Writing Prompts: Fairy Tales Gone Wild

I was never a big fan of the old time fairy tales such as Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. I felt as though they gave children, especially girls, the wrong message. Among other pieces of bad advice, I feel that old time fairy tales teach that whenever you are in trouble all you have to do is wait for some “prince” to save you. I’m a much bigger fan of modern day fairy tales such as Ever After and Ella Enchanted, where the heroine saves herself.

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Anyway, today I thought it might be fun to play around a bit with the classics and give you a few creative writing prompts that let you spin the Twilight Zone version of “Happily Ever After”. I’ve included links to the original stories as a point of reference.

1. Write a story where when the princess kisses the frog she turns into a frog too. (Frog Prince)

2. Cinderella and the prince are getting married but the ceremony is interrupted by his baby mama. (Cinderella)

3. That girl in the tower turns out to be a man in drag. (Rapunzel)

4. That girl knew they had put a pea under all of those mattresses and only pretended to be bothered by it. She’s not a real princess after all. (The Princess and the Pea)

5. The “Wolf” who is actually a serial rapist who tries to attack a woman walking in the forest. However, that’s the last time he’ll be doing that. (Little Red Riding Hood)