Stop Writing Like It's a Fairy Tale!

Plus the disturbing thing about Snow White and TONS of writing resources!

*For writing links and resources, scroll down.*

Don’t get me wrong, I love fairy tales.

My MFA thesis was a short story collection entitled Meat Man and Bear Boy: Fairy Tales for Today. And I landed my first agent with a middle grade fairy tale retelling. So, yeah. I don’t hate fairy tales.

Fairy tales are great for inspiration. They contain major archetypes and symbols, classic storytelling structure, and perhaps even the collective unconscious of humanity. Good stuff.

However. The way they are actually written is often pretty boring.

And I can say this because I have a five-year-old who is currently obsessed with fairy tales, and I’m bored out of my skull reading them to her each night.

Of course there are million different versions and translations of these stories, and some are better written (and less boring) than others. I’m not here to say fairy tales are boring (I don’t actually think that), but I’m going to use them as an illustration for what NOT to do in your own writing.

For my example I will use the book I’m currently reading to my daughter every night: A Treasury of Bedtime Stories, edited by Linda Yeatman and published by Simon & Schuster in 1981 (the book belonged to my husband when he was a child).

Every night my daughter gets 3 stories from this book, which is her current favorite.

The problem with fairy tales:

Here’s beginning of “Hansel and Gretel” from A Treasury of Bedtime Stories. See if you can figure out why you shouldn’t write like this:

There was once a woodcutter who lived with his children at the edge of the forest. He had a son called Hansel and a daughter called Gretel. The children’s mother had died when they were small, and as their father had married again they had a stepmother. The family was very very poor indeed. Although the woodcutter worked as hard as he could, he did not earn much money and the whole family often went to bed hungry.

What is this, people? Let’s say it together: TELLING INSTEAD OF SHOWING.

It goes on:

The children’s stepmother was not at all fond of Hansel and Gretel. She hated having to make what little food there was go round four people. Often she used to suggest sending the children away, but as their father loved them he always refused.

More telling. In fact, the entire first page is summary. There’s no setting description or sensory details or dialogue or anything else to make the story come alive in our minds.

Of course, there’s a good reason fairy tales are like this: because the way we tell a story orally is different from the way we write it. In the oral storytelling tradition (which is how fairy tales originated), it’s easier to remember the gist of a summary than to memorize full-blown scenes. That’s why the dialogue you do get in a fairy tale is often repeated (“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” for example).

First page no-no:

I recently taught a class on First Pages, and I do a monthly feature on Substack called Fabulous First Pages. I think a lot about how to best start a story. And a big no-no is starting your book with too much backstory, too much info-dumping, too much telling.

Let’s rewrite the opening to “Hansel and Gretel.” Instead of starting with summary and telling, we could start in a scene that shows how hungry and poor the family is:

The tiny woodcutter’s cabin was drafty, and Hansel and Gretel shivered in the small, straw-filled bed they shared. The fierce rumbling of their bellies kept them awake, and so they overheard the whispered conversation their parents were having on the other side of the cabin.

“I say we take them into the woods and leave them there,” their stepmother said, her hunger clearly making her more irritable than usual. She poked at the dying fire, and the acrid smell of smoke filled the room.

“We can’t do that! They’d die,” their father said.

“We’re all going to die if we don’t start getting more to eat!”

You see? Now we have something to visualize. We’re getting some sensory details (sight, smell, sound, touch). I don’t mean to pick on fairy tales, but they often provide a great example of what not to do in our own writing.

In fact, here’s a writing exercise for you: Grab a book of fairy tales, choose one story, and rewrite it with less telling and more showing. Write scenes that include sensory details, setting description, dialogue, and character interiority to bring the story to life… and perhaps put your own unique spin on a classic tale.

(And while we’re on the subject, check out

Laura Leffler

’s great post on “Show Don’t Tell.”)

illustration by Hilda Offen

That being said…

…Sometimes it can be really fun to use fairy tale language to set a fable-like vibe for your story (if that’s the vibe you’re going for). Here is the first paragraph of my story “The Three Gateways,” which was part of my MFA thesis of modern fairy tales and was also published in the anthology Witches, Stitches, and Bitches, edited by Shannon Page:

There was once a girl named Nadine who had eyes as blue as gumballs and hair as black as pavement. She lived with her mother and wicked stepfather in a small, yellow house by the river. The river was wide and brown, and on hot days it smelled like sewage. The smelled wafted through Nadine’s neighborhood of old, crumbling houses and made everyone wish they had enough money to live somewhere else.

Definitely sets a fairy tale tone (a dark one), wouldn’t you say? And notice I put some sensory details in there. Smell, people, don’t forget to include smell in your writing!

The necrophilia is strong in this one:

We all know many of the classic fairy tales are problematic, but every time I read this part of “Snow White” to my 5-year-old, I cringe:

Not long after this a prince came riding through the forest and came to the hill where Snow White lay in her glass-topped coffin. She looked so beautiful that he loved her at once and he asked the dwarfs if he might have the coffin and take it to his castle. The dwarfs would not allow him to do this, for they too loved Snow White. But they did agree to let the prince kiss her.

