As with Earth, not everybody in the magical realm makes New Year resolutions but some do.  In general, these would be applicable for  the entire Kingdom and would be approved by my rebellious fairy godmother, Eileen.

1. To stop looking down on non-magical species.  It isn't nice, clever and is unfair on Jenny, who cannot help being a human-fairy hybrid.
   
2. To stop condemning all witches just because the odd one. now and again, put kiddies in an oven.  It should be recognized not all witches do this.  For a start, some are known to be vegetarian.
   
3. To not use more magic than is strictly necessary.  To do otherwise is showing off.
   
4. To try to get along better with other worlds, magical or otherwise.  Because the Kingdom needs no further wars or damage done to its own landscapes because of those wars.
   
5. To be more wary of all powerful wizards suddenly appearing on the scene.  Eileen has a point when stating people like this must  have an agenda, it is unlikely to be an honourable one and so said wizard should be checked out properly.
   

I thought I'd take a quick look at what presents would be useful for fairy tale characters.

1. A decent lock on the doors - for the Three Bears - specifically designed to keep greedy kids out.
   
2. Comfortable dancing shoes - for Cinderella - as glass slippers can't be that nice on the feet.
   
3. A bigger basket for Little Red Riding Hood so she can take more goodies to Grandma and hit the big bad wolf with the thing when she needs that.
   
4. Poison Spotting for Beginners - if this book doesn't exist, it should do.  Snow White would be glad of a copy.
   
5. An endless supply of non-edible items Hansel and Gretel  could use to find their way back home by,
   

There's Dracula of course (!) but I was really thinking  along the lines that characters with bite stay in the memory long after their story has finished and/or their creator has died.  For example Elizabeth Bennett from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is far more spirited, and memorable, than Fanny Price from JA's Mansfield Park.  I suspect that was true at the time of publication and it is certainly true now.

"Bite" can mean a forceful personality (see my Eileen for that!) but it can be a quiet character simply determined not to be pushed around any more.  The "bite" comes from what drives them.  And motivation is crucial to get right.  It's got to be important enough to  your character for them to risk their life if necessary.

So what makes your characters memorable?  Yes, a striking physical appearance can help here but for me it is the dominant trait that matters most.  (Even if that dominant trait is suppressed, perhaps because it's not publicly acceptable, the story will revolve around the struggle to keep that suppressed and what happens if all goes wrong - as I think it inevitably would).

Some songs suitable for fairy tale characters include:-

1. Heart of Glass - For Kay in the Snow Queen especially.
   
2. Cool for Cats - One for Puss in Boots.
   
3. Hungry Like the Wolf - Not one either Little Red Riding Hood or the Three Little Pigs would be particularly keen on.
   
4. Gold - For King Midas.
   
5. These Boots Were Made for Walking - Another one for Puss in Boots though it could be one for Cinderella as well given glass slippers are the most useless items of footwear either and the girl should be directed in the general direction of sensible shoes.
   
6. Magical Mystery Tour - for any magical fairy tale creature/character.
   
7. The Fool on the Hill - for the one on the wall, Humpty Dumpty.
   
8. Bad - for all evil magical fairy tale characters.
   
9. Clocks - for the mouse in Hickory Dickory Dock.
   
10. Under the Sea - for the Little Mermaid.
    

Hope to come up with some more in another post.  I love lists!

Being a successful fairy godmother means:-

1. Never having to say sorry for transforming someone into a frog or other amphibian of choice.
2. Never being scared of dragons because you've blasted them all to the next world.
   
3. Putting treacherous wizards in their place:  exile at best, obliteration at worst.
   
4. Means bringing joy to the life of downtrodden goddaughters though your work on footwear needs modifying.  Glass slippers are just not practical or comfortable.
   
5. Means growing pumpkins for use for magical transformation is never a problem.  Not only can you use them magically, you also win prizes at your local gardening show.
   
6. Means never having to worry about your own outfit.  You can always conjure up something nice.
   
7. Being able to "out-magic" any witch.
   
8. Being able to lay down the law, especially with non-magical species. Your inbuilt advantage is obvious especially to them.
   
