Stalks of Gold Inspiration

Hello everyone! Today I will be talking about the inspiration for Stalks of Gold, Rumpelstiltskin and Rapunzel! Specifically, my process for adapting them into a retelling that combined them. So, spoilers ahead for Stalks of Gold if you haven’t read it yet!

Since Rumpelstiltskin is the first part of the book, I’ll start there. (If you’re interested in hearing about why I decided to combine these tales, I wrote about it here!) If you’re unfamiliar with the original stories, you can read them for free here for Rumpelstiltskin and here for Rapunzel. (There’s lots of versions, but these are the ones I used the most.)

I love Rumpelstiltskin! It’s such an interesting story, and there are so many interpretations. When I was in my brainstorming, researching phase, I made a list of all the things I felt made Rumpelstiltskin the tale it was. The most important elements for me to include in my retelling, or at least, the ones I wanted to try to include as much as possible.

Here’s the list:

• The miller’s boast
• The king threatens the girl
• Straw must be turned to gold
• Three nights in the tower
• Rumpelstiltskin saves her
• Rumpelstiltskin takes a valued item
• He asks for her first born as a price
• Rumpelstiltskin’s name breaks the deal

Pretty straightforward.

I did the exact same thing with Rapunzel:

• First born child taken as a price
• A girl is hidden away in a tower
• She has long blonde hair used as a rope
• A prince finds her
• When her visitor is discovered, her hair is cut
• She is thrown out into the desert
• The prince is blinded
• They find each other
• Her tears heal his sight

So, I had my elements, and now I needed to combine them.

Starting with Rumpelstiltskin, I saw two antagonists instantly, the king and Rumpelstiltskin. Like many people, I do not find it romantic to threaten a woman with death if she fails to complete an impossible task. I wondered, why would a woman want to marry such a man?

Well, to me the answer is she probably wouldn’t, but if she’s just a miller’s daughter, what choice would she have? But Rumpelstiltskin appeared when the woman needed help out a terrifying situation, what if she turned to him to get out of marriage to such an awful person?

Great! But, now I had another issue, I still wanted Rumpelstiltskin to be my antagonist. There’s lots of different ways to use his character, some of them using him as the love interest, but it just wasn’t the right path for my miller’s daughter.

Well, what if he used her desperation as an opportunity to lock her in a tower? Perfect, but why? Because he’s in love her. That kicks off my Rapunzel aspect.

But, what about asking for her first born? And if Rumpelstiltskin traps her in the tower, what do I do with Gothel from Rapunzel?

I didn’t want to get rid of her either; she felt too important to get rid of. So, what if the tower Rumpelstiltskin traps her in was originally Gothel’s? Alright, but why would he take her there, and where is Gothel then? What if he and Gothel used to work together, but split apart? If that’s the case, then the reason he’s in love with the miller’s daughter is because she’s the first-born child of the couple in the Rapunzel tale.

This kind of question and answer goes on and on. So, I think you get the picture. But, as I’m making my connections, trying to weave the stories together, there’s one big question left. If the king and Rumpelstiltskin are antagonists, who is going to be the prince who finds her in the tower?

No one. Well, not exactly no one. It’s Sandor, he’s going to be our hero, but he’s not going to be a prince. In the story I was weaving, I didn’t see a woman who wanted to be queen, she’s a poor miller’s daughter, she doesn’t have the training or desire for power. In fact, I saw a girl who didn’t want anything to do with royalty at all, so instead of a prince, I thought well what if the hero is the illegitimate brother of the king? And, Sandor was my answer.

Something else I noticed in both tales that was important was these motifs of being locked away, having freedom and agency taken away, and I knew that was what my story was going to be about. A young woman who loses control of her own life and how she deals with that, what she does to change that, how that affects her.

I hope you enjoyed a peek into my process! Also, the way I laid it out here is very straightforward, and that’s not at all how it really happens. It takes a lot longer, and quite a few plot changes for me to reach this point. I spend a lot time thinking about and developing ideas as well as working them during the writing process. Some of these connections I didn’t see until after I started writing!

If you haven’t already read Stalks of Gold, you can get a copy here. I’ll see you all next time!