The Next Big Thing Blog Chain

I was chained to this by Amber Argyle (author of the Witch Song series) and so I'm sharing a little bit about my WIP with you today. No this isn't the book that goes with that awesome cover you saw last time. That's Chad's book and it isn't much of a WIP (Work in Progress) anymore. No, no, this is Shelly's book that she's been writing too long.

So without further ado (because ado is seldom useful) my WIP:

What is the working title of your book? 

The Fall of Cliff Castle (Book One in The Glass Slipper Chronicles)

Where did the idea come from for the book? 

I had just read several fairytales for fun and Cinderella was sticking in my head as a story that seems to start mid-story. So for no particular reason (after all I wasn’t a fiction writer) I started exploring all the questions that I had about Cinderella. Where is her father? How did her mother die? Where do your parents find you a fairy for a godmother?

            So I started writing a story about Isabella (Cinderella) and realized that I needed even more backstory to make this all work so I set aside Isabella’s story and started writing the story of her mother. Bada-bing bada-boom, The Fall of Cliff Castle, a prequel to Cinderella.

What genre does your book fall under? 

Middle Grade Fantasy. 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

Oh goodness, can I pass? I’ve tried before and was a miserable failure. How about this- I would choose the most talented, attractive people for the parts. Cheap cop-out? Yes, yes it is.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

A fugitive from a hostile take-over, the Princess Annabelle de la Marsillias must make a new life for herself hiding as a servant to a distant queen but how long will that last when the Blackwin’s send mercinaries and a witch after her?

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 

I pitched it to an editor at a conference and they requested a full so I will send it to them first then see where things take me from there.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

Oh lets just say 3 years though that might be misleading. It was really closer to one year because it was my first story I EVER wrote so I didn’t know where to take it to make it good. (My subsequent stories have taken me a month or two to write the first draft.) Then for two years I have done my research, read craft books, taken craft classes, and let others help me, and it has gone through significant enough changes that I would have to add all the years together.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

Gail Carson Levine is the queen of fairytales in my opinion. This is third person limited and I don’t think she normally writes in that format so she might be out.
Shannon Hale’s Goose Girl was inspirational to me writing a fairytale book. So I might just have to say Shannon Hale’s Bayern books. This is probably a good comparison because there is a lot of action in my story and I’ve always admired that about Shannon’s books. They aren’t just girly-girl books.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 

I kind of went over that in the ‘where did I get the idea’ section. But to add the who to it, I took my idea to my husband and told him to write it (he actually is a fiction writer) and he looked at me and said, ‘That is gold but you do it. It’s your story.”

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 

I believe this prequel really heightens the emotional intensity of the fairytale we all know and love. Falling in love with her parents makes her orphan-hood all the more bitter, and setting up a world in conflict, and a world surrounded by magic for both good and bad, forces her to be stronger than we normally see her in these tales. 

There you go, that's all she wrote!

Now I have to chain people to this thing...so...

M.R. Buttars
David West
Heidi Murphy
Shellie Braener