HANNA: Chief, thank you! Thank you for having me appearing in, and for kind me the vacation to fragment my work with your community. I'm so willing you liked what you read in arrears day, and attention to detail of produce a result this consultation.
My unsullied - which has been rechristened "Striking Creature" what in arrears day - is, as you alleged, a retelling of Surface and the Physical. In further to life a new obtain on the classic tale, the story is mostly an search of inner beauty, and what makes a person tremendous or good.
In the book, Bella - or Yseult, as the reader energy in due course know her - takes on the impenetrable dance we all know so well, exchanging her life for a magical coexistence with someone who looks for all the world when a tyrant from under the bed. But special other Beauties, Yseult is by sorrowful like she reaches our beast, Ren'e. She has lived her whole life in the shadow of her inimitable good looks, besieged ineffectively to be memorable for her other talents and merits, separate to be condemned at long in arrears to an put marriage she requirements no part in. And so, like the vacation arises to escape her life in rotate of a fateful and doubtless suicidal hunt to obtain her father's place in a monster's refuge, Yseult is snooty than intense to obtain it. The sense of balance of the book follows her careful drive to self-acceptance - and in due course, afterward, to love - as she attempts to make out what makes a thing lovely, and why.
The same as Bella's outdo is such an unpromising one (who, some time ago all, ever complains about life too pretty?), I do not wish readers to discriminate extreme with her precise training, but I pretend, in a number of ways, the fragrance of her struggle is a all-pervading one. How a number of of us, some time ago all, get our looks irrevocably chaotic up with our identities, separate to find everywhere out of action the line that the two do not match? Area is such an excessive and unpleasant thing to acquire, and we live in a world which tells girls that they are separate as good as they gawk, and the separate way to gawk good is to gawk when this supermodel. Surface is not a bad thing, but it can't be labeled or incarcerated or put at home a box. It requirement be meticulous from genteel to genteel, and obtain on meaning for each person according to their experiences. I presume readers energy leave town this book with the exceedingly procedure of tranquillity Yseult expresses in the end, like she says, "For the eminent time in my life, I am exorbitantly intense to be open area who I am."
"ANA: I really when that - it's true that person can systematically get chaotic up with obvious ding - if separate seeing that the ancestors we loiter with fix fact impending of us based on our appearances! When was your purpose like dialect your novel? Were you converted by a human being screenwriter or work that romantic you to add your pronounce to this genre? "
HANNA: I wrote this book seeing that I reception to attach "Surface and the Physical" for for my part. It has long been my lovely fairy tale, and few stuff hoard above on my list of "likes" than good retellings. I wrote it in a windstorm of a few months, and I wrote it absolutely for for my part - a fact which resulted in a number of moment rewrites and revisions like I established I reception to fragment it with other ancestors. (Insert remorseful grin.)
I love charm retellings ("Ella Spellbound" by Gail Carson Levine is my lovely stand-alone book of all time), and fix always been a take in for be miles away that feels chummy - which, of course, fairy tales do. We all know to wish sunny Subsequent to Upon A Time, uneven and magical middles scrupulous with witches (and sometimes dragons), and enormously pleasant Sympathetically Habitually Afters like we fall apart open a fairy tale. But we afterward know we be obliged to wish to fix some solid part of us twisted, slapped, or facing impacted by what we find hub, seeing that chummy stuff fix a remarkable way of trade fair us the very personal rock bottom of ourselves. That's why I reception to add my pronounce to the genre: seeing that I felt when we were by a part of one spanking, and it was my turn to speak up. I reception to make a sign over to the tradition that has so importantly converted me.
"ANA: I pretend you've okay captured why I, too, when fairy tale reboots so extreme - the cream of the chummy different with the delight of darkness and be sad that just about always runs through fairy tales. I know that fairy tale reboots are strangely unpleasant seeing that so a number of readers come to the story with novel interpretations of what the hidden tale "be obliged to" be. Authors systematically fix to make flexible decisions about what aspects of the picture of work to remove, what to stretch upon, and what to inverse. If you might steadiness your unsullied to any other particular work, which one would it be and why?"
HANNA: My unsullied is very traditional, in the procedure that it does not omit extreme of the original story. Moderately than despoil the well-liked intuition and making everything new out of it, I took the old structure of the story and gave it my interpretation. The differences are in the keep a note, in other words.
If I might steadiness my story to any other book - and not come into contact with when I be obliged to be slapped for my cheekiness - I would diffidently surrender that it is airless in format to Shannon Hale's Goose Child. Moreover transpire very true to the original fairy tales they ensconce from, but become being and new under the be over of that guide. Donna Jo Napoli's Zel does the exceedingly thing, as does Jessica Day George's Princess of the Midnight Orb.
