Using Folklore in Fiction
Every society has folklore, some of the world’s oldest stories so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that they provide a cultural touchstone. They’re so primal in theme that they still resonate with us hundreds or even thousands of years after they came into being. For writers and artists, folklore is an extremely rich source of ideas and concepts. Disney made a mint off retelling European fairy stories. You might not get rich doing it, but it’s a lot of fun. Best of all, the old stories aren’t copyrighted, so you can use whatever bits and pieces—or entire plots—that you like.
While you can certainly rewrite any fairy or folktale that takes your fancy, it’s worth looking past the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson. Every culture is incredibly rich with old stories, and while some are similar to European tales, many are very different. I’ll never turn down a Beauty and the Beast retelling…but look around and see what you can find. I have written several retellings of Japanese folktales, but there’s a whole “to be written” list in my desk (don’t look surprised, I know you have one too) involving folklore from all over the world. One advantage of using unfamiliar tales is that readers often won’t have much to compare them to, unlike more common stories that have been retreaded dozens of times.
But how to utilize these ancient tales? There’s a variety of ways to do this. You just have to find the one that works for you and your story. A few ways to make a folktale your own:
Tell the story from the perspective of a side character: In “Hansel and Gretel,” the stories usually end with the children returning home to find their wicked stepmother has inexplicably vanished. It’s a perfect happy ending for the kids, but I always wondered what exactly was going on in that cottage while the siblings were off fighting for their lives. Thus my story “The Woodcutter” was born; it is told from the point of view of Hansel and Gretel’s father. Neil Gaiman pulled a similar trick in “Snow, Glass, Apples,” a retelling of “Snow White” from the perspective of the wicked queen (which makes her far more sympathetic a character than the original Grimm story does). In her novel The White Raven, Diana Paxson tells the story of Tristan and Isolde as seen through the eyes of Isolde’s cousin Branwen, a minor character in earlier versions of the story.
Write a sequel: What happens after Happily Ever After (or my preferred German version, which translates to “And if they are not dead, then they are still alive today”)? Did the Princess and the Frog make it, after their relationship had such a rough beginning? Where did the ensorcelled kids of Hamelin ultimately end up? If you’ve ever wondered what happened after The End, writing a sequel might be up your alley. A great example of this is Margo Lanagan’s brutal, exquisite story “The Goosle,” which details what happens after Hansel escapes the cannibalistic witch.
Motivate Your Characters: Most fairy and folktales are meant to convey a moral, so their characters tend to be simplistic and have a single major aspect: The Wicked Stepmother, The Kindhearted Girl, The Greedy Man, The Charming Prince. By giving these characters deep and complex personalities, you can find motives for the choices they make, which can build a story that is very different, or at least more engaging, than the originals. In my retelling of the Japanese folktale “The Peony Lantern,” I saw a servant who was in love with his master, rather than acting out of loyalty. That lent the story a stronger sense of tension; my main character’s personal happiness was at stake, rather than simply his master’s reputation or his own sense of duty.
There are a few things to keep in mind when you’re working on a folklore retelling. For instance, how you change things up depends on your audience. Disney knew the original Grimm tales probably wouldn’t fly with their audience of children (boiling wicked stepmothers alive and young girls cutting off their heels and toes don’t really earn a G rating) so they cleaned them up considerably. On the other hand, Robin McKinley wrote Deerskin, a version of the Charles Perrault fairy tale “Donkeyskin,” for adults, so she could take some of the creepy implications of Perrault’s tale and bring them to horrific fruition.
If you’re choosing to use folklore from a culture not your own, you might want to be wary about moving the story to a different setting. Sometimes elements are so particular to a certain culture that things can be lost in translation (one reason my Japanese folklore retellings are still set in Japan, or a Japan-like fantasy world). If you use the folklore in its original setting, do your research so you don’t misrepresent anything. It’s a lot of work, but you learn a great deal… that you can use in other projects too.
If you’re out of ideas, or even if you’re stuck on what you’re currently writing, check out some of the old stories. There’s a reason they’re still around, and they can give your writing that extra spark of magic.
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Patricia, I found your link to this post in the Alabama Authors Facebook group. Great thoughts! as a fellow YA fantasy author, I agree: there are so many great world folktales out there, ripe for the telling (and re-telling!)
Thank you! I look forward to checking out your book as well.