Coming up with Story Ideas: Start With a Fairy Tale

Want an easy story writing experience? Start with a ready-made story. A fairy tale, fable or legend. Adapting an already existing story is a good way to learn about story structure, language, characterization, conflict, everything that goes into a story.  You can simplify the story for a younger audience, you can set it in modern times, or you can switch the protagonist and antagonist. Following are some other approaches that can be used in adapting such tales:

1. The further adventures of a character from the story.
2. The story told from a different point a view.
3. A parody of the story.
4. Change the ending.
5. Change the location.
6. Change the characters.
7. Change the conflict.
8. Rewrite the story in a different style.
9. Most fairy tales have a lesson. Imagine the situation that led to the first person telling the fairy tale. Write a story about that situation.

Here are some adaptable tales. Just make sure you don’t use anything that is unique to the Disney version.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Beauty and the Beast
Chicken Little
Cinderella
Dick Whittington and His Cat
Hansel and Gretal
Jack and the Beanstalk
Jack the Giant Killer
Puss in Boots
Rapunzel
Red Riding Hood
Rumpelstiltzkin
Sindbad the Sailor
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and Rose Red
The Brave Little Tailor
The Emperor’s New Clothes
The Frog Prince
The Gingerbread Man
The Golden Goose
The Little Match-Girl
The Little Mermaid
The Magic Carpet
The Musicians of Bremen
The Nightingle
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The Princess and the Pea
The Shoemaker and the Elves
The Six Swans
The Snow Queen
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
The Three Bears
The Three Little Pigs
The Tinderbox
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
The Ugly Duckling
Three Billy Goats Gruff
Thumbelina
Tom Thumb
Twelve Dancing Princesses