In a scene from the movie version of Sex and the City, Carrie reads the Cinderella fairy tale story to Charlotte’s daughter Lily. At the end of the telling, Lily wants to hear it again and looks completely enraptured with the tale. Carrie gives her a wary look and asks, “You know this isn’t true, right? It doesn’t happen in real life?”
Lily just looks up at her and says, “Again,” meaning she wants to hear the story, not Carrie’s negative take on it.
Like Lily, I was enamored with the Cinderella fairy tale when I was a kid. I watched the Leslie Ann Warren version of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical on tv about 100 times.
When my daughter was little, we owned every VHS version of the Disney Princess movies from Sleeping Beauty to Snow White to Mulan.
The were many common themes running through those tales that, for the times they were written, rang true for children. Don't talk to strangers ( Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel); beauty is only skin deep ( The Ugly Ducking, Beauty and the Beast) there's no place like home (The Little Mermaid, Jack and the Beanstalk ). They all served to tell some kind of cautionary tale to children so that they would obey their elders and think twice before being naughty.
Kids will be kids, though, so I kinda think that didn't work exactly as planned. But that's just me.
As someone who writes romantic fiction for a living, I see those fairy tales in a slightly different light. Told from an adult perspective, the morals and themes of the fables can remain the same. I mean, really - don't you still think beauty is only skin deep and there really is no place like home? But how the stories are told to the contemporary book reading world is what I'm exploring these days. It's fun for me to take a classic story and put an adult spin on it, which it what I've done with my new RomCom release DIRTY DAMSELS, a spin on the classic Cinderella tale.
And, yes! I know Cinderella has been modernized before. But not like this. Hee hee
And, yes! I know Cinderella has been modernized before. But not like this. Hee hee
Since this is 2019, my Cynderella ain’t no broken down stepchild sittin’ in the corner covered in dirt and used as unpaid labor for a biatch of a menopausal step-monster.
My Cynderella Jones is the CEO of a company she founded called DIRTY DAMSELS, which caters to New York’s rich and elite who pay her company to keep their condos, mansions, and pied-a-terres spotless. Cynderella manages a stable of 20 and 30-something out of work actresses and between jobs models as her cleaning crew and she treats them with respect and kindness.
No more rags for this Cynderella, either. She wears designer labels and red power suits. And she isn’t sitting at home by the dirty fireplace waiting for a prince to come and snatch her from penury. She made her success happen all by herself with an MBA and a sound business plan.
And although Ella doesn’t need a man in her life she sure would like one, not to support her financially, but emotionally.
Like the fairy tale of yore, my version of Cynderella sports a handsome, rich, Prince, who is smitten with Ella. But each of them has a secret they’re keeping from the other, and when it’s discovered, their fairy tale HEA is in some serious jeopardy.
Also like that fable of yesterday, human and relatable themes run through this story. Forgiveness is a key one for me, as is treating others how you'd like to be treated.
And..... this wouldn't be a fairy tale - old or modern - without the Happily Ever After scrolling through the credits at the end.
So, tell me, what's your favorite fairy tale, and which would you like to see modernized?
Until next month ~ Peg
