Does Your House Have Chicken Feet?

A behind the scenes look at how I wrote my fairy tale Airbnb piece

Hello everyone!

So I read this article a couple of months ago:

But this post isn’t about Airbnb. It’s about being inspired by something you read or see.

I hooked onto the idea of creating Airbnb posts from the perspective of fairy tale characters. But which ones? To make the task easier, I first did a quick run through of a bunch of fairy tales. I’ve read many of them, but it’s always good to look at a list because you might forget a story that is perfect for your topic, but less common in popular culture.

Once that step was complete, I started the brainstorming session. I’d doodle versions of some of the locations while seeing if I could come up with a few quick jokes that could be fleshed out later. I had to make sure they read like one of those perky Airbnb ads. You know, the ones that call a place “cozy” when they mean very small.

When I had an idea of which ones I would do, it was time for the next step. Research! Doing research helps me come up with better drawings and better jokes. This is always a pleasant part of process, even if it takes a little time. Remember that specificity really allows your work to connect with others who love the material as much as you do. So when someone from Airbnb says they have a bike available, I can use that language to instead offer Baba Yaga’s mortar and pestle. Those who don’t know Baba Yaga won’t care, but those who do will get a kick out of that detail.

Then I did a first draft of the writing before taking a break to let it breathe. During this time worked on the drawings, generally spacing them out over a few days, to a week or more depending on what priorities came up. Then I’d return to the writing. Going back and rewriting your original work (multiple times) is important, because even the smallest change can make your piece stronger.

This post should be out on Monday. But while you wait you can check out this other bit of fairy tale humor, in which characters from your favorite stories create apps. Because it’s 2020, so why not?

Apps created by your favorite fairy tale characters

Thanks for reading!

Kyrie

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