How to Write a Story Retelling

Photo by Elaine Howlin on Unsplash

Today’s post is by developmental editor and book coach Hannah Kate Kelley.

What is a retelling?

A retelling is a new spin on a classic story like a fairy tale, myth, or other piece of literature. The writer takes a pre-existing story to borrow some of the original elements while changing others.

Writers love retellings because the story framework is pre-made and there’s already a proven audience for the original tale. Retellings are also empowering because writers can bring fresh perspectives to age-old stories.

But aren’t retellings theft? Actually, no. Retellings essentially honor the original text by reopening the conversation the original author started. Instead of feeling like a thief, think of your adapted story as playing off of, countering, and contributing to that initial conversation.

In your life, you’ve probably encountered many retellings from Disney’s fairy tale renditions to countless comic book blockbuster remakes. In this article, we’re going to look at the following popular retelling examples:

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (a retelling of several stories, including Beauty and the Beast, the Norwegian tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and Tam Lin)Circe by Madeline Miller (a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey)Clueless by H. B. Gilmour (a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma)Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix by Ibi Zoboi (a retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice)The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (a retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby)“The Husband Stitch” featured in Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (a retelling of “The Girl with the Green Ribbon”)3 characteristics of retelling

Before you build your outline, let’s explore the three primary characteristics of a retold story.

A retelling should be recognizable

Retellings are all about celebrating the familiar. Your story retelling needs to include all or many of the major original elements, even if you make significant changes to the setting, plot, characters, and themes. But how close of a retelling do you need to write? You’ve got two options: write a loose retelling or a close retelling.

In a loose retelling, writers can use inspiration from various sources in any degree, meaning they have recognizable characters, events, themes, and other elements, but their main plot will divert away from the original storyline.

Sarah J. Maas does this with her fantasy novel A Court of Thorns and Roses by drawing from Beauty and the Beast, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and Tam Lin. In terms of her original inspiration fairy tales and legends, Maas says, “[A Court of Thorns and Roses] actually wound up going away from those things; it started off as a retelling of the more original fairy tales, but then moved away.” Though the story begins with a young woman stolen away to live in the home of a powerful and mysterious creature as punishment for her transgression (similar to Beauty and the Beast), protagonist Feyre delves into broader political and inter-court conflicts as the story goes on, culminating in a dangerous physical and emotional trial. Maas uses some of the character traits and plot events from the original texts, but ultimately creates her own storyline.

In a close retelling, writers can still change several elements of the original text, but they tend to stick closer to the main plot by using the same events in the same order, making only small variations. For example, in The Chosen and the Beautiful, writer Nghi Vo retains not only the 1920s era and several main character from the original text The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but Vo also keeps the key plot events, such as Gatsby’s extravagant parties, his mounting obsession with Daisy Buchanan, and the climactic confrontation in a New York hotel. The unique angle, a queer Vietnamese adoptee narrator, doesn’t change the plot events significantly.

A retelling should also be a standalone

Your retelling should be enjoyable to read whether your audience has read the original text or not. While many of your readers will be familiar with the original story and therefore enjoy the comparisons and allusions you draw between them, your story still needs to be complete on its own.

A retelling must be legal

We already established that retellings are not theft, but there’s a caveat: it all comes down to what is and is not listed on the public domain (also known as the commons), which is a collection of creative works that are no longer protected by intellectual property laws. Once a story hits this list, you are free to adapt and reproduce it any way you wish. That’s why people love to use fairy tales for their adaptations, because no one owns the copyrights to these stories any longer. However, the rules differ from country to country, as well as by the book’s individual copyright, so it’s best to do your due diligence and research before selecting the story you wish to retell. (Here a starting guide from Jane on that.)

Are retellings the same as fanfiction?

In many ways, yes. But they are treated differently in terms of both legal use and reader expectations, so they are essentially different genres. Fanfiction is more about celebrating the copyrighted characters of a story which are not yet in the public domain. Can you base your retelling off a non-public domain work? Some writers do. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James actually started out as fanfiction of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Though the book has several similarities with the original source, James retroactively removed the copyrighted material in order to publish. Talk about grey area! While it is possible to transform fanfiction into a legally sound published book, there are more hoops to jump through.

I’m no lawyer, so we won’t get into the nitty-gritty of what is and isn’t legally allowed for non-public domain works. Just do your research and be prepared to consult legal counsel if you plan to publish your fanfiction for profit.

So let’s talk about how to write your own retelling. If you’d like a workbook to pair with the following exercises, you can download the free Story Retelling Workbook.

Choose your retelling angle

The first step is to explore what you are going to do differently and why. What will your unique spin be? While this angle can change later, you want to capture this first spark of inspiration because this is the reason you’re writing a retelling after all: to make this story your own.

