Why We Retell the Same Stories

Plus a list of my favorite literary retellings-with-a-twist!

Jan 31, 2024

Have you ever heard of the bird test? It comes from The Gottman Institute, a research organization that studies relational longevity based on how each person responds to small, seemingly insignificant observations or experiences that excite their partner (such as spying a bird out the window!).

My version of the bird test—which my husband passes with flying colors—is how long he can listen to me talk about Greek mythology in one sitting. One morning before work, I rattled on for at least twenty minutes about the love triangle between Ares, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. (This discussion might have been prompted by the new Percy Jackson show.) As I talked more about this myth, I began to consider its basic bones: two vastly different brothers feuding over a beautiful woman, amid a family that cannot get their shit together. A few of my favorite books are based on this very premise. Some are more overt retellings with specific references, while others use parts of the same story architecture, but ultimately deviate far from the original.

This week, I read Cursed, an anthology of short stories based on popular fairy tales (or creating brand-new ones). Some of the stories are deliberately close retellings, such as the twisted epilogue to Snow White, while others veer off from the originals entirely, using familiar elements of the genre (royalty, magic, cannibalism, so much cannibalism in fairy tales) to build something new. Here, I’m thinking of “Fairy Werewolf vs. Vampire Zombie” by Charlie Jane Anders, a romp of a tale you should all check out.

The short story I’m currently writing is very loosely based on Hansel and Gretel; so loosely that I wonder if readers might trace their way back to the original story if I didn’t name it. It’s been immensely satisfying to write this story because I have a clear sense of the path ahead, but I get to fill it with my own interpretations of the themes. I get to make a well-trodden tale mine.

As I was working on the first drafts for Banyan Moon, I felt that there was something flabby in the narrative. The story didn’t quite cohere the way I wanted it to. But once I discovered and incorporated the folklore of The Man in the Moon, which prominently features a banyan tree, the pieces snapped together. I could see the arc of the narrative, as well as the emotional heart of the story. Folklore has a way of pulling in universal storytelling threads and, through each telling, offering something new to a reader or listener.

What’s similar about these fairytales, myths, and folk tales is how they can satisfy the cultural imagination through the repetition of tropes and the subversion of those same tropes. We return to these ur stories because they are comforting in their predictability. They don’t always end happily, but our consciousness knows the next beat, which affords a sort of psychic safety. Yet the best retellings are the ones that can capitalize on that sense of reader knowingness and manage to surprise us anyway. As readers, we are securely held and stirred into suspense.

During an introductory survey to folklore, I read Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale, a structural analysis of Russian fairy tales. He found 31 underlying commonalities, or patterns, in those Russian tales. Though Propp’s work isn’t without its critics, I still find the Morphology fascinating in its revelation of how many stories can be broken down into a collection of discrete and familiar elements. I’ll bet if we analyzed any contemporary text—Succession or Barbie or Harry Potter—we’d find more discernible plot movements than we’d expect.

I’ve recently finished the developmental edits for my romance novel (more on that soon, including a dreamy cover I’m so proud to share!). One of the things I appreciate about the romance genre is its fidelity to convention. Almost every title in the genre mixes up the components of a.) boy-meets-girl, b.) boy-loses-girl, and c.) boy-gets-girl-back. The happily ever after (referred to as the HEA) is guaranteed, but all the steps to get there can vary widely from book to book. We could probably distill most genre writing, like horror or fantasy, into a handful of basic conventions too. I’ll even go so far as to say that there are few genuinely original plots in the world, at least when we consider them at their most stripped-down level. How we reanimate those plots, reimagine settings, and give characters voice make such stories ours.

Below, I’ve gathered a few bookish retellings of myth, folklore, fairy tales, and even retellings of famous literary works. Do you have any to add? I’m always looking for a new spin on a beloved tale.

Mythology and Folklore

Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann || Referent: Aphrodite-Ares-Hephaestus myth

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati || Referent: Homer’s Iliad*

House of Names by Colm Tóibín || Referent: Homer’s Iliad*

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood || Referent: Homer’s Odyssey*

A Touch of Malice || Referent: Persephone and Hades myth

American Gods by Neil Gaiman || Referent: the old Irish, Norse, Slavic, African, and Middle Eastern gods

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan || Referent: Chinese folklore of the Moon Goddess

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden || Referent: Russian folk tale of Frost

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh || Referent: Korean folktale of Shim Cheong

Fairy Tale and Fable

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi || Referent: Mr. Fox

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey || Referent: the Changeling

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman || Referent: The Ice Queen

The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne || Referent: Rapunzel

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski || Referent: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie*

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik || Referent: Rumpelstiltskin

Literary Retellings

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver || Referent: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano || Referent: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

March by Geraldine Brooks || Referent: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia || Referent: The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo || Referent: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin || Referent: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld || Referent: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley || Referent: King Lear by William Shakespeare

* This denotes a title that could also be placed in the category of literary retellings.

Please note that there is so much nuance when we talk about the differences between categories of storytelling, such as mythology versus folklore. A book might use mythic or fairy-tale-like language (Starling House; anything by Alice Hoffman), or it may lean on fairy tale tropes, yet might not be identified as a retelling. The term “retelling” can also be hotly debated. But in order to keep this newsletter from turning into a full-fledged (messily conceived) scholarly paper, I took some shortcuts in defining and eliding terms. Happy reading!