The House on Thornrose Lane: A Grimm Tale

A note on the story from Alicia, to be read once the ending has been thoroughly digested. Or immediately. Whichever.

…

Well there you have it. The end of my first epic story. It was officially seven years in the writing and over a year and a half in the posting and at this point has collected over three times as many reviews as any other story of mine. I truly cannot thank you all enough for sticking with the story and sending me your honest reviews, critiques, and support. Every comment was much appreciated.

And I of course must thank Phantasy Star, who agreed to edit this monstrosity and did an amazing job from start to finish. She was very instrumental in polishing up the final story.

The reason for this note is to address a couple things that I suspect are going to come up, or have come up already:

Endymion. All stories begin with a seed of an idea that eventually grows and unfolds to encompass an entire plot. The seed for this story was one scene that popped into my head when I was fifteen years old—the love's first kiss scene. The death scene. I knew from the very beginning that I would eventually come to that one scene where Endymion was going to die.

That isn't to say I didn't try to stop it. I read countless fairy tales trying to think of a means to bring him back to life. In the fairy tale world. In the real world. At Serena's bidding, or at Grimm's bidding. At one point I thought of turning him into the frog prince. Or to somehow tie him in with Darien—I had never intended them to be the same person, but could they be? But it simply did not work with the story no matter how hard I tried to make it.

I didn't write the death scene until I'd been working on the story for 5 or 6 years. One reader commented that Endymion's death felt like a cop-out, and if it was, it was a cop-out that was planned from the beginning, unavoidable, and (not to be melodramatic or anything) kind of broke my heart. After that scene was written, I did not touch the story for about two months. Writer's depression, perhaps? I was able to finish it eventually, of course, but the story was a struggle from that point on.

And when all of your reviews kept insisting that I bring him back, I revisited the issue and brainstormed and deliberated again, but still knew that it was not how the story was meant to end. I did stick to my initial plan, and I sincerely hope that you all found it to be a satisfactory ending. (But please, do not hesitate to tell me if you hated it, as long as you also tell me why.)

Publication. Many of you know that I started writing this as an original story, with hopes for eventual publication. I haven't completely neglected that idea and may someday work on revising it and turning it back into an original. And who knows? Maybe in that version the prince will live.

Should you have any suggestions or critiques that you feel would be helpful in a revision, please let me know. Any and all comments are welcome and appreciated.

Thanks again for reading and for all of your reviews!

Up next. The next story to be posted is called "To the Gentleman in the Back." It's getting back to my original style, more fun and cheerful. Should be about ten chapters long. I hope to start posting in June.

To stay updated, please sign up for my newsletter at aliciablade dot com. I am also posting drabbles there before anywhere else, and I may put the first chapter of Gentleman on my newsletter before posting it here, too, along with other news and updates. So please come on over and sign up!

Best wishes to you all,

Alicia