Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates (54 page)

The Adithian side of the cast is
drawing from
Silver Tree and Gold Tree,
which is actually a Scottish fairytale. 
It roughly follows the plot of Snow White, where evil pretty step-mother tries
to kill and eat nice pretty daughter because nice pretty daughter is prettier. 
But Gold Tree (the daughter) ends up in the care of the prince for an extended
period because she’s… well… dead.  But I thought amnesia worked better than
actual death.  It would be hard to be a pirate while lugging your girlfriend’s
glass coffin around with you everywhere.  Uriah’s a pretty stubborn guy, but I
think that would begin to annoy even him after a while.  It works pretty well
when you combine it with
Grizzlebeard
though, since the weak setup to
explain the princess being with the hero is the problem in
Grizzlebeard
and
the second half of the
Gold Tree
story where she’s dead is the problem
in the
Gold Tree
fairytale.  So, they sort of fit together.  In the
original fairytale, the prince ends up married to Gold Tree/Snow White and
another
woman, but they all seem fine with it and move in together.  Honestly, I’ve never
really read a fairytale with that ending before.  I found it… compelling.  It
was an interesting dynamic.  But I don’t really write that kind of book, to say
nothing of the fact that my characters would in
no way
support that
arrangement for themselves, so that aspect of the story didn’t make this
adaptation.  It’s still interesting though.  I’d love to see an animated Disney
musical that ended that way, just so everyone could be like, “What the hell was
that!?!”  :- )

Oh, and The Girl with Silver Hands
is… well…
The Girl with Silver Hands
.  That’s basically the fairytale,
only there’s some other stuff involving changelings and some “Snow White”-style
shenanigans with a dear’s heart in a box, but mainly that’s it.  She got added
to the family because I figured all the “silver”-themed characters should be in
one place.

“Karen,” the dead sister, is the
name of the girl in the
Red Shoes
fairytale.  The story follows her
getting an enchanted pair of shoes which make her never stop dancing… so she
chops off her feet and then dies.  The end.  I thought that meshed quite well
with the death of the queen in the original Snow White fairytale though, who
was condemned to dance wearing red hot shoes until death.  See?  And you
thought I didn’t put any thought into such a tiny detail.  But no, it all makes
sense.  Kinda.  Okay… it makes no sense to anyone but me.  But whatever. 
I
get what I was trying to do there.

So, it’s sort of a mix of a half
dozen different fairytales.  I think it’s really more “fairytale themed,”
rather than being a direct adaptation of any single one.  Had I known that
Uriah and Ransom would be getting a book when I introduced them, I would have
tried to make them more based on particular fairytales or given them more
fairytale based names.  But I like them a lot, so I’m not sorry it worked out
how it worked out.

To clear up a confusion that some
readers seem to have though: these books
aren’t
meant to be historical
fiction.  They don’t represent the distant past or any real places.  They don’t
even represent a specific time period of real technology, in the strictest
sense.  They’re fairytales, taking place in an imaginary world with its own
imaginary rules.  They’re just meant to be fun stories and their “world” generally
changes to fit the needs of the characters within certain boundaries.  This is
Galavant
,
people, not
Game of Thrones
.  So if you’re examining these books and
looking for some kind of period accuracy or something, I’m afraid you’re going
to be disappointed.  They use modern slag because I find anything else annoying
(both to read and write), they use US standard terms for
distance/weight/height/alcohol/etc, and they have modern ideas about hygiene
because otherwise it’s just gross.  The books and the cultures described abide
by certain rules (they seem to have cannons but not guns, for instance), but those
are in place to maintain the fairytale-ness and not because I want them to be “realistic”
in any way.  That’s just not the kind of book I write, sorry. 

Like
Travels with a Fairytale
Monster,
this book was written almost entirely in order, with the exception
of some sequences which I wrote early and then caught up with.  Nothing too
major though.  I think the first thing written was the flashback to their first
meeting on the boat, simply because I needed it as backstory to complete
Travels
with a Fairytale Monster. 
I wanted to know exactly what happened, so that
the characters could accurately reference it.  I wrote some other sequences at
the same time, but they didn’t make the final draft of this book.

Time spent writing: I started it in
earnest the day I finished
Travels with a Fairytale Monster,
so about 6
months.  But most of that was spent conceptualizing it, there was only a few
weeks of actual writing when you add it all together.  And, as I said, a few
sequences were written before
Travels with a Fairytale Monster
was even
completed.

Alternate titles: “Everybody Hates
Fairytale Pirates” and “Blood and Treasure.”

Favorite line:  Ransom’s “I think
you finally killed him” line to Uriah when he knocks out Ryle always makes me
smile for some reason.  But that could just be because I can hear her delivery
of the line in my head though.  Uriah’s right: she has excellent delivery.

If you enjoyed this book, please
tell your friends, and leave a rating on Amazon or “like” it on Facebook,
Goodreads, or elsewhere.  It only takes a minute and I
genuinely
enjoy
reading the comments.  If you
didn’t
enjoy the book… well, you don’t
have to bother leaving one.  I’ve already wasted enough of your valuable time,
and the rating process takes hours anyway and is SUPER difficult to complete. 
You just don’t need that kind of aggravation.  Besides, no one reads those
things anyway.  :- )

Please feel free to email me if you
have any questions or comments about the book, series, characters, life in
general, or just feel like chatting about other Star Turtle books:
[email protected]
. 
I actually do answer all of my email, so while I can’t guarantee my answer will
make any sense, you will receive a reply.  

Thanks for
reading!  Hopefully I’ll see you again next time!