9. Being commissioned to help other clients.
   
10. Getting to go to all the best parties.  Well you have to keep a discreet eye on the downtrodden goddaughters haven't you?
    

There is a hierarchy below stairs with the Lord Chamberlain being the Ultimate Boss.  In many ways to the Household he can be more of a boss than the Queen if only because, while she isn’t aloof and does make the effort to keep a caring eye on those working for her, the staff obviously see much more of him than they do Her Nibs.  And a lot of the time they do see Her Nibs it is in very formal settings. 

Most of the Household are elves, there’s a goodly supply of dwarves and the goblins tend to run the State Dining Room.  Their cuisine is highly praised and they do not stick to their own food.  With encouragement from the Queen, the daily menu consists of food from throughout the Kingdom and its species but also from other planets.  One of the few things she likes about earth is its cookery (and booze!).  The Queen is also keen to help the Kingdom’s endangered species - the griffin to name but one - and feels one great way of doing that is by not eating them!!!  Many of her ancestors would have considered her a “wuss” for taking that line!

The kitchen staff comprise of the Head Housekeeper (who deputizes for the Lord Chamberlain for the Palace as a whole on the rare occasions he is ill or otherwise unavailable for duty), three senior cooks (each specializes in each of the three daily meals), three junior cooks (they assist and where necessary deputize for the seniors) and assistants. 

Pixies are fabulous cooks so the kitchen staff are mainly made up from their community but the Head Housekeeper is an elf as nobody would trust any sprite to run such an important Palace department on their own.  Goblins are renowned for their swiftness so take on assistant roles throughout the Palace.  Roherum is a goblin and many of FNN’s reporters are too, the broadcasters capitalizing on the natural speed talents here. 

The Queen encourages cookery to come not just from her world but from universes the magical world has had contact with.  There is never the same menu two days running here.  Some world cuisines go down better than others.  Earth cuisine is generally fine.  The cooking skills of the mud eating specialists of the Planet Sestrus, a mere 100 miles from the Fairy Kingdom, was tried once and won’t be again.

Every society has its books it bans or restricts access to so why shouldn't this apply to your fictional world(s) as well?  It can lead to fleshing out how the government of your world(s) works and why these books are banned or restricted.  Also whether anyone defies that and what the consequences are would be a good starting point for stories and novels.

In my Fairy Kingdom, my rebellious fairy godmother and heir to the Fairy Kingdom throne, Eileen, wrote several volumes of history as she saw it and she did not portray her royal ancestors in that flattering a light. 

Had anyone else written them, they would've been jailed by the Queen and her Council on the grounds they were busy fighting the plotting and schemes of the Witch and anything like alternative history would be used as propaganda by the Witch. 

Eileen dismissed that as nonsense and insisted she was just being honest but the fact remains if anyone wants to read her books, they have to go to the Palace Library and leave their contact details.  Unsurprisingly this puts people off much to Eileen's annoyance.  This is not the major point of my novel The Trouble With Mother but it does flesh out Eileen's own history, shows the attitudes held by her and her cousin, the Queen and sets the scene for the fact that major fallings out between the two are nothing new.

So what books would your world(s) forbid and why?  Are any of these restrictions overturned (and if so how and who led the campaign to overturn them)?

I've found a number of non-fiction books useful for inspiring me with ideas to flesh out how my Fairy Kingdom works in my novels and short stories.  (Magic isn't enough, strange as it may seem, as if everything could be solved with the right spell, there would be no stories and the powerful would always win.  That generally isn't true with fairytales, which is one reason I love them.  The downtrodden and oppressed generally win through, though The Little Mermaid is a good example of that not happening).

The entire Simon Schama History of Britain series is a great read in its own right and I've found the Elizabethan era helpful for setting up how my Queen's Council works.  Also how L'Evallier effectively becomes the Fairy Queen's Prime Minister though he is not known by that title in my stories.  But then this was true for William, Lord Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth's Chief Minister.  I don't why he isn't credited with being a forerunner for the post of PM as we in the UK know it.  Robert Walpole is always credited as being the first.  Goodness knows why.  Burleigh was in office for a significant time.  But it his relationship with Queen Elizabeth that has inspired my writing of L'Evallier's relationship with Roxannadrell.

