Why a werewolf? Silverweed started out, like a lot of my novels, as one of my short stories, Silverweed Muffins. I like to come up with short stories using the simple formula: fairy tale + paranormal element = supernatural fairy tale. I guess a werewolf seems like a pretty obvious supernatural element for Little Red Riding Hood, seeing as there is a wolf in the Grimm Brother’s version I used as inspiration, and in some other original versions they even have werewolves. But my thought process for this was even simpler. I asked myself, “What if the wolf was the grandma? And that’s why the wolf was in a nightgown… I admit it; I didn’t do a lot of research on werewolves for Silverweed. But I have an excuse. I wanted my characters to be pretty dumb about them, too. I didn’t want them to have any preconceptions of them. I wanted the werewolf to be a mystery—this half wolf, half man monster that they (I) only knew about through pop culture. However, I plan to explore the Silverweed werewolf in great detail when I write the sequel. :) Little Red Riding Hood as inspiration: Silverweed is not a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. It was inspired by my short story which was inspired by Little Red Riding Hood. I used some of the same background and plotlines as the short story, but when I drafted my novel, I added a theme – a theme that I interpreted from the fairy tale. And to me, Little Red Riding Hood is all about fear, the message being, “Don’t talk to strangers,” and “Don’t stray from the path.” So Silverweed’s theme ended up being: The real monster is fear. I also added a little fun (as well as discipline) when I decided to use lines from the Little Red Riding Hood as my chapter titles and chapter inspirations. And if you read the chapter titles in order, they actually give a condensed version of the Grimm Brother’s Little Red Riding Hood. I also used them to kind of guide me through the book. One example is Chapter 9 – The Wolf Knocked at the Door: Diesel discovers he was bitten by the werewolf. I really enjoyed writing this book, and I hope you will enjoy reading it.
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