The Two Princesses of Bamarre (18 page)

BEHIND THE BOOK WITH GAIL CARSON LEVINE

When I began writing
The Two Princesses of Bamarre
I intended to retell “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” a magical fairy tale with forests of silver, gold, and diamonds, a castle across a lake, and twelve enchanted princes. But the story changed and changed and changed: the princess count shrank from twelve to three to two, and I began again and again. Here are five abandoned beginnings as the story evolved and a note about each:

1. This was my first beginning, or close to it, when I was adjusting the original fairy tale. I knew I couldn’t manage twenty-four main characters, and the death of all those poor princes was too gory for me:

F
able has multiplied us. Perhaps the hall of mirrors where we danced is to blame. Instead of twelve, we were three. Three princesses. And they were three. Three princes.

There was always one soldier. Fable did not multiply him. But the old woman, the one who helped him—there was no such person.

And the king, our father, did not have any princes killed. He has many faults, but murder is not among them. After each prince failed to solve the mystery, he was allowed to leave us. Most of them probably went home and found other maidens to marry.

2. First person in the voice of one of the princesses wasn’t working, so I tried third and began introducing the princesses’ personalities:

F
rom their bedroom, the three princesses of Bamarre and their nanny watched the shadows in the tower window across the courtyard. All they could see of the sorcerer Rhys was his shadow. But the shadow was more than they’d ever seen before.

Shadows are confusing,
Princess Meryl thought. The shadows of the king and queen there in the room with Rhys were distorted, so Rhys must be distorted, too. Meryl swallowed a giggle. At the moment, her father’s face looked longer than all the rest of him. If she only knew her parents from their shadows, she’d never recognize them on their thrones. She’d think imposters were sitting there.

Princess Cara, Meryl’s twin, but little like her sister, thought,
I’ll be disappointed if he does magic and we can’t see it from here.
She wished the tower would fill with blue smoke, or the shadowy figures would rise and fly about the room.

Princess Adelina, whom they called Addie, was the oldest child. She thought,
I hope he cures the queen. If she dies, the king will miss her.

3. Third person had problems, too, so this was an attempt from the point of view of the nanny:

I
am Bella, the princesses’ nanny, and this is the princesses’ tale. I know some of it because I was there. The rest I pieced together afterward.

Queen Daria, their mother, died when Adelina (whom we call Addie) was four and the twins, Cara and Meryl, were two. Before she died, the queen gave me three gifts to hold for them until they were old enough to receive them. I may have held them too long. They were wonderful gifts, but they were dangerous, and I feared their power.

4. And here I’m coming at it from the viewpoint of the soldier in the fairy tale:

W
hen Bram died his foolish death, I was fighting in King Eldred’s army, fighting for Eldred and Bamarre, killing lads and men who had never done me harm.

The king killed my big brother—my unlucky brother, the only one to be executed.

The cause for which Bram gave his life? He died because he failed to discover why three good-for-nothing princesses danced their slippers through every night. He died of a cruel king, heartless maidens, and six pieces of shoe leather. And he died of his own harebrained belief that he could do anything.

5. I wrote this much later, when the story had evolved to the final plot. I didn’t go with it because I wanted to introduce the epic poem about Drualt right away:

I
wasn’t meant to be a champion, princess though I may be. I was meant to darn the rips in the cloaks of the adventuresome, to keep the stew warm so the heroes and heroines could snatch a hot meal before returning to the fray.

I would never have ventured forth, except that I had to.

About the Author

Gail Carson Levine
grew up in New York City and has been writing all her life. Her first novel,
ELLA ENCHANTED
, was a Newbery Honor Book. Levine’s other books include
FAIREST
, a
New York Times
bestseller,
Publishers Weekly
Best Book, and
School Library Journal
Best Book;
DAVE AT NIGHT
, an ALA Notable Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults;
THE WISH; THE TWO PRINCESSES OF BAMARRE; A TALE OF TWO CASTLES
; and the six Princess Tales books. She is also the author of the nonfiction book
WRITING MAGIC
:
Creating Stories That Fly
and the picture books
BETSY WHO CRIED WOLF
and
BETSY RED HOODIE
, illustrated by Scott Nash. Gail and her husband, David, live in a two-centuries-old farmhouse in New York’s Hudson Valley. You can visit her online at www.gailcarsonlevinebooks.com and at www.gailcarsonlevine.blogspot.com.

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Other Works

Also by Gail Carson Levine

Dave at Night

Fairest

Ever

A Tale of Two Castles

The Two Princesses of Bamarre

The Wish

THE PRINCESS TALES

The Fairy’s Mistake

The Princess Test

Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep

Cinderellis and the Glass Hill

For Biddle’s Sake

The Fairy’s Return

Betsy Red Hoodie

Betsy Who Cried Wolf

Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly

Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg

Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand

Credits

Cover art © 2011 by Greg Call

Copyright

Harper Trophy
^®
is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

The Two Princesses of Bamarre

Copyright © 2001 by Gail Carson Levine

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Levine, Gail Carson.

The two princesses of Bamarre / by Gail Carson Levine.

    p. cm.

Summary: With her adventurous sister, Meryl, suffering from the Gray Death, meek and timid Princess Addie sets out to find a cure.

ISBN-10: 0-06-440966-X (pbk.)

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-440966-7 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780062253545

[1. Princesses—Fiction. 2. Wizards—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction. 4. Sisters—Fiction. 5. Self-confidence—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L578345 Tw 2001

00-047953

[Fic]—dc21

CIP

AC

First Harper Trophy edition, 2003

Revised Harper Trophy edition, 2006