13 techniques/ploys to use when fracturing stories

Have the plot go off in a different direction

Oftentimes, this will happen naturally once you have altered the characters or settings. Karen Young in "The Princess and the Frog" tells the Frog Prince story, but unexpectedly goes off in another direction, when the princess discovers that the frog likes throwing balls as much as she.

• Change characters –Change people into animals and animals

into people, change the type of animal, etc.

• Add new characters

• Have well-known

characters meet in a completely

different story

Expound on why things happened in the story giving a new spin on the outcome

In The Frog Prince Revisted,by Marilyn Kinsella, it’s the Princess’s mother, the queen, who planned the whole thing.

Have the archetypical characters don different attitudes

Instead of Cinderella being sweet, have the wicked step-sisters be sweet and portray Cinderella as conniving.

• Place the story in a different setting

This ploy has been used extensively placing the story in the Wild West, Mexico, the North Pole, modern-day city, etc.

Or have a character time travel into another time and place.

• Tell the story from the point of view of another character or even another object in the story

• In Jon Scieszka’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf tells his side of the story.

Extend the ending to tell you what happened after the tale normally ended

The Frog Prince, Continued by Jon Scieszka.

Tell what happened to one of the characters in another story

What happened to the cow, Milky White, in Jack in the Beanstalk? Brock Cole in The Giant’s Toe tells the story of a giant before Jack comes to his door.

Reverse gender roles • Epitomized by Jerry Lewis in the movie

Cinderfella.

• Betsy Who Cried Wolf by Gail Levine has a young girl trying to protect her sheep

• Babette Cole’s Prince Cinders has a young man jealous of his brawny brother.

• In The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fair Tales by Jay Williams, the stories often have the princess as the one who is takes matters into her own hand.

Add some present-day sayings

In “The Frog Prince Revisited”…"It was all because the Queen wanted her own space!" These sayings can become dated and clichéd rather quickly, but they are fun to put into a story while they are hot.

• Have the fairy tale take place during a holiday –

Cinderella Skeleton by San Souci and The Gingerbread Man (Christmas) by Marilyn Kinsella

• Use a combination of techniques explained here

• Most fractured tales do employ a variety of ploys to bend and reshape the story.

• http://www.marilynkinsella.org/Workshop%20papers/Fractured%20thoughts%20workshop.htm