Oldies But Goodies
{Put This One on Your TBR List}
The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher
by Karen S. Wiesner
Beware spoilers! Not too long ago, I reviewed three "reimagined and unconventional fairytales" by T. Kingfisher. In trying to get a handle on some of the other books Kingfisher has written that include a reinterpretation of beloved fairytales, I came up with this list of her selections, arranged below on the basis of publication dates:
The Seventh Bride ("Mr. Fox"/"The
Robber Bridegroom", and other aberrations)
Bryony and Roses ("Beauty and the
Beast")
The Raven and the Reindeer ("The
Snow Queen")
Thornhedge ("Sleeping Beauty")
A Sorceress Comes to Call ("Goose
Girl")
Hemlock & Silver ("Snow White")
In my previous take on Kingfisher's reimagined fairytales, I reviewed Nettle & Bone, which is like a subversion of everything that's been done in a fairytale all rolled into one, as well as Bryony and Roses and Thornhedge.
There's a little known (maybe because it's so shocking) fairytale that goes by many names and variants, with two prominent ones being called "Mr. Fox" and "The Robber Bridegroom", that I stumbled upon while brainstorming for future installments of my Woodcutter's Grim Series (which horrorized fairytales). You can actually find the full text of these old tales by looking them up online by their titles. I never wrote a story based on this premise, and now I don't have to, since T. Kingfisher has done it, though I had reservations about her The Seventh Bride rendition.
The old story goes that a poor miller's daughter is betrothed to a wealthy man who prefers a kind of murderous obstacle course on his wedding night rather than what most people think of for such an event. Turns out, this creep has murdered all his previous brides-to-be and now this new one had better figure out how to get through his carnival of cruelty so she doesn't become the next in line. Interestingly, T. Kingfisher wrote a very short story similar to this idea in "Bluebeard's Wife" (free from her website or you can get it in one of her collections).
Fortuitously, old fairytales have a predictable manner of storytelling that's bare bones--usually just a skeleton of an extreme external conflict while the rest of the story has little or no internal conflict let alone complex goals or motivations--you know, beyond escaping this bad situation. Settings and in-depth characterization are all but forgotten with these meager tales. So that really allowed Kingfisher to take this glimmer of an idea and make it her own. She sets up a basic scenario with 15-year-old Rhea being a miller's daughter unexpectedly engaged to Lord Crevan. Try to remember that in times gone by, a 15-year-old girl would practically be an old maid if she wasn't already or about to be married, and that most of the historical romances you read probably have very young heroines and you just weren't told their ages in order to prevent the ick factor from spoiling everything.
Kingfisher sets up several interesting and unique twists on the old story variants, such as the fact that Rhea's parents are neither greedy nor evil--they actually want her to have a good life, and a man who lives in a near-castle certainly seems to fit the bill. Yes, their mill is struggling and extra income would come in handy, but her parents are genuinely saddened by how distraught their daughter is to be "sold off like cattle to the highest bidder", but they initially take a practical approach to her distress. Her mother relates that, once upon a time, she was also forced to marry a man she'd barely met in Rhea's father and look how well that turned out. In this particular world, for a low-born citizen to refuse a lord is a recipe for utter ruin. Bottom line, this family has little or no choice but to comply with anything this man wants from their daughter.
In this version of the old story, there are many small magics in the world, including those associated with plants, strange creatures, and people who possess minor powers. In The Seventh Bride, Craven is a terrifying sorcerer who uses the gifts of these women he brings to his home to marry (hilariously, they call him "Himself"), trading them for something else he deems of value to him or others. The first wife, Maria, was a witch with a familiar. Craven took most of her power and her spirit bear disappeared in the woods around the manor. Other wives have lost voice, sight, life, death, and will…and all are trapped here in this place, forced to be obedient. Whether or not they're loyal to him is another question, as is whether Rhea can trust anything they say or do.