A wonderful little book called Secret People of the Palace has been a great inspiration as to what goes on behind the scenes in the Fairy Queen's Palace and the kind of people who would be employed.  General reference books have also been  useful for inspiring what kind of flowers, to name just one example, might grow in the royal magical gardens. 

So non-fiction, as well as being a great read in its own right, has enormous potential for sparking ideas off in fiction writers and that is always a good thing.

One great way to build up your own writing "muscles" is to read widely (non-fiction as well as fiction) because you are literally feeding your mind.  Ideas can spring from all sorts of sources and something another writer has written can inspire you to take your work in a direction you might not have thought of initially. 

I'm definitely not talking plagarism here.  I don't understand why anyone would want to do that.  The whole joy of writing is creating something that is unique to you/by you.  I am referring to being inspired by a type of writing or the way a character is developed that can help you as you create your own stories and characters.  You literally see how it is done and then get on with applying what you learn to your creations.

Non-fiction can inspire ideas as to how you get your own fictional world to operate to name one example.  And reading across the age ranges is a good idea too.  You get a "feel" for literature outside of what you do and I'm certain this will strengthen your own work. 

My latest Chandler's Ford Today posts feature a two part interview with YA author, Richard Hardie, whose Temporal Detective Agency books, Leap of Faith and Trouble with Swords, are taking off in the South of England especially.  I don't write for YA but the freshness of adventure tales such as these books helps encourage to keep my writing fresh, which can only be a good thing.

And all writing owes its foundation to a love of books encouraged in children at an early age (in my case, I really do owe my love of stories to my late mother) so wanting children's literature to do well is kind of self interest in a way.  Without that foundation, there is no market for fiction for adults.  And writers of adult fiction, I think, would do well to remember that.

There is a whole world in the Royal Household that I've only touched on briefly in my novels so far.  Ironically I've mentioned a bit more in some of my short stories but what I have included in all of my writing has been what was necessary to put in - no more, no less.

But being able to picture in my own mind what life would be like in the Royal Household has helped me write some of the minor characters with more conviction.  And I can "see" more of what Eileen gave up when she defected to Earth to marry for love.  There are things she misses about her old life.  Eileen prefers not to think about those things and people.  (She was very popular with the ordinary populace for one thing.  She also got on very well with the Household staff who appreciated her treating them decently.  In fairness the Queen does too but this has not always been the case with the fairy royal family so when Eileen left, that opened up a huge gap for the Royal Household).

I hope at some point to write more behind the scenes stories which focus on life in the Household as opposed to life in royal government (which is where the quarrels between the Queen and Eileen are set) but I think, as long as you can visualise the world you're creating, then you will know what you need to put in to give enough information for your readers to "see" it too.

After all good writing is about communication and stories communicate ideas.  So the secret life of your world can stay secret to you, your reader may never know most of it, but it is fun to create this and it is invaluable in helping you to write the stories  you do want to write.

This applies to my reading of stories but also to writing my own.  Certain factors emerge when I've come across and/or written a story that doesn't seem to be working for me.

1. The characters aren't engaging enough.  They don't necessarily have to be likeable but there should be something about the character that grabs my interest.
   
2. The story isn't strong enough.  Almost certainly a sign the writer hasn't thought the story through enough and so hasn't spotted the weaknesses in it.
   
3. The story tails off, rather than ends "properly".  Again a sign of not having thought things through.  These days I outline most things before I begin writing and that helps overcome this as I get to see where the weak points of the plot are and I can then work out how to fix them.  I do know I want an "oomph" to be the ending of any story I write, a kind of feeling that the story couldn't end any other way.
   

A story can be said to have failed not because it remains unpublished but if the following applies.#

1. The story bores you!  (You can guess how others will react to it!).
   
2. The characters come across as cardboard cut-outs.
   
3. The story does not show a moment of change.  There has to be a point to the story.  Something happens, Character X does this, then that happens.  Without that basic structure there is no story.
   
