Young Writers Society

How to write a retelling?

I am planning to write a retelling of the story of Medusa. It is going to be in the fantasy genre. How do I write a retelling?
Are there any articles, websites or resources?



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Hey @inkdreams!

Retellings are my favourite, to both read and write. Silk, one of my WIPs, is a retelling of Beauty & The Beast.

I don't really have any advice on how, to be honest, they just sort of happen. I think you need to ask yourself a few questions about it though to get you started:

1) how faithful to the original do you plan on being? What would you change?
2) what setting are you going to use - is this going to be set in Ancient Greece or elsewhere/in a different time?
3) how is magic going to work there (is there magic or is it replaced by something else)?
4) what perspective are you going to use - Perseus, Medusa, or somebody else?

Among my favourite retellings are:

1) The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. A very faithful retelling.
2) The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer - completely different setting of four different fairytales, set in the future.
3) Circe by Madeline Miller, a very faithful retelling with a reworked ending.

I recommend that you read some retellings as inspiration and research - Circe is definitely a good one for you if you haven't read it before because like Medusa, Circe is a female villain from Greek mythology and it's a really, really excellent book.

Sorry I don't have more advice, but I would love to read it if you post any!

StellaThomas wrote:Hey @inkdreams!

Retellings are my favourite, to both read and write. Silk, one of my WIPs, is a retelling of Beauty & The Beast.

I don't really have any advice on how, to be honest, they just sort of happen. I think you need to ask yourself a few questions about it though to get you started:

1) how faithful to the original do you plan on being? What would you change?
2) what setting are you going to use - is this going to be set in Ancient Greece or elsewhere/in a different time?
3) how is magic going to work there (is there magic or is it replaced by something else)?
4) what perspective are you going to use - Perseus, Medusa, or somebody else?

Among my favourite retellings are:

1) The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. A very faithful retelling.
2) The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer - completely different setting of four different fairytales, set in the future.
3) Circe by Madeline Miller, a very faithful retelling with a reworked ending.

I recommend that you read some retellings as inspiration and research - Circe is definitely a good one for you if you haven't read it before because like Medusa, Circe is a female villain from Greek mythology and it's a really, really excellent book.

Sorry I don't have more advice, but I would love to read it if you post any!

Oh thank you so much! This is great advice! I will definitely share it with you whenever its finished! I'm still in the planning stage >_<

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I'm glad I could help!

StellaThomas wrote:I'm glad I could help!

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Another thing to consider for retellings can be how you want to form these characters, especially in the title piece of Medusa. This all goes into what kind of setting/storyline there will be though, as she's certainly a complex character that has an extensive background to her becoming such a major Greek figure in mythology.

For a few examples, her fall from grace could be documented in a high school setting pretty easily, or even in college to add a bit of maturity to the rest of the cast. However, her reflection being used against her with Perseus could be placed in modern times, or have a traditional twist.

It's all about what you want the story to mean and appear outside of the usual legend. I'm curious if you continued to plan this story out!