Build It...or Bend It?

My writing group pal, Juliette Dominguez posted yesterday on Pen Tales about world-building. She found some wonderful material from Guillermo del Toro.  I haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth yet, but I've just placed it at the top of my must-watch list. 

Her post made me think about how I built Malika's world in Mark of Courage (which, thanks to suggestions from a very generous agent is undergoing some exciting edits). I feel like I cheated a bit on the world-building process, since my characters inhabit Homer's ready-made universe of The Odyssey. It's more like world-bending than world-building.   The tricky part, of course, is to make familiar terrain new again, and seen from a unique perspective. 

Which got me to thinking about world-bending literature. I've always loved fantasy, but never consciously realized that a fair number of my favorite authors in the genre took well-trodden myths and reworked them in fabulous ways: Marion Zimmer Bradley (Mists of Avalon), Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys), Esther Friesner (Nobody's Princess), and Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire), and Elizabeth Bunce (A Curse as Dark as Gold).

Juliette's post also made me Google Arthur Rackham, who inspired Guillermo del Toro, and whose work has always intrigued me. Think of the wonderful prompts these pictures provide for recreating some well known stories!

Pandora's Box            The Three Bears        The Valkyries          

Little Miss Muffitt

Do you like world bending literature too? Tell me your favorites...