Synopsis: The Ancient History of Planet Crystonia (NaNoNovel #1); Princess Tales (NaNoNovel #2); SHIVER (NaNoNovel #3); The Rabbit Hole (NaNoNovel #4) Aiming for 100k or more.

I've been throwing around the idea of doing a set of short stories based on a single theme, when it occurred to me that all the stories/books/movies I like seem to be based on a sort of Beauty and the Beast theme, in fact I own more than a dozen different versions of the fairy tale Beauty & the Beast itself, plus got all the different versions of the movies too. It's a safe bet to say that Beauty & the Beast is my favorite fairy tale!

Well, on a different thread here, I was commenting about Stolkholm Syndrome and I wrote this:

After I posted that comment it occurred to me that, that there was the perfect plot for me! Here's the thing though, I don't want to just write yet another fairy tale version of Beauty and the Beast. I want to do something different.

I'm thinking I want to write 13 different versions of the Beauty & the Beast plot, each about 5,000 - 10,000 words, so that I end up with one book of short stories totaling 100,000 to 130,000 words.

What that means is that I need 13 different plots each one based on the story of Beauty and the Beast, but each one totally different! I'd kind of like to take the story of Beauty and the Beast and retell it from various cultures and times in history, plus in different genres (one fantasy, one science fiction, one horror, one chick-lit, etc,). Does that make sense?

EDIT TO ADD:

Well, a week ago, my plan was to write 13 different versions of Beauty and the Beast, (see here for info: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3010939 ) but than I sent my plot to a distant galaxy and now I'm thinking, to do 13 different fairy tales as they would have happened on this planet I'm designing, instead.

Anyways, I'm planning to do Little Mermaid too... only I want her to kill the prince in the end... sort of a twist on the original. Of course I was always planning a Beauty and the Beast on the darker side too... maybe Beauty let's Beast die? Something like that. Hey, I write Stolkholm Syndrome style horror, so it's bound to effect my retellings of fairy tales too, you know?

So, I'm NOW planning to pick 13 fairy tales, move them off earth and onto that other planet (see here http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3028439 & here http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3026985 for info on the planet and it's people) and retell them how they would have happened there.

But here's the thing: I need them to be 13 different fairy tales that I could do the whole Stolkholm Syndrome style horror twist on.

PS:
Stolkholm Syndrome style horror is a story when a person is kidnapped/captured/tortured/etc by the villain and than for some odd reason falls in love with said villain, who may or may not fall in love with their victim. The story may or may not have a happy ending.

I've yet to write a happily ever after and have no plans to start now. My villians win, my heroes die, lovers kill each other, and every one ends up in a pool of blood. That's ...uhm... just my writing style, I guess. Anyways, I'm looking for a list of fairy tales that I can hack apart, and I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions on which fairy tales you think I should add to my list?

You can leave your ideas here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3031425

Okay, so I'm still thinking I'll go with my *Beauty and the Beast* plot, but now I'm wanting to do it in an ice age world/realm/planet, and I'm wondering though, on the hows and why of it being an ice realm, ice age type planet, and was hoping for some thoughts on this. This is kind of a two part question.

I'm planning to retell 13 different fairy tales in a horror-type theme, but told on a distant ice realm planet setting instead of told on earth. Am I making sense so far?

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#1.) First off: What would you expect to find/see in an ice realm? Anything from landscape to plant life to what people wear to house people build to the type of daily weather. Basically, what do you think of when you think of an ice world? What would you expect to find if you was to visit or live there?

What types of animals, beasts, birds, fish, monsters, and/or mythical beast might you expect to find on an ice planet?

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#2.) Secondly: I'm going on the theory that the planet was originally like our earth, but somehow froze over. What would cause a planet to become completely covered in ice and snow, yet still be able to sustain life? I'm looking for either scientific facts or something that could convincingly *sound* like it was scientific fact even though it isn't. Though if being all scientific isn't possible, I'm open to listening to just plain old random guesses too.

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#3.) How believable is would it be for me to go with a back-story like this:

The way I'm plotting it out at the moment, I'm assuming that the planet was once a near duplicate of our earth more or less, but than a comet crashed into the planet's atmosphere and altered the planet somehow, causing most of the planet's surface to freeze over almost instantly, thus killing off 80 - 90% of the population. Those that survived have learned to adapt to the new ice world.

So my setting it with a primitive-lifestyle culture on a distant frozen planet, yet they have spaceships and laser weapons. I have a very clear image of these people in my head. I can see how they live and what they look like and I really, REALLY like them.

I'm liking the whole primitive folks on the ice planet, fighting off other aliens with space ships and laser weapons. (I did say Beauty and the Beast and other fairy tales in space right?) I'm plotting it all out in my head. Everything is moving along great, and I'm finally coming up with a story plan I think I can write for NaNo. So I 'm here, building up the planet and the races and cultures and plant life and animal life, and designing the ships and weapons and than it hits me:

Primitive lifestyle with spaceships and laser weaponry? WTH?

By primitive I mean not quite cave people but not quite medieval either, somewhere in between. They still wear furs and skins, but they have woven cloth too (maybe left over from before?). They hunt with spears and swords (guns and cannons not yet invented or reinvented). They have no cars, or such, and still ride on horses (and dragons, this will have dragons in it too). One or two wealthy families have a wagon-like thing, but every body else walks or rides a beast of some sort. They do not have electricity, but use some weird crystals that acts like fire to bring warmth and light but doesn't burn they hands so they can carry them around. (No way to build fires since the ice age started...uhm, not sure why yet.)

And yet, they have this huge intergalactic starship, and in it are several smaller space ships that can go from the planet's surface to the starship. And here's the oddest thing of all: they are carrying these laser weapons, kind of a 1950's ray gun like thing. (I can actually see this story going all 1950's B-movie cliche on me, if I'm not careful)

So here's the thing that brings me here to you guys: How can they be such a primitive peoples, and yet have these ships and laser weapons? Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas on how I might be able to explain this phenomena?

I'm thinking that maybe they had the tech years ago, but that some sort of massive *Armageddon* type event wiped out most of the population... and the ones that survived had no idea how to build the tech again, but somehow figured out how to use it at least minimally... (maybe leaving only children?.... thinking of the Star Trek episode Mira right now). Possibly that is also why they are living in an Ice Age as well?

And now my current era would be a few generations later.

Maybe they still have these items and keep them out of remembrance of their ancestors.

or maybe view these items as *god-like* because they have not figured out yet how to recreate them and so they only use them when *calling on the gods*?

Oh, and when I say they are a *primitive-lifestyle culture* I mean they are still living without advances sciences and stuff, so are still living like Medieval times without such things things as electricity and plumbing and such. I see them as very intelligent beings, but they just have yet to discover the ways to advance scientifically yet. I'm not saying that they are stupid or anything, just that their current science has not allowed them to advance out of a primitive-living off the land type of lifestyle yet. Basically they are content with the lifestyle they have so there is not too much goal to improve things; for the moment at least.

I'm still working on the details though, so I'm not sure exactly what I'll end up deciding.

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#4.) Anyways, sorry this post got so very, very, very long . I'm kind of working out details as I type. But, yeah, anything else you could think of to say about ice worlds, ice realms, frozen planets, or ice ages would be great. Real history or off the wall fantasy, just anything about living in icy realms real or fictional, would really help.

oh... and I'm seeing this going in a whole 10th Kingdom road... the 13 fairy tales being all kind of interconnected and turned into one long novel.

If you have any comments for this, you can post them here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3035198

Thanks!

~EK