When you think about it, this is quite disturbing. The prince falls instantly in love with what appears to be a corpse and wants to take the dead body back to his castle. The dwarves are like, no, no, we love this corpse, too, but tell you what, you can kiss her cold lips if you’d like. I mean… yikes.

(There’s no writing lesson here; I just felt the need to share.)

Writing News & Resources:

For All Writers:

• Sign up for agent

  Renee Fountain
  ’s FREE webinar on March 12: Building Your Author Platform: Strategies for Every Personality.

• The Hedgebrook Writing Residencies for Women Application is now open (deadline April 14).

• The WriteMentor Novel & Picture Book Award is now open. They are looking for unpublished and unaccented writing talent in children’s, young adult, and adult fiction. Deadline: April 1.

• The 24th Annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Prize from Winning Writers is open. Free to submit with lots of cash prizes. Deadline: April 1.

• March Submission Calls from Angelique Fawns. I believe these are all no-fee opportunities, and many of them pay as well!

• The Writers Center website is a GREAT resource for finding grants, fellowships, residencies & retreats, publishers (who publish non-agented authors), and literary journal opportunities.

• Writing Workshops offers lots of online classes in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, picture books, and the business of writing.

• Check out the meet-up group called Shut Up & Write. There are in-person chapters all over the country, as well online events.

• Looking for places to submit your writing? Check out NewPages and Sub Club.

For KidLit Writers:

• The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition is now open for unaccented and unpublished writers for a middle grade or Young Adult novel.

  First prize is a worldwide publishing contract with Chicken House with a royalty advance of £10,000. Deadline: June 2.

• Literary Rambles has information on kidlit agents and agent interviews. Plus contests and giveaways.

• Here’s an incredible list of upcoming events for KidLit writers!

• Check out SCBWI (The Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) for events, conferences, critique partners and more. (Picture book through YA.)

For Querying Writers:

• RevPit submissions open March 15. In this contest, querying authors can win feedback and edits on their full manuscript from a professional editor.

• My friend Bethany Alcott’s debut YA novel is coming out next February with Whimsical Publishing. And guess what, Whimsical is currently open to manuscript submissions, no agent required. Check out their submission guidelines for more info.

• And here’s a list of other small publishers that do not require agents.

• Andrea Bartz has a list of successful query letters (including mine!).

• I occasionally choose a subscriber for a FREE submission package critique. Send me your query and first two pages, and, if I chose your submission, I will send you feedback on both. Fill out the form here.

Writing Conferences & Events:

• Publish Now! A One-Day Conference about getting published is happening in person at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD on Saturday, March 8.

• Recently two separate people recommended this online writing conference to me: Women in Publishing Summit, happening March 5-8, 2025.

• Writer’s Digest is holding their 3rd annual Mystery/Thriller Writing Virtual Conference March 21-23. Plus lots of other events and online conferences coming up!

• The Women’s Fiction Virtual Summit is happening June 21-22, and from now until March 5 they are open to workshop proposals.

• The enormous AWP conference (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) will be held in Los Angeles this year, March 26-29.

• If you live in the DC area, this comprehensive Calendar of Local Literary Events, compiled by Washington Independent Review of Books is overwhelming and awesome.

• Live in the mid-Atlantic region and looking for a writing retreat get-away? The Writer’s Retreat at Good Contrivance Farm north of Baltimore is open year-round. The only requirement for this peaceful retreat is that you use the time to work on your writing. Spaces normally book about two months in advance.

• Thinking about going to a conference or applying for a residency? Check out the free searchable database on Poets & Writers.

• The James River Writers Conference in Richmond, VA will be held Oct. 4 - 6. They also have a best self-published novel contest — applications due February 28.

• The Annapolis Book Festival will be held on Saturday, May 3, 2025.

• The Writing Day Workshop “How to Get Published” Conferences are affordable and helpful. Plus, sign up for pitch sessions with agents for $29 a piece. For online conferences, attend from anywhere in the world! Check out the upcoming conferences:

  • Carolina Writing Workshop (Charlotte): March 7, 2025 (in person)

  • Carolina Writing Workshop (Raleigh): March 8, 2025 (in person)

  • Texas Writing Workshop: March 7-8, 2025 (online)

  • Alabama Writing Workshop (Birmingham): March 14, 2025 (in person)

  • Atlanta Writing Workshop: March 15, 2025 (in person)

  • Writing Workshop of South Florida (Fort Lauderdale/Pompano): March 15, 2025 (in person)

• I’m going to Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention in New Orleans September 3-7! See you there?

• Writers Digest offers loads of virtual conferences on a variety of publishing and writing craft topics.

• For more writing conferences, check out this list or the free searchable database on Poets & Writers.