Cinderella Meme
Aug. 15th, 2011 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceyIf I wrote Cinderella what... oops, too late. I have written Cinderella. Twice
It started out as a mini panto (in rhyming couplets) for an Artisan Christmas Show tour, performed on stage throughout December, not only for that one year, but resurrected a couple of years later. (I played both Cinders and the Prince because in my version they never actually meet.) Then it ended up, extended and rewritten in short story form as Baron Boscov's Bastard in the DAW anthology 'Twice Upon a Time' (1999), edited by Denise Little.
Ella was the bastard child of Baron Boscov and a chambermaid (now dead), employed in the kitchens out of the way of polite society. I had only one Ugly Sister because of downsizing - but she was only ugly on the inside. There was a cute and good-hearted stable-boy called Jimmy Buttons in the best English pantomime tradition. My Fairy Godmother was a substitute who looked more like a bag-lady because Ella's real FG had called in sick. Even then, the NHS was cutting back on available spells, so Ella got a rehash of Beauty's 100-year-sleep thing rather than pumpkins-to-coaches (and of course missed the ball). Prince Charming was gay, hence preferring to roister with the lads rather than find a wife. So Charming and the Pretty Ugly got the political match-made-in-Hell that they both deserved, and Ella got to run away with Buttons on a magic horse and live happily ever after.
If you want to read the whole thing it's available at Anthology Builder, along with some of my other previously published stories.
It started out as a mini panto (in rhyming couplets) for an Artisan Christmas Show tour, performed on stage throughout December, not only for that one year, but resurrected a couple of years later. (I played both Cinders and the Prince because in my version they never actually meet.) Then it ended up, extended and rewritten in short story form as Baron Boscov's Bastard in the DAW anthology 'Twice Upon a Time' (1999), edited by Denise Little.
Ella was the bastard child of Baron Boscov and a chambermaid (now dead), employed in the kitchens out of the way of polite society. I had only one Ugly Sister because of downsizing - but she was only ugly on the inside. There was a cute and good-hearted stable-boy called Jimmy Buttons in the best English pantomime tradition. My Fairy Godmother was a substitute who looked more like a bag-lady because Ella's real FG had called in sick. Even then, the NHS was cutting back on available spells, so Ella got a rehash of Beauty's 100-year-sleep thing rather than pumpkins-to-coaches (and of course missed the ball). Prince Charming was gay, hence preferring to roister with the lads rather than find a wife. So Charming and the Pretty Ugly got the political match-made-in-Hell that they both deserved, and Ella got to run away with Buttons on a magic horse and live happily ever after.
If you want to read the whole thing it's available at Anthology Builder, along with some of my other previously published stories.