Other compelling fleshing-outs are that, once she's at Lord Craven's house, Rhea is set a series of tasks that she must complete. The "or else" is always "or else I'll marry you"--and there's no greater threat. Also, in the author's alter ego trademark (Kingfisher writes children's books under her real name Ursula Vernon that include many, many amazing, "something more" creatures), Rhea doesn't have to go through her terrible ordeal alone. She meets a sweet hedgehog companion who accompanies her and helps her in unfathomable ways that don't seem quite hedgehog-like. More on that later.
I loved everything about this
story except one thing issue that was a two-fold problem. Unfortunately, this
very nearly wrecked the whole thing for me. From the beginning, we were set up on
the premise that Rhea was a strong and inventive girl, and she would find
creative ways to solve her dilemmas and conflicts. We were shown--in an equally
gross and funny moment--how she handled a swan who kept stealing her lunch when
she packed the creature a horse turd sandwich that the cruel bird quickly
regretted snatching from her. However, from that point on, the author stole
every opportunity for Rhea to prove her own worth by having her problems
conveniently solved by others--her hedgehog, Maria's bear familiar, the clock wife, and other things that
rescued her. In the process, they ruined what could have been a heroine worth
rooting for beyond the simple reason that we feel compassion for another human being
in such a dire circumstance.
In my writing reference titles, I frequently talk about cardinal sins in writing. One of those is that the main character has to lead the action and save the day. She's not in a supporting role, nor can she be rescued when the going gets tough. She can't fall backwards into success. This is her story, her time to be a superhero, her moment in the spotlight. Resolutions to conflict can't stem from symbolism, events, or other people so she never truly solves her own problems. A form of this is sometimes referred to as “coincidence resolution”. While you can have a plot that begins this way, the coincidence must fade to be replaced with very clear choices, purpose, and action. Something similar to the coincidence resolution is deus ex machina--“god from a machine”. This device introduces a resolution brought about by something outside of the story, something cataclysmic or even supernatural that’s not cohesive with the rest of the story--basically, anything illogical that could be dubbed cheating that's introduced to resolve a central conflict.
In fiction, true change and growth should come from strength within, just as it does in real life. You can't wrap up a conflict with an act of nature, something symbolic that parallels a character's conflict but isn't actually part of it, or in a stranger-to-the-rescue type of event--it won't be believable or fair to the reader, who's spent the entire book waiting to see your character reach the goal of self-fulfillment and success. That triumph also has to be hard-won. She'll probably have a face full of bruises and a heart of pain that will haunt her until the day she dies, but those scars are also ones she can wear proudly. In Writing Fantasy Heroes: Powerful Advice from the Pros (Rogue Blades Presents), it says, "Great heroes have flaws. If a hero is perfect, invulnerable, then he is free of challenge and also free of honor. What is effortless is not honorable; difficulty wins glory and brings the hero to life." Writers should never take the true victory away from their main character by letting anyone or anything else do the work for her.
In this heinous way, Kingfisher stole
the victory from Rhea over and over, letting someone or something else snatch
it from her. It was really quite unforgivable, and ultimately it became clear to me that Kingfisher, while in
the planning stage of crafting this story, didn't properly equip her heroine
with the necessary skills, abilities, and gifts that were cohesive with the
plot or setting Rhea was placed in. While I admit this point could be argued, probably
the worst part to me was that Kingfisher actually did make tiny inroads toward arming
Rhea in such a way that she could have had everything she needed to solve her
own problems, if only the author had developed them the way they should have
been right from the beginning.
Spoiler
alert: At the end of the book, Rhea is told by Maria that she possesses some
magical abilities. That's why the hedgehog came to her, as it's obviously not a
normal creature either. It's her familiar. Maria encourages Rhea to come back
to Craven's manor when she can get herself to so Maria can train her in this
magic she has.
Why in the world didn't Kingfisher use those hinted at
skills to allow Rhea to begin formulating ways to use her fledgling magic (and
maybe everything she learned at the mill previously) to deal with the crises she
found herself entangled in? That would have been a far more interesting story,
too.