4. You follow the basic structure but then don't stop the story at the right place and it goes on needlessly.  That dragging on will literally be what anyone remembers about the story so get the tale written, ensure it is well edited and that the story ends appropriately.
   
5. You begin the story in the wrong place.  By the time you get to the actual story, readers will have switched off.
   

Character failures can be:-

1. A failure to develop the character properly so he/she/it is literally half formed.
   
2. A character fails to achieve what they set out to do (and usually resents it).
   
3. A character lets down another character they're close to, sometimes deliberately.
   
4. A character, previously a decent one, goes to the "dark side" but some great stories come out of that kind of change.
   
5. A character has a crisis of confidence, leading to errant behaviour - the story there is do they come out of this and, if so, how?
   

Judging success for a character is made up of:-

1. Does the character work as a character?
2. Does the character achieve what they wanted to achieve?  If not, is what they achieved better or more appropriate than what they originally thought they wanted?

For a character to work as a character, they've got to be well drawn.  Flaws, virtues, a good knowledge of what makes them tick even though you almost certainly won't share all of that information with your readers and they've got to be memorable for some reason.  This applies to characters who are not necessarily in the starring role as well.  For example, I always recall Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings for his absolute loyalty to Frodo Baggins. 

There has got to be something about  your characters that grabs your reader's attention and generates emotion for that character (this can be hatred as well as love.  Sauron grabs my attention but I certainly don't like him.  I feel sorry for Frodo and am rooting for him to succeed in his mission but there is something appealing about his character that makes me want to root for him.  A less likeable character, though I'd still want the mission to succeed, would not have so much whole hearted support).

As for achievement, this is the pivot for any story.  Yes, Frodo achieves success but at a high cost.  (And if you haven't read or seen The Lord of the Rings by now, you really should have done).  Yes, Sauron achieves his success in creating that ring but loses it... meaning the achievement to retrieve it (for use or destruction) is the ultimate goal.  Characters can also judge whether they've been successful and this will vary.  A pessimistic character will set themselves standards they can't possibly meet so will always fail.  A more optimistic one will make the best of a bad job.  There are so many stories to be told from characters like that.  Achievement then varies.  And how it is judged can too.

As a writer, how do you judge successes?  I don't think there's one big moment of publishing success for most writers. 

I think there is a series of smaller ones, all of which culminate in the realisation you really can call yourself a writer after all.  (And what writer doesn't need some kind of vindication after all?). 

I would list some of my smaller steps as:-

1. First publishing credit.  This was A Helping Hand in Bridge House Publishing's Alternative Renditions anthology.
2. First online publishing credit.  This was with Shortbread Short Stories though I have gone on to have work online at Cafe Lit (short story and flash fiction) and Alfie Dog.  Most recently I have had work on the American based Scriggler.com
3. Being recognized as a writer by fellow writers.  This usually happens at book launches like the joint Bridge House/Cafe Lit launch I went to in London today.  I'm glad to say I'm in The Best of Cafe Lit 4 and the inclusion of my story is recognition in itself, as is when talking to other writers, they recognize you regardless of how many stories you've had out there.  They recognize, as I do for others, it's the graft and commitment you put in that really counts for anything.
   

And then how to judge success for your characters...  I hope to look at that in my next post.

There are certain traits I like my characters to have and these include:-

1. Some sense of humour.  How much varies on the character, of course, and there is a place in fiction for those who are humourless (but these will never be my favourite types).
   
2. Courage.  This can again vary.  Eileen's courage in tackling monsters is obvious.  Her courage in tolerating Jenny's rejection of her after Eileen is forced to reveal what she is not bravery to the same extent, naturally, but it is courage all the same.  Dignity is phenomenally important here too.
   
3. Honesty.  I love Eileen's bluntness.  Besides honest characters can and do cause chaos in their wake so all good news for the story writer, yes?
   
