Sugar and Spice

A personal literary essay by Ariel Hochstrasser

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.” - Oscar Wilde

Step One: 

  I was spoon-fed fairytales as a kid. I lapped up the stories of princesses being saved by shining knights, of surreal characters of all shapes and sizes aiding or hindering a perfectly normal human on their quest to find Happily Ever After, of heroes always winning and bad guys always losing. I savored the moments of sweet victories and knowing just how easy it was to spot the good and the evil. The fairytales I consumed inspired me to tell myself fantastical adventures. For the first few years of my life, I let the stories bounce around the corners of my mind, unsure of what to do with them, but well aware that fairytales were my most treasured source of nourishment.

Step Two: 

  Then, I was introduced to new fairytale, or at least a familiar shaped into something new. In sixth grade, my English teacher had us pick stories for a book report, and Gail Carson Levine’s Fairest came to mind while browsing the library. I recognized it from the library in elementary school just a year or two prior to the assignment, and decided to give it a go. The foundation of my fairytale knowledge cracked as soon as I read the words:

“I was an unsightly child. My skin was the weak blue-white of skimmed milk, which wouldn't have been so bad if my hair had been blond and my lips pale pink. But my lips were as red as a dragon's tongue and my hair as black as an old frying pan,” (pg 3).

  Suddenly, a new delicacy was introduced to me. The fantasy that I loved and lived for expanded, and I sampled a new flavor: retellings. Snow White was brought to the table as the dullest maiden in the land with the vivid imagery, but the story weaved the idea that beauty is more than skin deep and invoked my creativity more than ever before. If Snow White could be retold with Levine’s own personal touch, she could be retold by me, too. I could retell any story, and maybe I could rewrite the basic fairytale recipe into exactly the kind of story I wanted to write. I felt a sudden spark burn inside me, and I wanted to know how I could write my own stories.

Step Three: 

  The spark died when, in my eagerness, I shared my ideas too soon. Levine’s story included a made-up language I had started writing down to learn from, to dissect how she created it and why it made her Snow White story perfectly put together. My notes were taken and read aloud by a not-so-charming prince and his band of damsels, and the spark was snuffed out by my own personal dragons. Trying to write for fun became dangerous. I didn’t have any fairy godmother to help me feel empowered to keep writing, and I wasn’t on the path to adventure like humans in fairytales. Writing made me look like a fool, so I stopped.

Step Four:

  Years later, while writing stories in my head that I no longer dared to share, I got a taste of something I though my palate couldn’t handle. I read Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan. Instead of light, sweet stories with only a touch of bittersweet endings, I was fed cobwebs and blood as I read the story about a boy who encounters a vampire at an illegal freak show, and steals his lethal pet spider. The flavor was exotic. The voice of the narrator had a dry sense of humor as he told the story in his own way. I was sucked into a new world where the characters experienced joy and adventure, as well as a heavy dose of the reality I was starting to understand. It was raw, visceral, and yet still intoxicatingly sweet.

“Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins,” (Introduction).

  The story was another retelling, of vampiric myths I had grown up hearing but was so blunt and honest it felt like Shan was somebody I could trust. He didn’t sugarcoat anything. His heroes were reluctant and flawed and seen as villains by the people they tried to protect. They were complex and dynamic. They stood for what they believed in even when the world fell apart around them.

  Sometimes, the dragons burn you out. Evil often seem to win, but that shouldn’t stop you from giving it your all. It never stopped the vampires, the ones that were outcasts for being themselves. They’d rather give the villains one heck of a beating before good eventually conquers the fight without them. Even if the hero falls, that doesn’t mean they fail. 

Step Six:

  I wanted to write again. For me. To show that even if people would criticize my work, I’d give them a mountain of my progress for them to bury themselves underneath. They would have to gorge themselves on my writing flaws until I’d gladly let them burst on their own. My writing would never be for them, anyway. It would hurt, but at least I could be happy and defeat them in my own way. I realized I was never a princess, that life wasn’t as simple as I used to believe, but I could still be a hero. I could still share my voice. I just couldn’t surrender.

  Trying new things helped me embrace my love of literature and writing, at least twice in my lifetime. Fantasy helped me to build substantial base, and the paranormal frosted the cake and filled in the cracks I felt insecure about. But in both cases, it was the deviation from the norm that taught me to be me and write. I tasted the bitter and sweet. Levine lit the spark. Shan poured the rum and let me ignite. And now, here I am, ready to serve my best to those who’ll listen.

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