I started thinking yesterday about how I could take the old tales I love so much and flip them. I've done quite a bit of drafting with altered myths, and once or twice tried out flipping a classic tale (I've got the ideas for a Jungle Book-esque tale called A Rat in the Twain House I'd like to sit with for a while), but generally, these don't go too far. Why? I wish I knew!
But yesterday, I started thinking... what if I retold the ballad of Tam Lin from a wolf's perspective? A young female wolf comes upon a handsome stranger, a wolf of pure white, and falls in love with him only to discover that he's the captive of the faerie queen? I'm not sure how the details would work, but I had a wonderful unfolding of the climactic scene where the heroine must hold fast to her love as the faeries transform him from one form to another. If she can hold him, he is free - if not, their souls are forfeit. I can only imagine her horror when the queen turns her one true love into a human man... for to a wolf, that would be the most horrific form imaginable...
Or perhaps, a Beauty and the Beast from a wolf's eyes. The protagonist is captured by what appears to be a most brutal human male in exchange for the life of her alpha, and is forced to remain with him... but eventually, she discovers his secret: he is a werewolf who fears and loathes his wolf form, and only her love can make the curse bearable.
It's lovely fun to play with stories that are hardwired into our minds and hearts.
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