To find your special angle, ask yourself the following questions:

What do you love about the original story? Explore what made you want to pick up the book in the first place, or what’s kept this tale top of mind for you.What’s missing from this story? Consider which parts didn’t resonate with you or where you can see room for improvement.Can you see yourself in this story? If you can, consider what you would do differently as one of the main characters and how that might send the story down a different path. If you can’t, consider how your perspective or knowledge could alter the story if you were suddenly thrust into the pages.Why are you writing this story? Consider what unique perspectives you as the author bring to your story.And why now? If you have other story ideas you want to pursue, consider why you want to start with this one first.

Once you’ve embarked on a little soul-searching, you might have a good list of where to take your story. If not, consider these common retelling angle examples:

Feature a new character’s perspective. You can use a non-main character from the original text, like Nghi Vo does in The Chosen and the Beautiful by using Nick Carraway’s friend and lover Jordan Baker as the narrator instead. Or like writer Madeline Miller does with Odysseus’ villain scorned witch-goddess Circe in the eponymous novel Circe (instead of Odysseus). You can also invent an entirely new character to take the spotlight.Imagine the antagonist as the protagonist. Similar to drawing from a new character’s perspective, this approach goes as far as reclaiming and explaining the villain’s side of things. For example, in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire the story is told from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view, offering a backstory that humanizes her and explores the events that leading up to her infamy. And in the Jane Eyre retelling Wide Sargasso Sea, author Jean Rhys gives Bertha Mason her own voice and backstory, who was originally a minor character depicted as Mr. Rochester’s insane wife he kept hidden in the attic.Explore race, class, gender, or a new cultural lens. Many old texts can perpetuate harmful stereotypes. In “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado, the narrator explores women’s bodily boundaries in her retelling of “The Girl with the Green Ribbon.” Her rendition critiques the original short horror story, where a woman’s husband constantly pesters her about her permanent neck ribbon until she finally allows him to pull the string and immediately dies from the untying that kept her head on her neck. Machado calls out the way men use and control women’s bodies in her retelling.Drop the characters into a new setting or era. For older works especially, it can be fun to use a modern setting, just as H. B. Gilmour does in her popular Emma-adapted novel Clueless, by bringing the romance into a contemporary (okay, well … 90s) high school setting complete with stoners, jocks, and popular kids.Switch up the genre. Consider altering the genre toward horror, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, mystery, and literary fiction, or even a different age genre like children’s, middle grade, young adult, or adult. A good example of this is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, who transforms the original romance story into a horror novel by incorporating zombies, a pervasive sense of danger, and violent encounters with the undead.

If you’re swimming in good ideas, narrow down your selection to one story angle. Then write your unique angle in one simple sentence. For example, I want to explore what the wicked stepmother would look like in Cinderella if she was actually just trying to help.

Analyze the original text

Before you can write your own version, get your analytical hat on and let’s look at the original (OG) story to see which elements you want to keep and which you want to change.

At this point, you want to be in the research phase rather than the writing phase, though you can jot down ideas as they come up. But don’t get lost in research! For this exercise, try to only gather enough information to fill out this brief analysis.

We’re going to look at both the OG text Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and the retelling Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix by Ibi Zoboi. While you want to focus on your analysis before crafting your own story, it’s helpful to discuss these two examples side by side.

Plot points

First, look for all the major plot points that make the OG story recognizable by uncovering how the main plot and the main characters progress to the end. Depending on how loose or close you want your retelling to be, you may choose to diverge away from these plot events—which can be an interesting way to subvert reader expectations and dive into the story you really want to tell. Regardless of whether you want to incorporate all the plot points or build in your own twists, it’s important to be aware of a baseline series of events first.

Let’s break down the major plot points of Pride and Prejudice.

Setup: The marriage prospects of a young woman named Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters are a constant concern for their mother because of the estate’s lack of a male heir.

Inciting Incident: The wealthy and eligible bachelor Mr. Bingley rents the nearby Netherfield Park, sparking excitement among the Bennet family and their neighbors. His friend, the wealthy and proud Mr. Darcy, accompanies Mr. Bingley to help find him a suitable match and immediately butts heads with Elizabeth.

Midpoint: After a series of rising romantic tension, Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth in a manner that reveals his feelings but also insults her family, which leads her to reject him.

Climax: Elizabeth’s younger sister Lydia Bennet elopes with sly militia man Mr. Wickham, threatening the Bennet family’s reputation.

Resolution: After Darcy’s intervention to save her family’s reputation from Mr. Wickham’s hasty elopement, Elizabeth reevaluates her feelings for him. Darcy renews his proposal, this time with humility and love, and Elizabeth accepts, leading to their marriage and the resolved misunderstandings.

