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A fair number of these ideas just popped into my head before I thought about doing a book. Like Humpty Dumpty is a giant egg. Of course he gets laid and hatches. But by and into what? He's not a normal egg. What comes out? A bird or tentacles? A bird makes sense. But I love tentacles. Bird tentacles? No, just a bird, you're already getting weird.
Other stories I had to think about more. I have a giant book of The Brother's Grimm fairy tales that I've read cover to cover a handful of times. And there are some great stories in there, but I kind of had to stick with the ones that are in the public lexicon so that people would be familiar enough with the story to get the joke. Otherwise a bit about "Old Iron Boots" would be like hearing about your friend's cousin's antics. It may be funny, but requires more backstory than payoff. And I want people to be familiar enough with the characters to just play with them.
Okay, so here's one I had to read the story again to think of. Now everyone knows about Rapunzel. She's kept in high tower by a witch. Sure, happens to the best of us. She falls in love with a guy. Okay, it gets lonely in a tower. She lowers her hair down from the tower window for him to climb up. Nope. This guy has to weigh enough that this would hurt her neck. And if he were the type of guy that is that light, I'm guessing he'd avoid her hair like the ropes in gym class. So pop, her neck breaks and her head falls off. And since everyone knows the story of Rapunzel all I have to do is show the very end.
Now I can take it from here and play with her hair getting caught in all kinds of things. It's a lot easier to think of things if you know what your end goal is. And in this case it's making sure that Rupunzel's hair always gets her killed. And to think my parents wanted me to be a lawyer.
On a sidenote, in the original fable of Rapunzel, the guy knocks her up. It's weird. Check it out!
Grimmer Tales Erik Bergstrom Plume Fairy Tales Happily Never After
