How Self-Hatred Lead to Writing an Awesome Snow White Adaptation

Not really, though. More like a love for my craft.

I’ve come across a few roadblocks as I write my enhanced edition of Snow-white, titled As White As Snow. They were relatively easy to get around, but the one I’m going to write about today…

Well, this one almost made me hate myself.

Trying to Make Things Easy for Myself

Things went swimmingly after deciding on the names for the seven dwarfs…for some chapters at least. I then had to contend with the subject of the prince. You know, that dude that comes out of nowhere in the original tale to acquire a non-decomposing corpse, or that flirts a little bit with Snow-white in Disney’s animation at the beginning.

That’s when I had to stop again, and think. Why? Well, because I was trying to, again, not give myself more work than necessary. If he’s a prince, that meant he was either Snow’s brother, or a prince from another land. Did I want to go through the trouble of creating another kingdom? No. That would mean I would have to come up with the relationship between his, and Snow’s kingdom, their geographical location, would probably have to come up with the Prince’s parents if he and Snow were going to get married by the end…

It was a whole lot of work I wanted to avoid because, again, this was supposed to be a quick, fun, light project.

So I wanted the prince to be the son of one of the king’s lords, as I explained in my previous post. I’d be deviating from the original tale, yes, but it really made no difference. The fact that the prince was a prince did not impact the story at all. I figured I could change that detail and it wouldn’t be such a jarring thing.

There was only one problem.

It’s Not Easy to Come By Easy Things

By the end of the original Snow-white tale, a king passes judgement on the wicked deeds of the evil queen.

Which makes sense, right? Only another king seems “fit” to pass judgement on the liege (liegess?) of another country. He probably shouldn’t, as it’s none of his business what happens in another kingdom, but that’s how this story goes.

Would it make sense for a lord to pass judgement on the queen? After a revolution, perhaps, but that is waaaaaay outside the scope of this tale.

So Snow’s love interest had to be a prince. Which meant I had to come up with another kingdom (or country), which meant I had to come up with the prince’s father, and names for the kingdom so it wouldn’t get confusing, etc, etc, etc. It also made sense that if there were two kingdoms, there would be at least two others that had an impact on their society and economy.

I stopped writing, and thought for a little while. Five minutes at most. I was sure now that if stuff like this was coming up, it would likely just keep coming. And that meant that if I kept going, I was either going to treat this as a serious, full fledged project, or just leave it at that and look for another one that would be fun, light, and quick.

Why did I hate myself so much that I was considering having to do more work than necessary? And work that might not pay off in the end at that.

To be completely transparent with you, as I’m writing this, I again ask why I didn’t just abandon the project. I wonder why I decided to keep goin. I wonder what made me leave it up to chance how many kingdoms there were in this world, pick up an 8 sided die, and roll it.

It landed showing an 8. Eight kingdoms to define and work on just to write an adaptation of a tale that’s originally some pages long at most. I stared at that number for a while, letting my mind process what it was seeing, and the work that lay ahead of me.

I already stated that I was enjoying this project, and that I truly have faith in it. When I sit down to work on it, I lose perception of time and get lost in the flow of it. That, right there, is the surest sign that what you are doing fulfills you.

I care for this project, and I was not going to leave it.

So I stared at that number for a while. Not sure how long, but it wasn’t all that much. Then, a thought. Many things went through my mind in less than a second, and I nodded. Once, twice, thrice…

Fine, I thought with a smile slowly stretching my lips. “Fine, yeah.”

Time to Crack Them Knuckles

Here’s what went through my mind: See, I was already thinking of enhancing more fairy tales. Not only those adapted by Disney, but the ones I liked from the rest of the anthology collected by the Grimm brothers.

So why not create a world where I could do that? The die had come up an 8 for the number of kingdoms. 4 of those could be the home for my “Grimm enhancements”, but what about the other 4?

Well, it occurs to me that fairy tales come from all over the world. I’ve read some of the Arabian Nights, and have been directed to more tales from a variety of different countries.

Those would be future projects, however, since I’m really not familiar with cultures other than the western one. So let’s set those 4 free “kingdoms” aside for a few years, and concentrate on the ones I plan to use for my Grimm enhancements.

By this point, this was a serious writing project. Unintuitively, I was going to have to pause the writing for some days, and work on the foundation of everything. I created a new document in my As White As Snow folder, and titled it Worldbuilding.

I’ll let you know more about it in the next post, fellow. May the runes fall in your favor until then.

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