And now let’s look at the major plot points of Pride, which is a close retelling:

Set Up: In the contemporary Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick, teenager Zuri Benitez and her family navigate rapid gentrification as she prepares to write her college application essay.

Inciting Incident: The arrival of the wealthy Darcy family, including two handsome and single teenage sons, sparks tension as they move into the renovated mini mansion across the street. Zuri and the younger son Darius immediately butt heads.

Midpoint: After weeks of romantic tension, Zuri and Darius kiss. He asks her out on a date, but she refuses him when she finds out he slighted her older sister and a heated confrontation about their biases and assumptions ensues.

Climax: At a house party, tensions rise between Zuri and Darius over the division between their socioeconomic worlds, when Zuri then discovers her creepy ex Warren is preying on her thirteen-year-old drunk sister.

Resolution: Zuri and Darius reconcile their differences after saving her sister, finding common ground amidst the changing landscape of their neighborhood, even when Zuri and her family have to move to a new home. And Zuri finally finds the inspiration she needs to write her college application essay.

Setting

Whether you choose to change the setting or not, it is important to understand the context in which the author wrote the OG story. Not only will this help you understand where the writer came from, but it will also help you understand how they framed the events and crafted their characters.

Obviously, the world looked very different when Jane Austen penned Pride and Prejudice. Young women had strict roles in society which largely had to do with finding a suitable husband to marry, so the story’s subject matter suits the slower, rural setting where the cast of characters can meet exciting marriage prospects among both wealthy gentlemen visitors and the militia.

You can keep the same setting or change it entirely, and both have their advantages. A closer retelling with a similar setting will make the other contrasts starker, whereas a different era or geographical location will make these contrasts subtler.

The setting in Pride and Prejudice:

Location: Meryton, England, a fictional small market town based in rural Hertfordshire and Derbyshire

Time Period: Early 19th century

Setting-Specific Elements

Formal balls and “calling on” neighbors, which were some of the only ways gentlemen and ladies could socialize and assess marriage prospects.Handwritten letters, meant to show the most honest way to communicate feelings in great detail.Long walks, meant to show how characters could be reflective and independent, as well as how they could have chance encounters and travel without carriages.

The setting of Pride:

Location: Brooklyn, New York in the United States, specifically in the Bushwick neighborhood

Time Period: Contemporary 2010s era

Setting-Specific Elements

Block parties, dates and community events, which serve as modern equivalents to formal balls, where characters socialize, interact, and form romantic relationships within their neighborhood.Texting, like the handwritten letters in Pride and Prejudice, allows characters to communicate their feelings quickly and directly.Gentrification, where the changing streets of Bushwick expose the community’s evolution, their own identities, and their encounters with others.Characters

The most memorable parts of retellings are arguably the characters, whose voices and actions stick with readers long after finishing a book. It’s important to analyze who the primary, secondary, and tertiary characters are, what their top traits are, and how they provide all conflict and support for the protagonists.

This is also a good time to note harmful stereotypes the OG text might be perpetuating. If a character’s primary traits are rooted in sexist tropes, like how many of our fairy tales depict women antagonists as ugly, be aware of how you can twist this stereotype on its head.

The main cast of characters in Pride and Prejudice:

Miss Elizabeth Bennet: The primary protagonist, known for her sharp wit and independenceMr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: A wealthy, reserved, and seemingly proud gentleman who becomes one of Elizabeth’s love interestsElizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s internal pride and prejudiceMr. Wickham: A charming but deceitful militia officer

Significant or memorable secondary and tertiary characters:

Mr. Bennet: Elizabeth’s sarcastic and laid-back fatherMrs. Bennet: Elizabeth’s frivolous and marriage-obsessed motherMiss Jane Bennet: Elizabeth’s beautiful and gentle older sisterMr. Bingley: A wealthy and amiable gentleman who rents Netherfield Park

The main cast of characters in Pride:

Zuri Benitez: The primary protagonist and sole narrator, a proud Afro-Latina teenager who fiercely loves her Bushwick neighborhood and struggles with the changes brought by gentrificationDarius Darcy: A wealthy and reserved teenager from the gentrifying Darcy family who moves into the renovated mini mansion across from Zuri’s homeZuri and Darius’ internal pride and prejudiceGentrification and its impact on Zuri’s communityWarren: a slick neighborhood boy who takes a romantic interest in Zuri, hiding his past of taking advantage of young girls

Significant or memorable secondary and tertiary characters:

Janae Benitez: Zuri’s older sisterAinsley Darcy: Darius’s kind, puppy-dog-like older brother who takes an interest in Zuri’s sister JanaeMadrina: Zuri’s wise and supportive godmotherWriting style and tone

While uncovering these storytelling tools might require a closer read, they can help you choose which literary devices you want to keep or toss. If you don’t want to reread the text now, just think back to what the most memorable bits of dialogue, description, and overall tone are.