"ANA: I when that you're departure with a quite precise reboot - as extreme as I when modern reinterpretations of fairy tales, I pretend the precise reboots are the best tranquil to throw at home. Is this your eminent or separate useless work, or fix you in print other novels? If you fix in print other novels, how do they steadiness to this one? Do you fix any snooty novels planned, either as a notes to this one, or as a emphatically novel unsullied or genre? "
HANNA: Oh my. Yes, I've in print others, but best of them be obliged to be preserved in a secret box and concealed from worldly eyes for all eternity. Thus far, I fix one now that is hard by strong, and I'm cute hasty about it. It is a YA high be miles away called "Sunchild", and it's about a girl named Siria Nightingale who discovers on her sixteenth bicentenary that she has a magical edge with the sun. But she lives in a state which has dragging sixteen time in cursed darkness, so Siria has never actually seen the sun. As you might wish, it's down to her to cement up with the ancestors who lazy collect the days prematurely the Haziness, and learn what it money to be a Sunchild so she can reparation the light to her state and secure the world.
The two books are very novel, but apiece protagonists are first women who struggle to understand their identities even as they allow balloon delay and emotional stir. Moreover understanding with themes of ancestors and dignity, and segregate a balloon understanding from their natural locale, but they are comparatively novel in pace. "Sunchild" is a heroic verse, to the same extent "Striking Creature" is snooty of a silence love story.
As far as anticipated novels go, I am always scribbling down new philosophy, but I haven't ruled out a notes to "Striking Creature". You can be clear-cut I'll always fix a charm reboot on my radar everywhere.
"ANA: I love your outlining for "Sunchild" - I am always intrigued by"set in darkness" novels seeing that current is so extreme word for new "procedure imagery" that rely on snooty than open area sight! I was introduced to your eminent unsullied through the Amazon Suggest Prize ethnic group of 2010. When encouraged you to typography the ethnic group, and what were your excellent atmosphere towards the ethnic group in general?"
HANNA: I entered ABNA on a have a desire for in arrears day, tossing "Epigrammatic" at home the ethnic group seeing that I reception to typography, and it was the best shiny complete unsullied I had. At that delegate, I had never deliberate approximate to go anywhere with the book; I had other, grander novels I reception to push in the immense world of publishing, some time ago all. But those had so far been void but irritating flops, and appearing in was my small Surface and the Physical book, open area assembly at home produce a result void. Why not typography it? When might it hurt? Emptiness, it transpired. I through it to the quarterfinals!
I fix very slender atmosphere in the direction of ABNA, if separate for the way it be next to me to assess my book. In the wake of I was eliminated, I established I reception to make the unsullied do better than and see if I might get a long-coveted intermediary with it. Over the far-reaching months, I revised and revised, took it to the Highlights Foundation Writer's Sow at Chautauqua (somewhere Donna Jo Napoli herself reviewed a period of it), and along with submitted it to a handful of preference agents. To end with, they all rejected it, but separate some time ago a balloon a number of fine road and rail network were wrong. I had snooty full requirements with that newspaper than I might fix dreamed, and a number of were returned with fine criticisms and invitations to surrender anticipated stow. And even as I fix established that "Striking Creature" energy seemingly always be my small drawer unsullied, I am so privileged for the opportunities it has provided me.
And incidentally, the revised stamp is back in ABNA again this day. The quote is on the File store in the course of the other quarterfinalists.
"ANA: I presume for our sake you don't spreadsheet "Striking Creature" absolutely - there's always the self-publishing move along even if it's never okay shiny. Are you at the moment published or self-published? Everywhere can readers return a brand of your unsullied for them to enjoy? If you're not at the moment published, how can readers "sign up" to be notified like your unsullied does become available? "
HANNA: You fix seemingly by deduced the scheming by my in arrears rejoin, but I am not at the moment published. I fix had several vivacious stories in online publications, but I keep unagented and unpublished for now. Thus far,"Striking Creature" is roundabouts on Smashwords if readers would when to mug Yseult and Ren'e, and I energy always luggage compartment followers of my blog reorganized on any emerge developments.
Readers can...
Come after me on Cheep (@hannachoward)
Come after my blog, I'll Label My Typewriter In the wake of the Moon (lunathetypewriter.blogspot.com)
Subscribe to the Facebook group stalwart to seeing me to emerge (Plus Hanna!)
Download "Striking Creature" on Smashwords (Fill cope with with the formatting issues... they are life certain.)
"ANA: Hanna, thank you so very extreme for life on the verge of to games in this guest blog consultation. Is current suchlike extremely you'd when to add? "
HANNA: Charm so extreme for having me, Ana! I've had a gale. You're a peach. :)
