THINGS ABOUT FAIRYTALES I DISLIKE

1. That some people still think fairytales are twee, for little kids etc.  It tells me immediately they haven't read the original stories and have only seen the Disney versions.
   
2. Fairytales are generic so you have stock, generic characters.  A witch, for example, is always a bad witch.  A fairy godmother is always good etc.  It is a question of accepting that and then writing your own fairytales where you can play with characters more.  It is your story after all.
   
3. There are surprises in fairytales and I think the main one to affect me is that some can be incredibly sad.  Happy ever afters are not guaranteed.  See The Little Match Girl and The Little Mermaid in particular.  I do have to be in the right frame of mind to read those tales (though ironically I do welcome the variety in outcomes).
   
4. That they are assumed to be easy to write.  Definitely not true! Mind this is true for genre fiction in general and one reason why it is looked down on in certain circles (who conveniently forget that genre fiction brings in the money which supports literary fiction).
   
5. I do understand why Disney, for their audience, had to adapt certain stories - Frozen and The Little Mermaid to name two examples.  There is no way they could have shown the latter as Hans Christen Andersen told it.  But in general I am against watering down stories.