a Snow White novella

Guy is a guy who can’t even deal with his own problems. When Princess Gabby shows up and expects him to help solve all of hers, he’s all for walking away. He would do it, too, if she and her new enchanter friend weren’t holding him hostage. Guy’s captors face the challenge of convincing him that Gabby’s stepmother really is evil, and in time, Guy must admit the source of his own trials. They might not have had to worry about Guy’s problems at all if only he’d believed Gabby sooner.

What will Guy choose when saving Gabby from one curse subjects her to another?

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Is this book clean? The answer is… yes? Yes. Except for this: at the end of the first chapter, Guy describes himself getting drunk off whiskey and passing out. There aren’t a lot of details there. It’s mostly about semantics. And humor. Later he’s drunk for a bit, but it’s fine. There’s no swearing, no sex or allusions to sex (except one comment from Guy’s mom that should go over all children’s heads), no immorality issues except possibly neglectful parents. No blood or gore either. I do not write blood or gore. I can’t even handle thinking about getting stuck with a needle. I’m sure as heck not going to write anything about it. Ew. I’m done now.

I do need to throw in a Trigger Warning. Guy experiences depression. At the end of the book there is talk of suicide ideation and vague hints of a suicide attempt. It isn’t there to be dwelled upon. It moves on fairly quickly. Don’t worry, though. This book is not a depressing book and it does not have a depressing ending. Those are at the end because the main character finally opens up about what really happened at the beginning. The book ends with a theme of hope.

This book is written for a Young Adult (high school age) audience, but I hope it can resonate with readers of all ages. It’s about 30,000 words long.

Caution: the rest of this post may have some spoilers. Most of it I believe can be taken for granted, as this is loosely based off of a fairy tale.

Technically the previous parts of this post had spoilers, too, but if you want to read this book, those might be important.

That up at the top is my blurb. My blurb-in-progress. It didn’t used to say ‘Guy is a guy,’ it used to just say ‘Guy,’ but I’m getting a lot of mixed feedback.

I still don’t have a name for the series. I need one, ASAP. I like the world ‘sanguine’, but I don’t know how to incorporate it yet. I feel like the the series title should make it obvious that these are based on fairy tales.

Okay! So, what’s “That Prince Guy” about?

Guy and Gabby are the main characters. They take turns telling the story from their point of view. Guy is a prince. Gabby is a princess. Their countries border each other.

In the first several chapters, Guy is portraying himself as a confident, cocky, loud character. Basically, a very cliche man/boy/…guy. Gabby is a bit of a snob, and she likes to break the fourth wall. She especially likes to break the fourth wall in order to point out how Guy is doing a terrible job of telling his side of the story. Eventually, he does realize she’s doing this, and he responds accordingly. The characters progress through the fourth-wall-breaking as much as they do through the story. Maybe even more.

In the beginning, Princess Gabriella (Gabby) meets an enchanter who sort of just joins up with her and hangs out with them for the rest of this book. This isn’t really explained. That’s because this is told from Gabby and Guy’s point of view, and they were so very focused on telling specific parts of the story that they didn’t even think about it. I’m not ruining their way of doing things just to make some writing critic happy. That’s part of why I don’t want to do traditional publishing. So there. But just so you know, the enchanter (whose name is Jadon) plays more of an integral part of the next book. A lot of questions are answered there. The third book is about him and his romantic interest, so half of that one will be told from his point of view.

All of the questions presented in this book will be answered eventually. I promise.

Well, all the important ones.

Guy has his own agenda that he isn’t really set on following, but it turns out that Gabby and Jadon are practically forcing him to continue with it, as chance has it. They had already decided on the safest destination before they found him, and unbeknownst to him, that was his destination as well.

Gabby probably wouldn’t have found Guy without Jadon’s help. It turns out she’s there to rescue Guy from her evil stepmother, who thinks he’s the handsomest guy in all the land… or something like that. Gabby has reason to believe she and her father are in mortal peril, and she needs Guy’s support to put an end to the evil queen’s plans. Or that’s her excuse for stealing him away, anyway.

Meanwhile, Guy is struggling with his depression, and Gabby doesn’t know how to handle it. Most of the time it seems like Guy is the damsel in emotional distress. That isn’t the Guy that Gabby used to know.

When they reach their destination, Guy has to deal with his childhood trauma head on. He wouldn’t tell Gabby or Jadon what was going on before, but at that point, they can start to guess.

He struggles with a lot of difficult questions as the plot thickens.

I’ve probably already put a lot more spoilers in here than I ever meant to. But I mean, it should still be vague enough?

I’ve only heard back from four readers so far (as of 2:39am 7.29.19). I know that at least two of them absolutely loved it. The remaining two were my husband and editor friend. My husband isn’t into books like this, but he has faith in it. I just don’t even know what my editor friend thought. I don’t think she gave me an overall opinion. She really liked one of the sentences in the last chapter, at least.

The two who loved it are readers of that genre, I believe. That’s a good sign. One of them said it reminded her of the whimsical dragon books she read as a kid. I’m afraid that might be a bit of a misleading comment to share, though, because there are no dragons in this book. The only magic it talks about is magic used by enchanters (good male magic-users) and sorceresses (evil female magic-users).

My main goal with this book was to portray an overall light/comical tone while dealing with darker themes underneath, themes which came to a close by the time the reader realizes the full implication of them.

I think I accomplished that.

I think this book can help a lot of people. Especially people who, like me, struggle with their relationships with their parents. People who want to understand. People who want forgiveness.

This book doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t answer a lot of questions. If anything, it opens up the world to even more. But I didn’t write this novella to provide a full romance or to defeat the villain or to provide full character arcs. I wrote this purely for Guy’s emotional journey, and I accomplished exactly that.

Defeating the villain is going to take all five books.

Learning who the real villain is is might take the same amount of time.

Seeing true romances unfold is going to take at least two books in most cases. The same characters appear in every book. Their journeys don’t end with their last point-of-view chapter.

I believe that the way we see ourselves versus the way others perceive us is very, very different. This is going to be a fun theme to play with over the rest of the series. We see some of it in this book with Gabby and Guy describing it differently than they describe themselves, but the way they see each other is still very different from the way other characters will see them in the future. Part of that will reflect how they change. Part of it will reflect unique perspectives and voices.

I’ve also put an author’s note at the end that I hope will resonate with readers and help them feel loved. I plan on doing something similar with each book in this series.

This book, and all these books, are written with the intended themes of hope, love, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, and healing. They’re cheesy, but not in the bad way. I don’t skimp on any of the emotional journey. I do my best to make sure it all feels real. That’s what I aim to do with all of my books.

If you have any suggestions for a series name between now and the next week (as of this article’s publishing date), please feel free to comment. Once the book is up for sale, I’ll be adding the link to this article. I’m aiming to publish this around August 17, 2019. That’s also the day that my husband and I have decided to celebrate the birthday of the baby I miscarried over the holidays. 17 is kind of our number. This book might be dedicated to her.

I can’t wait until this book goes live. How about you? Are you interested in reading it?