Hello dear readers. I post today with a small plea (I promise, more in the way of helpful posts soon).
My wife is a visual artist. While her primary medium is photography, she is also a Photoshop guru and creates altered art. We have talked at length about combining my love for writing and her love of art into a single project. I would write a story, maybe 50-100 pages, and she would provide art for the work.
Here’s the thing, for what she does, I want to write something that is a haunting, ethereal, dark fairy tale type of story. Problem being, I haven’t read much in that particular genre and as much as I have some ideas, I’m unsure of the voice for it.
So I ask for your help. Do you have any suggestions of things I should read as research? I appreciate anything you might be able to suggest. I need some guidance and inspiration.
Thank you in advance.
Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” might be worth a look. The entire series is available as graphic novels. They read quickly and the story that he came up with taps into a great combination or classic mythology, fantasy and horror. There’s some particularly dark stuff in the first volume and the series doesn’t hit its stride until the second, but you may find it useful.
Thanks Paulo. I’ve been a huge fan of Gaiman’s novels, but never read the Sandman books. I’ll check them out.
You might want to check the book on The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I bought this hoping to read them with my kids. Then, when I decided to read my favorite of all time, Cinderella, it turned out one of the sister’s feet was cut off. Certainly not kids fare. You might be surprised about what you find in it.
Thanks so much. I think my wife might have a copy of this on our shelves. I didn’t think of how original fairy tales were much darker than the censored versions most of us are familiar with.
Its been a long while since I read it, but Feists Faerie Tale comes to mind. Certainly the film Pans Labyrinth can provide some haunting visual inspiration as well.
Thanks Kevin. I’m not familiar with Feist’s work, I read the synopsis on Amazon and think I will check it out. Yes, Pans is an amazing film. To be honest, it’s the immediate thing that came to mind when I thought about doing a work along these lines. That’s half the reason I wanted suggestions because I needed other ideas to stimulate me so I wouldn’t just churn out a poor man’s Pan. Clearly you and I think alike 🙂