The second aspect of the problem I had with this story is another cardinal rule of writing that was broken by the author and by her editor, as well, who, shamefully, let her get away with it. The end of The Seventh Bride was so easily resolved, it came off as a total let-down. Yes, the villain got his come-uppance, Rhea got to go home, but "the battle" to get to that point was all but over before it began. It amounted to a page or so. The escalating tension was forgone almost completely, or maybe more aptly, never existed, as if it wasn't needed or necessary. What a disappointment for readers to be robbed of chills and thrills related to Rhea's unique tale!
When readers finish a book, they should close it believing that the story ended the only way it possibly could have. One of the strongest ways to do this is to create cohesive story elements. Sorry, but here's another lesson from my writing reference titles: Cohesion needs to start with the first spontaneous spark of a story. Characters must blend naturally with the settings they've been placed in, just as plot must become an organic part of the characters and settings. If a story doesn’t work, it could very well be because the character, plot, and setting elements aren’t blending naturally.
Character reveals plot and setting, just as plot and setting reveal character, and setting reveals character and plot. This three-way trinity is vital to the dimensionality of your stories. They work together to unearth, connect, and layer a story. The strongest stories are the ones in which every part of the story--the characters’ role, physical descriptions, personalities, strengths and weaknesses, relationships, skills, conflicts, goals and motivation, and settings--becomes cohesive and fits together organically. We’ve all read stories in which the parts don’t merge naturally. Maybe we didn’t notice a specific problem, but we knew something was off, that something lacked logic or didn’t quite fit with the rest of the story, and the imbalance frustrated us. There’s a chance you never finished reading the story. The books that you absolutely cannot put down without losing a little of your sanity, the stories that stay with you every minute of the time you’re reading them and for years afterward, are the ones in which every aspect is so intricately connected that separating the threads is impossible.
On top of the crucial need for cohesion with story elements is that, in the back of the writer's mind at every point in the storytelling should be the fact that the end of the story is where it's going. The author continuously builds toward the wrap. The direction is pivotal because, as with an opening, the story beginning should resonate throughout the rest of the book, satisfy the resolution, and may even tie into the final sentence. The end grounds and justifies the whole of the story. James Scott Bell says in Plot & Structure, "…almost all great jokes are built on a structure of three--the setup, the body, and the payoff." Stories are no different with the beginning, middle and end. Specifically, all story endings must be logical, with a sense of inevitability. Everything's been leading up to the closer, regardless of red herrings, artful concealments, and delaying tactics. But is the ending warranted and utterly logical; does it fit what the author has promised the reader from the beginning as the payoff for coming along for the ride? Endings should always require a "the only way it could end" declaration, but that doesn't mean they can't (and shouldn't) be surprising, too There's a big difference between a twist (reader is stunned, speechless but gratefully overjoyed) and a trick (reader feels cheated, the victim of a bait-and-switch, unforgivably incensed). Steven Pressman says in his article "Setups and Payoffs", "If the payoff is really good, we realize, in the end, that there was no surprise at all. What had seemed to be a turn of fate proves to be inevitable and, as we realize it, we receive the gift of insight. We should have seen it coming!” Maybe you can't please everyone with your story ending, but you should at the very least satisfy them with a coherent conclusion.
T. Kingfisher's ending here felt rushed and lacking in anything resembling suspense and anticipation. I'm left regretting all the could and should have beens instead of what we were given that couldn't possibly satisfy me. Very sad because I actually enjoyed every part of the story other than those seriously sad, truncated, and disenchanting pages at the end of Chapter 28. Sigh. If only the story had actually developed the potential Kingfisher instead threw at the reader like refuse (or a horse turd sandwich) in the very last chapter.
While some readers (and even writers) might choose to overlook the problems in this story in favor of just enjoying Kingfisher's generally lively prose--which I might add, I like 75% of the time--I don't feel this one was as good as it could have been if only it'd been properly developed. I will note that it is the first of these types of stories she tried to write (published in 2014), so maybe she can be forgiven. I'm currently reading A Sorceress Comes to Call and plan to review it next. Fingers crossed that it's as strong as the majority of her other (later) stories.
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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