A story’s writing style can include a number of things, including literary devices like deus ex machina or foreshadowing, point of view and narrators, symbolism and allegory, use of repetition, and distinctive physical features or objects like the glass slipper in Cinderella.

A story’s tone is the attitude in which the writer chose to tell this story, such as light, dark, ironic, sappy, warm, scary, and realistic.

The writing style and tone of Pride and Prejudice:

The famous, satirical opening line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”Elizabeth Bennet is the sole narrator.Repetition of Mr. Darcy’s marriage proposal, so readers can see how both protagonists have grown and resolved their pride (and prejudice) by the second proposal.A humorous and satirical tone, exposing the absurdities and injustices of the marriage market and the limited roles available to 19th-century women.A realistic premise, where Austen’s focus on the domestic sphere, courtship, and family dynamics made her stories relatable to a wide audience. (Unlike the sensationalist novels of her time, Austen grounded her stories in the everyday realities of middle-class life.)

The writing style and tone of Pride:

A similarly satirical spin on Jane Austen’s first line: “It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up.”Zuri is the sole narrator.The inclusion of younger characters (teenagers rather than twenty-year-olds and thirty-year-olds) and more young adult romance tropes like Zuri’s annoyance with Darius, yet the inability to stop caring about what he thinks of her when they first meet.Essay snippets and poems scattered throughout the text, showing what Zuri is thinking and feeling in a unique format, as well as how she plans to write her college application essay.A realistic premise, where Zoboi grounds Zuri’s life in Brooklyn with a healthy dose of realism, making the story feel entirely possible in a modern-day context.Central theme

There are often several themes in every story, so choose the most central one or the one that speaks loudest to you. Sum up the theme in one word or a brief sentence.

Some themes are timeless, and you can reuse them to show how the theme still applies to modern-day life. Whereas other themes are a little outdated. Take Beauty and the Beast, for example, where the forced imprisonment and Stockholm Syndrome that Belle endures complicates the central theme of “don’t judge a book by its cover.” You might also want to choose an entirely new theme that speaks to you more, whether it’s a lesser theme of the OG text or something close to your heart.

Whether you want to use the same central theme, put a spin on it, or tap into a lesser theme, readers will expect your retelling to continue the original conversation, so to speak. Assuming that readers are familiar with the original text, consider how the new theme will provide commentary on the old one.

The central theme of Pride and Prejudice: The exploration of love and marriage by overcoming personal flaws like pride and prejudice to achieve mutual respect.The central theme of Pride: The exploration of love, identity, community, and cultural pride amidst gentrification in contemporary Brooklyn.

Note that while Pride still explores love, pride, and prejudice themes, there is a stronger emphasis on race and class intersections. In order to better encapsulate these new themes, Zoboi made the setting modern-day, made the Darcy family new homeowners rather than renters, and changed the age of the characters to cater to young adult readers who would really benefit from these themes of love and identity.

Outline your retelling

Whew! You’ve squared away the hard work of analyzing the OG text. Now it’s your turn to build an outline of your own story. If your angle has pivoted after the last step, that’s okay. Create a new one-sentence angle and let’s get cracking.

Not every writer enjoys the outlining process (looking at you, pantsers!). However, because a retelling is based on another piece of literature, it’s helpful for writers to first map out the similarities and differences between the two stories.

Aim for a simple outline using the following same template from your OG text analysis. If you want a simple worksheet to use for this exercise, you can download my free version here.

Plot points

How will the story begin?What is the inciting incident that sets the main plot line in motion?What is the midpoint?What is the climax?How will the story end?

Setting

Where will this story take place?When will this story take place?What are some setting-specific elements?

Characters

Who are the protagonists?Who / what is the antagonist?Who are the other significant or memorable secondary and tertiary characters who make an appearance?

Writing style & tone

What are some memorable writing style devices that stick out to you?What is the tone?

Central theme

What is the one-sentence central theme?

After you’ve built out the initial storyline, characters and theme, you can go into more depth on your outline. And while you can create your outline in any order, it’s helpful to work backwards from theme to plot points if you’re not yet sure of the exact events you want to depict in your story. Evaluate and adjust your roadmap as needed.

Hot tip: If you want to compare and contrast your retelling with the original, highlight in pen or highlighter what you’re keeping the same versus what you’re changing. That way, you’ll be able to assess the differences easier when you place them side by side.

Next steps

By now, you understand the key characteristics of a retelling. If you want an easy place to map out your retelling outline, get my free Story Retelling Workbook. Now all that’s left to do is write your “tale as old as time.”