Writers in Residence discussion

Any ideas for what to do this about? Please share!

Well, uhh, I have that one Beauty and the Beast retelling...

Yeah, me too! If you can, do you want to post the idea on here? So others who haven't seen it can see it?

If we get enough suggestions maybe I can create a poll on it and whichever gets the most votes, we can do!

Yeah, I’ll go do that now.

Thank you!

I recently became fascinated with the idea of fairytale retellings, and I got this story.
So it's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but not what you'd expect. Also, I think it should be in third person, for reasons I'll explain later. Anyway, the protagonist is a teenage boy, around seventeen. He's a coward, scared of everything, and he's also an animal charmer. So one day he's walking through the forest, gets lost, and oh, look, it's night already! And I guess he makes some mistakes, does something bad on accident, or something, and basically gets kidnapped by a young woman, probably around eighteen, who calls herself Beast. Beast is ugly, hence why she calls herself that. Beast wants to sell our poor charmer protagonist on some black market, or something, to receive money, because, well, he's an animal charmer. But he manages to convince her not to sell him, and now he's living in her basement, as a hostage, to get money from his wealthy parents. In the basement, there's another young woman, but she's asleep, and doesn't seem to wake up. She also seems to resemble the princess that disappeared from the castle a few months ago. The charmer slowly pieces things together, and tries to gain Beast's trust. Eventually, she lets him out into the forest, with his flute, so that he "doesn't forget how to charm". And this is where the fact that it's in third person begins to matter. From here on out, the reader gets to just be an outside observer, and doesn't get to see much of the protagonist's mind anymore. Then, one day, a bunch of investigators barge into Beast's house and arrest her, then the sleeping princess is awoken by a prince from the neighboring kingdom (yeah, I mixed some Sleeping Beauty in, too), and the protagonist is called a brave hero, as opposed to how he was called a coward before. You might think that that's the end, right? The bad guy was defeated, the princess saved, and our protagonist became a hero. Wrong. Here's where the plot twist comes in, and where the third person POV really begins to matter. Beast wasn't the antagonist; the charmer was. What the reader didn't know was that the princess and Beast are twins, but Beast was hated and forgotten by everyone but the princess because she was ugly. The princess was to be married to the creepy prince from the neighboring kingdom, but she didn't want that, and the prince only wanted the kingdom to himself. So, the twins ran away from the castle and hid in a cottage in the forest. Then, the princess got a disease, and, to keep her alive, Beast put a sleeping spell on her. She needed money for a cure, because the disease couldn't be cured by magic. Using her ugliness to her advantage, Beast becomes a criminal, selling things on the black market, stealing, and using other illegal methods of getting money. What the reader also didn't see was the charmer heading out into the forest, using Beast's trust against her, and charming some animals into getting a message delivered to the palace about Beast and the sleeping princess in the basement. That is, after all, the charmer's motive. He wanted to be recognized as a courageous hero, not a coward, and this was the perfect way of doing that. He betrayed Beast, and was rewarded for that.
And that is the story. We thought that the charmer was good, and that Beast was bad, but it's the complete opposite.

Also, names. I think the princess should be named Bella, and the Beast's real name should be Brutta. I couldn't think of a name for the charmer, though. I don't have any appearance in mind for Beast, but the princess, I think, should be pale, with blond hair and light brown eyes. I envisioned the charmer having warm brown skin, brown eyes that turn purple when he charms, and black hair.

Sorry for how long this is. I wasn't expecting it to be this long.
I also have a title idea, Charm and Courage, though I will happily accept any better ideas.
And that's it.

(copied and pasted from that discussion)

Also, the charmer's name is Ilan (pronounced like "island", but without the "d" sound at the end).

Thank you so much!

Also, we will be using this thread for plotting!

This discussion is dead.

what....?

It’s been inactive for a while.

I know. Maybe we should start, but I'm wondering if anyone else has any ideas... wait at least a week? Then if no one posts, then we can start...........................

I haven't really been on this, but..

I'm not that good at re-tellings, and I often discard story ideas... I guess we could do Beauty and the Beast...

Yay!

Soooooo.................... I have never done a collaborative writing before, um, if anyone has, can you tell me more on how to do it?

I've never done one either.

I'm about to do it in a club I'm in, maybe we can wait until I've started in that, so I know how it works?

Sure!

Okay, I'll let everyone know on here when I start!

@Nova I really like your story idea! Have you started working on it? If you'd like it, I think we could try a group collaboration to write out the story.
It'd be a fun learning experience :)

Thanks, but I haven’t, yet, because I’m currently working on writing my book, and I don’t really have the time to focus on any stories that aren’t it.

Oh ok then, good luck with your book :D I hope you do get back to that idea someday, it's really cool.

I hope so too.

(Six months later)

Any plans for the books?

Which books? (I can’t see some of your comment because I’m on my phone)

The one that people were talking about writing half a year ago, the Beauty and the Beast retelling.

Well, I guess we could just start writing? Maybe we can make a story on goodreads or wattpad...?

That would be cool! How would we figure out the plot?

I think Nova already covered most of that above.

So excited!

Which platform are we using?

I don't know, we could have a poll?

I'm game.

I'll set it up after the competition, then.

OKAY!
Competition is done and I set up the poll, I'm allowing write-in answers, but please only write in what you think will make it easiest to do:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/5...

Hello! Guess who? YOUR COLLABORATIVE WRITING PROFILE!😱👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
You can get on with these:
Email: njewkes171@gmail.com
Password: writingcollab

Please don't use this profile for goofing off! Don't friend it unless you are part of the group, and certainly don't spam it's! This is for the soul purpose of a collaboration between us!
I will set up our wattpad account shortly. ;)

Hmm...
Nvm. It seems I am in need of a different device to do so.

Wow! Hello writer! I think I made you! (XD) I also think I want to make you a moderator!

Here's our google doc link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11...

Wattpad Account
Username: WritersInResidence
Password: writingcollab

Wow... thanks, Sushie!

;)

What’s the username? I can’t see it sorry!

It's totally fine! I get that sometimes it cuts off, sigh. I'll repost it so you can see:

Wattpad User: WritersInResidence

Thank you!!

What are we doing on there? Do you want to move our roll play onto there eventually?