Not Such a Beauty (Q2)
7
Prose - 1405 Q2
This is a piece I’m very happy with, maybe it’s even my favorite. I had had the idea to write a fairytale re-telling since I read a book called A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Mass during summer. I wanted to do this with a contemporary twist, so I chose my favorite Disney fairytale Beauty and the Beast and started drafting.
My writing process for this piece was very choppy and it took me over three weeks to finish writing. So, revising it was very hard because I changed key details such as the date and names. Somehow I managed to polish it and it turned out to be one of my favorites.
My goal for this piece was to mock fairytales and society’s unrealistic standards and I managed to do this, specially though my introduction. “Once upon a time, there was a girl who was taken, captured, but little did she know she was destined for greatness. This is my story and it happens to be told over and over again. You see, young girls romanticize the idea about being kidnapped and falling in love with their captor. This is a disease, you know? It’s called Stockholm Syndrome. It’s not cute, it’s not love and it’s definitely not real.” Unfortunately, there are things that I’m not completely in love with, for example I wanted to create an illusion of tension but I don’t think it worked, “He keeps walking. He’s too close now, totally invading my personal space. He’s leaning in. Then, without warning he hands me a box full of kitchen supplies that I don’t know where it came from, and steps away. Baffled, I simply blink.”
I feel like I could have done more with the vocabulary I selected and how the story was told. “I’m waiting,/ Asking,/ dancing./ Indulging her /So she’ll/ Indulge me.” But, then again two drunk teens are telling the story, I doubt they have a thesaurus at hand.