Hello, friends. Today was going to be the second Folklore Friday post featuring the Mother. But between fall break, a virus making its rounds in our family, work, etc. etc., that post will hopefully find its way to you next week. Instead, enjoy this post on some of the inspiration that went into Double Alchemy, my Beauty and the Beast inspired romance novella.
What inspired me to write Double Alchemy?
I read Rosamund Hodge’s Cruel Beauty first, a Beauty and the Beast retelling featuring heavy Greco-Romano influences, stunning world building, and complicated sister relationships that reminded me a lot of Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. The story of Psyche and Cupid is considered to be one of the forerunners to B&B, so it makes sense. Cruel Beauty isn’t my favorite retelling, mostly because I had a hard time relating to the main character; but I was captivated by Hodge’s skill and detail orientation as an author. When I found out she had a novella based on Cinderella, I went in search of it and found that I liked this book of hers even more.
Gilded Ashes manages to deliver a believable love story, more complicated sister relationships, and a stunning resolution in a mere twelve chapters. I would have thought that the size of the cast would make it feel cramped and two-dimensional, but every scene is sleek and packs a punch. While some reviewers wish it was longer, I felt it was great just as it was.
It’s the sister relationships from these two stories that influenced me the most in writing Double Alchemy. The main character, Beauty, is the middle of three girls. As she says in chapter one,
While we were all loving and loyal, this was the difference between my sisters and I: Patience and Charity would do anything to protect our family’s feelings, but I would do anything to keep our family alive.
There is a sharp edge to the sisters in Hodge’s books that explores familial obligation, parental expectation, and their often bitter outcomes. I softened this dimension quite a bit, while still wanting Beauty to experience growth throughout the story in terms of her relationship to her sisters and her father, and herself.
I was also inspired to try my hand at a novella retelling, thanks to Gilded Ashes.
With a character named Beauty of my own, how could I not reference this favorite by Robin McKinley? I love the sister relationships in this retelling: they are all supportive, hardworking, and distinct in their personalities, and I’ve borrowed the idea of character traits as names.
And despite Beauty containing one of my least favorite tropes of all time anywhere in any dimension1, the titular character is delightful. She isn’t actually beautiful; she’s practical, loves to read, intelligent without being arrogant, thoughtful without being moody. Reading from her perspective is easy and enjoyable. I always feel like she’s someone I’d like to be friends with.
The first draft of Double Alchemy started very differently then the end result. I thought I was writing a short story about Beauty as a sly, disobedient, and scheming daughter. I thought I was rebelling against the second written version of the story by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, where the main character just quietly accepts the fate her father has landed her in. I wanted to poke at the unfairness of being traded for a rose, as I do in my poem Three rose petals2. I would name her Beauty to highlight the pitfalls of taking someone’s literal face value as their whole identity.
Instead, Beauty rebelled against me.
She is still headstrong and a bit arrogant, but she hides a wounded interior that Armand, the ‘beast’ character, sees with a startling clarity and gentleness. At first, this only raises her hackles. They are twin flames, mirroring each others’ flaws and strengths. And because of their interactions, both of them grow into a humbled, softer approach towards themselves and others.
She may be scheming and sly, but her motivations are complex. In fact, she has something in common with Ardin, the main character from my first book, A Land of Light and Shadow: both of them hold secrets they do not feel safe to share with others, and therefore build narratives that keeps them closed off and protected. There is a cost to revealing their secrets, and only in safe relationships do they begin to feel safe enough to take those risks.
And though she is well aware of the expectations that come with a name like hers, she may have shown me instead that I was in danger of taking her at face value. So to take her revenge, she took control of the story and made it something different from what I had imagined. I am ok with that. :)
In the end, I hope I communicate some of the complexities of familial and romantic love, even in 36k words. I hope that Beauty’s voice feels familiar to you in some way. I hope that her and Armand’s romance, swift and fairy-tale-like as it is, leaves you with a sense of happiness and joy.
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Beauty’s parents are 17 (mother) and 40 (father) when they married. Technically the beast character is significantly older, but it’s fine because magic, right?? Why must you do this, McKinley??