People all around the world continue to invent new fairy tales and retell traditional fairy tales.
Universally, people enjoy a story in which truth prevails, generosity is rewarded, obstacles are overcome by hard work and love, good triumphs over evil and mercy and kindness are the greatest powers.
Fairy tales will often include a moral message for the reader.
- A Moral
- The llesson the story teaches.
- Characters
- Good character - the reader or listener likes this character. A good character will typically start off as young, often poor and alone, unhappy, humble and untainted, but not necessarily perfect. They generally turn out to be respected and to have found power and happiness.
- Bad character(s) - acts as an antagonist to the good character and they usually have evil powers which are used to cause the good character pain. Sometimes the "good" character has to face a series of "bad" characters to be successful.
- Supporting characters - these may be characters the good one has to free, or a helper in the quest, or the bad helpers of the evil character.
- Magic
- Many fairy tales have both good and evil magical characters that work to off-set the other's influence. Magic should always play a part in a fairy tale, whether it be pixie dust, a magic wand or any other form of magic you want to include. Some fairy tales have magic numbers.
- Happily ever after!
- Nearly all fairy tales start with "Once upon a time" and end with "And they all lived happily ever after!" Fairy tales finish off with a happy ending--the character must succeed and the evil character must lose.
- There is a "lesson learned" through the efforts of the good character.
Thank you, Tanglin Trust School Library
