Ines Johnson is on the guest couch today to discuss how The Grand Gesture and its use in fiction today, including an excerpt from her own story "Pumpkin: A Cindermama Story. So, grab your favorite beverage and join us on the couch. We're being very casual today.
Girl On Her Own Horse
Have you been paying attention to the
evolution of the Cinderella story? If you’ve watched the Disney blockbuster, Frozen, then you have. Young girls and
women are no longer waiting around for a man to come by on his horse, sweep
them off their feet, and give them shoes.
Okay, I doubt any of us would turn
down the shoes!
My point is that women are now taking
the reins of their own stories and rejecting the Cinderella trope of changing
themselves into someone new. In many, dare I say most, of these stories the
prince doesn’t pay attention to the Cinderella character in her ordinary world
of working 9-5pm with grime under her nails and threadbare clothes. He doesn’t
look her way until she gets magicked into expertly applied makeup, a binding,
shape-shifting corset, and brand new shoes.
My first notice of this was in the
film Working Girl. This 80’s
retelling of the Cinderella story featured a bright secretary who had dreams of
entering the boardroom with a briefcase instead of coffee. When her wicked boss
steals her idea, the secretary seizes an opportunity to steal into a high
profile business meeting by pretending that she’s her boss, while also wearing
her boss’s dress and shoes. Melanie Griffith, as the secretary, uses Harrison
Ford’s charming character to get her into the board room’s door. When the
business deal goes south, Griffith doesn’t wait for the knight in a business
suite to rescue her. Instead, she shows off her ‘head for business and bod for
sin’ in order to win a business deal, thwart her boss, and get her man.
A decade later Drew Barrymore retold
the Cinderella story in Ever After.
In a pivotal scene when Barrymore’s character, Danielle, has been taken
prisoner by the evil Pierre Le Pieu, the audience holds their breath as the
prince leaps onto his horse and heads off to rescue her. But Danielle picks up
not one, but two swords, and swashbuckles her way to an escape. As she’s
walking out of the castle a free woman, the prince arrives moments too late
with her shoe in hand.
Nearly another decade later came
another retelling with Penelope.
Penelope is an heiress born under a curse that can only be broken in the face
of true love. The problem? Penelope’s face doesn’t inspire sonnets and poems as
much as it does a hankering for breakfast meats. Penelope’s snout nose has
caused her to be rejected her whole life, including rejection from her own
mother. When she finally finds a man willing to tolerate her looks and break
the curse, she comes to the realization that she likes herself just the way she
is. And just like that, the curse is broken and Penelope’s outside matches her
glowing inside.
In today’s stories, women don’t wait
around for men on horses. They take the reins, defend themselves, and declare
love to their own reflections. They’re now even qualified to deliver true
love’s kiss to their own sisters as we saw in the blockbuster Frozen.
In my fairytale retelling, Pumpkin: a Cindermama story my heroine
has given up on fairytale love. Single mother Malika “Pumpkin” Tavares lost
faith in fairytales after she fell for a toad. Town royalty Armand “Manny”
Charmayne has been searching for his soulmate all his life, whom he’ll
recognize at first sight by a golden aura, that only he can see, surrounding
her person. Manny doesn’t see gold when he meets Pumpkin, but the more he gets
to know her the more he considers defying fate, if only he can convince her to
take a chance on love again.
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Having given up on fairytales after falling for her toad of an ex, Pumpkin is afraid to take a chance on town royalty Manny who believes she may be his soulmate.
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EXCERPT:
The Mistress of Ceremonies hurried through her introductions and then the microphone was in Manny's hand, but he didn't take out the notes of his prepared speech.
"Many of you knew my mother," he began. There was a murmur of nostalgic assent throughout the crowd.
"You may not know that after her diagnosis, she spent most of her days watching romantic comedies. She believed she could laugh the illness out of her body. Her favorite moments in these films were something called the Grand Gesture. That scene just after all hope is lost because one of the lovers, normally the guy, has done something stupid that's led to the end of the relationship. So he thinks up this bold, romantic move to get the woman back."
