fic musings

[burntcopper]

Writing the run-up to the fourth ball - little scenes I wanted, the king talking to Jack, Dandini getting Jack ready and trying to get out of him ahead of time if he's decided, that kind of thing. After this is finished (going to bed, will post this bit to darkisrising tomorrow evening when it's done) I start on the ball and the ending that certainly doesn't contain shoes. Honest.

However, it occurs to me : If I was writing this as original fic and not a re-working of Cinderella, or even if I was still writing Cinderella but had allowed magic in it, would I have had this many balls in it? the entire point of the first one was so that Ellie could find out Jack was the Prince. The second was getting them back together, and the third was plot-related. Occurs to me that it's not entirely necessary, but then, most people wouldn't expect a surveying of the eligible females of the country in the space of one ball. I could probably do without the fourth, but how else do you end Cinderella? Mind you, considering most versions only have one... I remember reading a version that had three, but it mostly seemed to be an excuse for Cinders to wear different outfits on each night, because it's not like she was doing more than being the mysterious stranger who enchanted the prince and danced with him but barely spoke to him at each one.

Comments

[tirinar.livejournal.com]

Into The Woods (highly recommended and on DVD if you haven't seen it already) had three balls, described as a festival, but then Cinderella had a lot of thinking to do and songs to sing. After all, deciding to marry a man based on one evening of dancing and the fact that he won't take no for an answer is hardly sensible!

Power of three works in stories, but four may be pushing it?

Sounds like you're having fun with it, anyway!

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Three balls is very common, not just in the straight Cinderella story, but in a lot of the similar themed ones (no fairy godmother or a different way of getting the dresses).

There's usually something about a dress a golden as the sun, one as bright as starlight, one that glowed like the moon and so on.

[sabremeister]

Well, with three balls, Cinders knows [joke cut by taste police]!

It's your story, do what you want. I've seen a version of Cinderella with nine balls! Top it - have ten balls, if you want. Have as many as the story requires, and you feel like writing. But watch the costume budget - even imagination tends to run out after six or seven original captivating and beautiful dresses in a short space of time.

Plus, it's a "traditional" story, with no rigidly defined "original" version any more, so, if you were writing it anew, would people be able to tell? And, would three balls be enough? Every story, no matter how absurd or childish, must have internal plausable deniability consistency, for the suspension of disbelief to remain throughout the narrative. Which is why I do silly things like forget to draw maps and have to keep referring back to what I've written to find out where everybody's gone.

BTW - Genre: Science Fiction?

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

they didn't have Fairytales. and the one time I changed it to historical, it changed back.

Kind of helps that I'm not describing the clothing in any of it beyond the fact that Cinders wears breeches occasionally (horse riding, dirty work around the forge) and this horrifies her step mother.

I'm good with details and consistency, for the most part - except for finding out that I'd referred to the step mother as being called marianne in the 1st chapter, only to refer to her as having the first name of sarah everywhere else....

[sabremeister]

they didn't have Fairytales. and the one time I changed it to historical, it changed back

YA? - maybe not, considering what I know about your general output.
Other?
Fantasy?

Ho hum...