Microfiction Revision: Wicked Family Tales

 

The evil stepmother demanding the young daughter do certain tasks.

Image from Cherwell.

Original Story: 

There once was a young girl who lived with her father. When her father came home with a new wife one day, the woman immediately sneered and knew this little girl would need to learn her place in the house. The new stepmother treated the young girl terribly, always blaming horrific accidents on her. After years of enduring this treatment, the girl swore she would have her own family that nobody could take away from her again, not stepmothers or stepdaughters. This girl would finally have her own place in someone’s life, and she wasn’t about to give that up.

Revision:

    There once was a young girl who lived with her father. One day, her father came home with a new wife. The wife immediately sneered at the daughter and knew she would need to learn her place in the house. 'After all, a wife is always more important', the wife thought.

    The girl's stepmother treated her terribly, always blaming horrific accidents on her. 

    After years of enduring this treatment, the daughter finally ran away from home, swearing to never look back. She promised that she would never let herself be treated like a servant again, especially by her own family.

Revision Process:

Since this is an original story, I could alter it however I really wanted to with no basis on a certain source. I never really liked the ending of the first story I had written, it always felt kind of incomplete and rushed. When I went back and revised this story, I took out some extra details that I felt were unnecessary to the plot. The main point is to never let yourself be treated as less than you deserve, and I really wanted that to come across in the ending. I added some paragraph breaks and dialogue to make the story a bit more believable, then I changed the ending so that the daughter runs away, realizing that she is worth more than that treatment. She promises to never let herself be treated like that again, and then she proceeds to find her way in the world. I like this ending a lot better, and I hope you do too!