A glance around the room told Manny that he held the largely female crowd in rapt attention.
"An example of a grand gesture would be a guy telling his estranged wife that she completes him in the midst of an angry mob of women. Or rescuing her underwear from the class geek and returning it to her at her sister's wedding. Or holding a boom box over his head, in front of her bedroom window, early in the morning, while blasting the song that was playing as he deflowered her."
A different wave of nostalgia swept through the crowd this time as they remembered these treasured moments of Hollywood cinema.
"In the real world, some people might call these behaviors creepy, or stalker-ish. But not my mother. She loved them. She believed in love, believed that when you loved someone you said it loud, you showed it often, and you never gave up."
Manny paused here, partly for effect, mostly to collect himself as visions of his mother's joyous face played in his head. He rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest.
"The national divorce rate is 50 percent."
There was no surprise in the room, where most of the men were older and the women on their arms were younger.
"There's never been a divorce in the Charmayne family. Not one recorded anywhere in our family line."
The sparkle of young women's eyes threatened to blind Manny from where he stood on the stage.
"What that means is when a Charmayne gives you their pledge, they are committed."
The decision was a split second one, but once Manny made it he stuck with it. He stepped around the podium, mic in hand and dropped to one knee. The gasp of every woman in the room was near deafening.
"To earn your vote, I will do whatever I have to, including blast Peter Gabriel in the streets. Charmaynes don't quit. I'm committed to this, to the people of this town. I hope that I can count on your vote."
The room erupted in thunderous applause, and the women's eyes sparkled even brighter.
We’ve seen literary heroes perform the feat of a grand gesture near the end of the tale. In Pumpkin: a Cindermama story, my hero Manny talks about this moment in the first act. I take a moment early in the book to teach the reader the rules of the grand gesture in this speech so that they are prepped for later in the book when I break these rules in favor of a more non-traditional grand gesture near the end of the story. To find out who messed up and how they declared their love in a grand way, pick up the book.
Blurb:
Single mother Malika “Pumpkin” Tavares lost faith in fairytales after she fell for a toad. Now she believes she’s not cut from the storybook, heroine cloth and searches for Mr. Good Enough amongst the sidekicks and supporting men of the town.
Love at first sight isn’t a cliche for town royalty Armand “Manny” Charmayne. For generations the Charmaynes have spotted their soulmates by seeing a golden aura the first time they laid eyes on The One.
When Manny meets Pumpkin he sees…nothing, but sparks fly off the richter scale. The more he gets to know her the more he considers defying fate, if only he can convince her to take a chance on love again.
Amazon Purchase Link:
ISBN: 978-0-9909228-4-1 AISN: B00TKP8ZMQ
About the Author:
Ines writes books for strong women who suck at love. If you rocked out to the twisted triangle of Jem, Jericha, and Rio as a girl; if you were slayed by vampires with souls alongside Buffy; if you need your scandalous fix from Olivia Pope each week, then you’ll love her books!
Ines writes books for strong women who suck at love. If you rocked out to the twisted triangle of Jem, Jericha, and Rio as a girl; if you were slayed by vampires with souls alongside Buffy; if you need your scandalous fix from Olivia Pope each week, then you’ll love her books!
Aside from being a writer, professional reader, and teacher, Ines is a very bad Buddhist. She sits in sangha each week, and while others are meditating and getting their zen on, she’s contemplating how to use the teachings to strengthen her plots and character motivations.
Ines lives outside Washington, DC with her two little sidekicks who are growing up way too fast.
Social Links:
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24927912-pumpkinFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ineswrites
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ineswrites
Website: https://inesjohnson.wordpress.com/
Publisher: http://heartspell.com/
Enjoyed this post and the excerpt Ines. Love the sound of this :) Thank you both for sharing :)
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Roz