Which one is better "Show" or "Tell" the story? Fairy tale YA.

[jerrold peralta]

I was just wondering. If I am going to write a fairy tale to a YA or Teen-ager. Would it be better if I tell them like I'm reading a book or show them step by step? What would capture more YA/ Teen audience?

Jerrold

[Inspired]

This is just my opinion - Would teenagers like to be read to? I'd have to say no. So, they probably wouldn't respond well to a tell (vs. show)method. I'm not saying it can't work, but it probably wouldn't be picked up as easily as a book that puts the reader into the story. When you tell, the reader feels that they're standing in the distance watching. When you show, the reader feels like they are right there.

Try checking out some YA antasy books that were written in the last five years and see what those authors did.

[cwgranny]

Robin McKinley and Donna Jo Napoli both do YA fairy tales. I would recommend reading several from each author. They are sort of the "masters" of the YA fairy tale right now. Vivian Vande Velde also does YA fairy tales but she comes at it from a different direction and is very funny. If you plan for your stories to be literary, I would read McKinley and Napoli. If you plan for your stories to be light and to drive all the fairy tale scholars crazy, read Vande Velde.

gran

[cwgranny]

McKinley and Napoli both do FAIRY TALES. Napoli has done retellings of the frog prince (it was actually very funny), Cinderella (using the original Chinese version), Hansel and Gretel, and others. McKinley has done two versions of Beauty and the Beast and (I think) Sleeping Beauty. There may be others. I haven't read that many YA fairy tales but I have read some from both of those. They aren't fantasy (except in as much as all fairy tales are fantasy) because they aren't original storylines. They are fairy tales told using more modern conventions (mostly showing instead of telling).

Now Vande Velde has only done one "Fairy Tale" collection that I know of...a bunch of retellings of Rumplestilskin. It was very funny.

All of the above authors ALSO write fantasy -- but if you're going to publish fairy tales for the YA market, the fairy tales by these folks are good to read. For more on who is writing and publishing fairy tales for YA and adults, you should check out
http://pub25.ezboard.com/fsurlalunefairytalesfrm1 -- a group that is very serious and well-read about fairy tales.

gran

[Christine N.]

YA readers like stuff with an edge. Personally, I just finished reading "Wicked," by Gregory Maguire. He does a life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West. It was fabulous. I think YA's might like something like that. It was very well done. But I would definately go with a "show" method. Telling gets so stale after a while.

Now, if you're writing for Middle grade, which is what I aim at, then you might be able to get away with some telling, a la Lemony Snicket. LS has a great hook though, with the absolute misery of his MC's.

[Tilda]

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[blackholly]

For further reading, I would also recommend the anthology Wolf at the Door (edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling), even though it is technically middle grade; Gail Carson Levine and Jane Yolen (particularly the wonderful Briar Rose).

I also think that most books are a balance of showing and telling.

[cwgranny]

Oh, okay, I didn't understand. So the OP has written an original fantasy story using fairy tale constructs and style? That's a really tough sale. In fact, I cannot think of one that I've read in print. I have heard editors say how much they hate them (well, two editors -- one magazine editor and one book editor) and how they get lots of them. They tend to go on the list of "things we get that we would never publish" -- fractured fairy tales and "fake" fairy tales with no historical lineage. [Though I do know there is a small market for very very good fractured fairy tales]

The problem is that fairy tales are actually incredibly old. They get retold over and over as a kind of ... collective history. If you just use fairy tale trappings -- fairy godmothers, big bad wolves, or whatever -- but create it from your own head, that means you're taking archaic styles and trying to apply sell them to a modern editor with no predisposition to interest in them. Vande Velde has gotten away with it a few times but she does so by being very funny but I don't know of anyone doing serious new/fake fairy tales -- especially for YA. Though I have seen fantasy with modern techniques (showing, depth of characterization, POV use, etc) that borrow some from fairy tales -- Artemis Fowl, after all, has fairies.

Middle grade magazines will buy fantasy with some fairy tale elements -- though not the style -- but it's almost impossible in YA without a serious humor element.

And sorry about not understanding what the OP was doing...

gran

[watcher]

Tilda

CWGranny knows what she's talking about. We at the children's thread appreciate any pearls this woman chooses to toss our way.

Faye