s History Month, revisiting fairy tales allows us to recognize how far storytelling has come, and how much room it still has to grow. If you’re new to retellings, the easiest place to begin is structure, which you can get a hang of with this guide on modernising the stories so many young children grew up with.
Research, Respect, and Reimagining: A Guide to Magical Realism and Black History
Magical realism has always lived comfortably alongside history. It allows the unreal to exist beside documented fact, as another way of telling it. Through subtle shifts (like visions, symbols, and moments that feel impossible but are treated as ordinary) magical realism expresses emotional realities that traditional historical fiction can’t always reach. It blends the everyday […]
Readers That (Don’t) Care: Why is My Character Unsympathetic?
Let me guess: someone read your story and called one of your characters “unsympathetic.” You’re here to figure out what, exactly, that means. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean they’re unlikeable. An unlikeable character isn’t necessarily a problem. A reader can still sympathize with a character they don’t like. Oftentimes, writers take “unsympathetic” to mean that […]
Clever, Not Invincible: Keeping Your Characters From Being Overpowered
Have you ever read a book or watched a movie where the hero never got hurt? No matter how many enemies came after them, they always took them out. No matter how many bullets just missed their head, they always managed to dodge. That was an overpowered character. That is boring. It takes all the […]