Alas! Some stories do not end quite how we would like them to. One of the starkest examples of this in my classroom is Hans Christian Andersen’s The Mermaid. Unlike in the Disney version, his little mermaid does not live happily ever after with the prince. She dies. Or rather, she gets turned into seafoam.

Is being seafoam any better than death? my students inevitably wonder.

Well, that really depends on what being seafoam means in the world of the story. If it’s just another form of death, then it really makes no difference in the end. If, as is the case in the story, it opens the door to some kind of new life for the little mermaid, then being seafoam is clearly much better than death.

The catch, though, is that Hans Christian Andersen never tells us exactly what the little mermaid’s new, foamy life will consist of. He leaves that for us to imagine.

That’s where the fun part comes in for the aspiring storyteller!

With a little prompting, my students come up with beautiful sequels, usually having the little mermaid gain an immortal soul and thereby live the kind of happily ever after that Hans Christian Andersen wanted his readers to aspire toward.

A sequel need not pick up from the end of a story either. If there’s something unanswered in the middle of the story, a child could run with that. Just think about all the potential storylines from The Snow Queen, another of my favorites by Hans Christian Andersen. Each of little Gerda’s adventures in her quest to save Kay includes fantastic characters and subplots that could be used to create whole new stories. The most popular of those characters with my students is always the robber girl, and I’ve gotten to enjoy many wild stories about her over the years.

Finally, just as some stories make us wonder what happens next, others make us wonder what happened before. Stories that begin in a fallen state are perfect for this. Some of my favorites for a prequel are Jack and the Beanstalk by Joseph Jacobs, Hansel and Gretel by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. In each of these stories, tragedy is a premise. Jack’s dad is gone. What happened to him? Hansel and Gretel’s mother is dead. What happened to her? The giant is mean and selfish. What made him be like that?

The child who tries to answer one of those questions will have the makings of a whole new story without having to come up with everything from scratch. In the process, she will gain more insight into the original story as well. It’s a win-win for a teacher and a beautiful writing exercise for a child. 

In order to write a sequel or a prequel, I recommend a child start with fairy tales, preferably an early version by one of the greats like Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, or Oscar Wilde. (See some of my favorites here). Once she has read it, have her narrate the story orally to ensure she has the details down and to help her establish her storyteller voice. The next step is to think through or talk through what might have preceded the story or followed after it. As soon as she has an exciting thread to work with, she should begin writing her story, following the one scene in one sitting rule.

Sequels and prequels can be written for all genres of stories, and I recommend a child experiment with lots of them. Nonetheless, there is something particularly magical about fairy tales that makes them the perfect starting point for a child. Besides understanding a few basic fairy tale conventions, there is no expectation for a child to be an expert on anything in particular. All she needs is her imagination!

First Image Credit: The Little Mermaid by Ivan Bilbin (1937)

Second Image Credit: The Selfish Giant by Walter Crane (1888)