Today, I'm happy to have fantasy author H.L. Burke here to talk about her love of fairy tales, something that inspired her to write Dragon's Curse. Be sure to check out this fantastic new release as well as her great contest at the bottom of this post.
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I’ve always been fascinated by fairy tales. They’re deceptively simple, filled with the fantastic, and convey awesome stories in bite sized portions. Also, they are a near endless source of entertainment. You can move from the familiar (anything that has been adapted by Disney) to the obscure, and every tale has countless versions and reimaginings. Every culture has its own traditional tales, and if you exhaust Europe, you can move through Asian, African, Native American folklore.
Often as a child I would
check out fairy tale anthologies from the library and skim through the
Cinderellas and Tom Thumbs looking for “new” stories. Some of my favorites are East
of the Sun, West of the Moon, The Green Serpent, and The Blue
Bird. These stories all involved a prince or beloved turned into an animal
who had to earn a woman's love while deprived of his true form. In all three
the female protagonist, be she princess or farmer's daughter, had to trek great
distances or endure hardships to find her lover after a mistake or
misunderstanding separated them. In The Blue Bird, the girl has to
walk until she has worn out three pairs of iron shoes, broken three iron
walking sticks, and eaten three loaves of iron bread. That's a lot to go
through, even for true love. In East of the Sun, West of the Moon, it is
also up to the heroine to save the hero. These heroine's aren't perfect. They
have a bad habit of lighting candles and dropping hot wax on enchanted princes
for one thing, but they are brave and determined, which is a nice change from
some of the more decorative princesses.
There are many other
cherished fairy tales with all sorts of random, weird and wonderful happenings.
Sometimes people get their heads or toes cut off. On occasion people are boiled
alive. White cats have magical palaces and help the youngest son of a king gain
the throne. Girls weave shirts out of nettles while sobbing in graveyards.
Occasionally it doesn't end happily, but more often then not it does.
I’d read through story
after story, pick out my favorite elements, and play with them in my head or on
paper.
Like . . .
What if I combined the
traditional “sleep for 100 years” Sleeping Beauty with the Disney “met her true
love in the forest” version and the prince couldn’t wake her until he was 116?
Would he die after bestowing the magical kiss or do I give them a happy ending
and renew his youth so they can live for another hundred years? What if a
princess hired a dragon to get rid of an unwanted suitor? What if the prince or
princess decided he/she liked being a talking frog or bird or polar bear and
said, “no thank you” to the magical kiss?
I’d toy with the ideas until coming up with my own versions of these stories. After a bit, they would take on a life of their own. Without giving away too much, several of these elements ended up in my book Dragon’s Curse and its sequels.
Someday I'd like to
write out a full length version of The Blue Bird, but for now, I'm too
obsessed with my own stories. To me writing a new fairy tale is “Happily Ever
After.”
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Dragon's Curse, book one
in The Dragon and the Scholar Saga
by H. L. Burke
On her first assignment
out of the Academy, young healer and scholar, Shannon Macaulay is summoned to
the struggling kingdom of Regone to see to the wounds of a young but crippled
king. When the unwanted attentions of an aggressive knight and the sudden
appearance of a hated dragon turn her world upside down, she decides to take
matters into her own hands even if doing so proves dangerous. Finding herself
strangely drawn to the company of the dragon, Gnaw, Shannon must force herself
out of her safe world of books and botany to come to the aid of her unexpected
ally in a strange kingdom, cursed by a fateful encounter with a dragon and the
loss of a beloved prince. Can she learn to put aside her fears, and perhaps
sacrifice her deepest desires, to help a friend and restore a family?
Dragon's Curse is available on Amazon.com.
H. L. Burke on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/H.-L.-Burke/e/B00EYQ1HLW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
H. L. Burke on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hlburkewriter
H. L. Burke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/typativemamacat
H. L. Burke on
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7230868.H_L_Burke
H. L. Burke's Author
Website: http://www.hlburkeauthor.com/
About the Author: H. L. Burke
Born in a small
town in north central Oregon, H. L. Burke spent most of her childhood around
trees and farm animals and always accompanied by a book. Growing up with epic
heroes from Middle Earth and Narnia keeping her company, she also became an
incurable romantic.
An addictive
personality, she jumped from one fandom to another, being at times completely
obsessed with various books, movies, or television series (Lord of the Rings,
Star Wars, and Star Trek all took their turns), but she has grown to be what
she considers a well-rounded connoisseur of geek culture.
Married to her
high school crush who is now a US Marine, she has moved multiple times in her
adult life but believes home is wherever her husband, two daughters, and pets
are.
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