4. Good, sound reasons for their actions.  This helps drive the plot, makes the story believable, makes their actions equally believable.  Weak reasons can't be sustained (especially in a novel) and only strong reasons can give a character sufficient motivation to carry on despite dangers, differences of opinions with other characters and so on.

What fairytales need can be summed up as:-

1. Strong characters, not necessarily likeable ones.
2. A clear hero/heroine and equally clear villain.  These do not have to be the obvious ones - ~Shrek inverts this beautifully.
   
3. A clear and worthy goal for our hero/heroine.
   
4. For the villain to have good reasons to oppose the hero/heroine yet still be clearly wrong.
   
5. As an alternative to 4, for the villain to be totally evil so it makes it easy to cheer the hero/heroine along.
   
6. Some magical elements.
   
7. A good ending (doesn't necessarily have to be happy, Hans Christen Andersen proves that).
   
8. A plot which has a good pace to it so readers are glued to the page (but not literally, it can get messy!).
   
9. The right mood.   Often fairytales can be funny, often they can be sad.  It does have to be relevant to the story.
   
10. To be the right length for the story.  Some are better off as short, or even flash, pieces yet The Snow Queen to name one example is a long tale and needs to be.
    

I think the above title sums up the plot of almost all novels and short stories.  After all we're reading about characters we either love or hate and we want to find out how their story ends. 

Any story has to be about conflict.  Conflict is when one character wants something and another character or circumstances or both gets in their way.  The story is how they overcome that, if they do at all, and what their reaction is to their success or failure.  Also are the failures temporary?  Have the failures been set up by opponents?  If so, what happens when your hero/heroine finds out?

Overcoming obstacles is a real test of what a character is capable of/discovers what they're capable of.  Obstacles are crucial to any story then.  The great thing is that much as we don't like obstacles getting in our way, neither should our characters and their reactions can add depth to the tale.  Obstacles can also show your characters are "real" given very few people welcome problems.

And naturally the obstacles should worsen as the tale goes on.  There is great fun to be had in putting your characters through the mill so go for it!  Characters have to have something to lose or to gain and it's got to be something compelling.

Writing fairytales has its own challenges.  Not only is there a fine tradition to live up to and hopefully enhance in a small way (Hans Christen Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Roald Dahl etc), there are also biases to overcome. 

For me the main one of those is the assumption that fairytales are twee little stories for young kids and I have come across that view.  It tells me something about the person holding the view immediately - they haven't read the original tales, they've only seen Disney at best!  (And that's not to denigrate Disney at all - there are, within its limits given its audience, grim bits - for example the murder of Simba's father in The Lion King.  I'm fond of many of the Disney versions and accept the fact they simply could not have made The Little Mermaid the way Hans Christen Andersen wrote it).

The other challenge is that fairytales often carry a strong moral message but do so in an entertaining way and without being preachy.  Often the message is not spelled out directly, you pick it up from what happens to the good and bad characters.  Often fairytales have many layers to them.  Just how many layers do my stories have?  Fairytales are not 2D so the challenge is to ensure mine are not either.

With the recent, not unexpected loss of my mother, I have been revisiting my past, literally following in her early footsteps.  I revisited the place where she grew up as a child and it brought back many memories for me of my visiting my grandparents there and also visiting the local stately home (open to the public), which was literally at the end of their road.  It was the second time I'd been back here since I entered adulthood but I could and did find my way around the stately home grounds as if I'd never been away.  An uncanny experience, a moving one too.

And it occurred to me that revisiting your characters' pasts could be useful.  It will show you just how well you know them for one thing but pasts have a nasty habit of affecting the future and I would be stunned if you found such pasts didn't  trigger further stories.  A character's past could reveal a lot about their motivations, what they are keeping secret (there usually is something!) and should shed light on why they behave the way they do.  The great thing is you can have inconsistency here.  Hypocrites are great fun to write for!

So what is the past your characters are proud of?  What are they ashamed of?  What are they hoping nobody will ever find out (and what would they do to keep things that way?).

I love asking questions to trigger story ideas.  They're a great way to get started.  Hope you have some fun with the ones above.