Romance Retellings of Literary Classics
Author Chloe Liese makes a case for the romance genre being the natural home for retellings, and shares some tips on how to write a successful romance retelling of literary classics.
Author Chloe Liese makes a case for the romance genre being the natural home for retellings, and shares some tips on how to write a successful romance retelling of literary classics.
More than any other literary genre, romance is the genre of relationships—between the protagonists and the world, their own selves, love interest(s), friends, family, and past. Of course, all genres explore and pivot on relationships, but romance is the genre that boldly centers and celebrates relationships by making them the point of the narrative, which is why it’s no wonder that the genre of relationships thrives as a genre of retellings. For what are retellings if not a relationship between past and present, an original text and its new conceptualization?
Like the romance genre, retellings boldly center relationships not only between the inspiration text and a reimagined version but between writer and reader. Retellings are a wink to the reader; breaking the fourth wall, they say, “We both know what’s going on. Now let’s have some fun.” As an author who’s written a modern romance retelling—or as I feel better describing it, a “reimagining”—of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing in my traditional publishing debut, Two Wrongs Make a Right (Berkley Romance, November 2022), with two more romantic Shakespeare reimaginings on the way, I’ve spent a lot of time the past few years thinking and learning about what makes a compelling, successful retelling. Here’s what I’ve gleaned along the way.
A good retelling or reimagining reveals its author’s familiarity and authority with the original text. Like a romantic relationship, claiming intimacy to something we haven’t done the work to know rings hollow, so for writers drawn to the idea of a retelling but not deeply familiar with the source material, now’s the time to dig in, not skim.
Bearing that in mind, it’s not just about reading the original story—it’s actively working to understand it in its original historical context (many classics will come with annotations that offer historical insight as well as front and backmatter essays by literary experts on the era in which the text was written and on the author, too, offering abundant insight into the sociocultural and political realities of the time, among countless other details that enable aspiring retelling authors to better understand the text). This is the first step: Learn the story in its native context, its narrative’s original intent, and impact.
Having studied the source material in its time, now comes the work of identifying its timelessness. Read the story with an eye for its themes that transcend the moment in which it was written, that make the story lasting, memorable, and still accessible to modern readers.
Equipped with the source text’s history and context, its transcendent themes, now comes the fun—and artistry—of writing a retelling. Far from a copy and paste of the original story with some modern updates thrown in, the successful retelling cleverly engages the historical context of the source text, explores its themes’ nuances through the lens of a new time (whether another time in the past or modern day), and most importantly, says something new.
IndieBound | Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]
Deciding on what an author wants to say and why the specific source text is the best springboard for saying it is both the work and reward of writing a retelling. In crafting a retelling, every choice made to parallel or deviate from the source text says something, and that something builds and enriches the ultimate why of this reimagined story. For both writer and reader—this is where retellings either sink or swim. The more a writer knows about the source text, the more they know why they want to reimagine it—in short, the deeper the writer’s relationship to the original story—the more impactful and engaging their retelling.
The romance genre offers writers uniquely fertile soil to sow a flourishing retelling, and I hope by now it is clear why—both romance’s focus and function, like retellings, are relational. The romance writer hoping to reimagine a classic has their work cut out for them, but the rewards can be so rich. For me, crafting a modern reimagining of Much Ado About Nothing has been the most challenging but also satisfying writing experience of my career so far. The choices I made both in departures and parallels allowed me to honor a story I love while also engaging it critically via my deviations from the original text.
For aspiring romance writers out there, we have a rich heritage of literary classics from which to choose, whose stories and themes spoke to and still speak to their readers, and we have a genre that is uniquely hospitable to the relational art of a retelling. Like many a romance novel’s road to happily ever after, crafting a strong retelling is not without its challenges or pitfalls, but the ultimate destination—its joys and satisfaction—proves itself wholeheartedly worth the effort.
Chloe Liese writes romances reflecting her belief that everyone deserves a love story. Her stories pack a punch of heat, heart, and humor, and often feature characters who are neurodivergent like herself. When not dreaming up her next book, Chloe spends her time wandering in nature, playing soccer, and most happily at home with her family and mischievous cats. Learn more at ChloeLiese.com.
