The Cinderella Story - As re-written by Goldie

Hi! there Readers - I re-wrote the story of Cinderella sometime ago as part of a 'Point of View' exercise at my writing group. We were asked to re-write the story from two points of view. I first re-wrote the story in 'first person' and then 'third person omniscient' which I have posted here. Hope you like it...Goldie

Imogene looked at Arabella and they both snickered.


Arabella whispered in Imogene’s ear, ‘Cinderella wants to go to the ball. What a joke! Who does she think she is?’

‘It’s okay, Mum will make sure she doesn’t get there,’ Imogene whispered back. Both of Cinderella’s stepsisters had hated Cinderella ever since their mother married Cinderella’s father. Now Cinderella’s father was dead, her stepsisters were even more horrible to her than before. They didn’t want her to go to the ball at the Prince’s castle for there he would choose a bride. Cinderella was beautiful and the ugly sisters knew they wouldn’t have a chance of the Prince choosing either of them if she was there.

The night of the ball Imogene and Arabella went to the castle dressed in all their finery. They’d had their hair done and were wearing their most expensive jewelry.

‘Bye, Cinderella, we’ll miss you,’ they called, laughing as they spoke, and left Cinderella to do the long list of chores that their mother had given her.

The next day there was a knock at the door. It was the Prince. The beautiful stranger that he danced with all night had left her slipper behind in her haste to get away. No one knew who she was so he was going from door to door asking all the young girls in his kingdom to try the slipper on. He would ask the one whose foot was a perfect fit to marry him.

‘Let me try the slipper on. I didn’t realise I had lost it at the castle,’ Imogene lied, but her foot was too long.

‘Now I will put it on and then go to my room for the matching slipper,’ said Arabella, but her foot was too fat.

‘Are there any other young girls in this house?’ asked the Prince.

‘Only Cinderella but she didn’t go to the ball,’ said the stepsister’s mother.

‘I’d like her to try on the slipper anyway,’ the Prince said.

Arabella stomped off to the kitchen to find Cinderella.

‘You’re wanted outside and make it snappy,’ she said in a grumpy voice.

Cinderella followed her outside and there was the Prince talking with her stepmother and Imogene, who both looked angry.

The Prince’s face lit up when he saw Cinderella.

‘Would you be so good as to try on this slipper?’ he asked.

Cinderella put the slipper on and it was a perfect fit.

‘At last I’ve found you,’ said the Prince and got down on his knee. ‘Will you marry me? he asked.

‘Of course I will,’ answered Cinderella.

Imogene, Arabella and their mother were aghast.

‘How could you have gone to the ball?’ the three of them cried.

‘My Fairy Godmother helped me,’ Cinderella replied.

All of a sudden there was a sound like the rustling of leaves. And Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother appeared from nowhere. She turned to Cinderella’s two stepsisters and scowled.

‘Because you have been so mean and nasty to Cinderella I am going to turn you both into toads that are even uglier than you are already.’

Imogene and Arabella both gasped in horror. She then turned to Cinderella’s stepmother who looked worried. ‘And I am going to turn you into a snake because you are as evil as a snake.’

‘No, wait!’ Cinderella said. And because she was such a nice, kind, caring person she said, ‘please don’t do these things, Fairy Godmother. They can come and live with my Prince and me. I forgive them.’

So that’s what they did and they all lived happily ever after.



THE END

POINT OF VIEW EXERCISES

Point of View (POV) determines the person through whom the story is to be told, ie the narrator. The most common POVs in fiction are First Person, Third Person and Omniscient.

First Person means the story is told as "I". This creates an immediacy and intimacy between the narrator and the reader as the reader is right there inside the narrator's head, with access all the narrator's thoughts. There are, however, some disadvantages to using First Person:

you cannot include any scene at which your POV character is not present.

you cannot include any information your POV character would not naturally possess.

you must include all the information your POV character does have.

Third Person means the story is told as "he", "she" or "it". The advantages of Third Person are that you can still get into the POV character's head, but still see him/her from the outside. Third Person told from only one character's head is called Limited Third Party. Third Person using more than one POV is called Multiple Third Person.

Omniscient is a univeral POV which can get into the head of any character at any time. The author also injects himself into the story, commenting on the action and sometimes addressing the reader directly.

Exercise 1

Pick a story you know well - whether one of your own, or someone else's. List the five or six major characters and then re-write the story from the POV of a character the author did not pick as the POV character. Does the story seem to change? Are some scenes emphasised more, or less? Does the meaning of the story seem to change? taken from Character, Emotion & Viewpoint (Writer's Digest Books, 2005) by Nancy Kress

Exercise 2

Take a story you have previously written in First Person and rewrite it in Third Person. What freedoms do you now have using this narrator? Conversely, are there limitations in using Third Person? How has the mood of the piece changed?