Story Mapping: Cinderella 

1. A young woman trapped in an abusive environment glimpses the promise of escape, if only for one night.
2. ‘Not for you,’ says the world.
3. Usually in life it ends here, but instead we get the first of what George Saunders calls Things I Couldn’t Help But Notice, in the form of an intervention by a person calling themselves The Fairy Godmother.
4. Rules are joyfully broken and the young woman is transformed into a fairytale princess. She WILL* go to the ball! (*Terms & Conditions apply.)
5. So it’s off to the palace for a big glitzy party and before long she’s dancing with a gorgeous prince and having the time of her life.
6. Then the clock strikes twelve and those Ts & Cs kick in.
7. Life is truly awful, worse for having tasted SUCH RICHES.
8. Again, the story could end here, but no: a ‘magic slipper’ appears (More Things I Couldn’t Help But Notice). The intervention is paired with motivation: the handsome young prince has a massive crush on her and, magic slipper in hand, goes looking for her all, seaching throughout the kingdom.
9. Except (complication), he’s searching for a fairytale princess who doesn’t really exist, because that’s how she presented herself, and to make matters worse (escalation) the rules of this world say they can’t be together because of their different positions in society. 
10. In the classic (conservative) fairytale, they find each other and when the magic slipper fits she is revealed to be an actual princess. Order is restored and it’s Happy Ever After.
11. But there’s another version where they find each other and the slipper fits but the magic turns out to be an illusion. Maybe in this version he loses his position and they are shunned by society and the story becomes about whether their love endures this cruel turnaround in their fortunres?
12. Or the ‘prince’ (are we talking dynastic royalty or constructed identity?) and the ‘princess’ find each other, but this Cinderella has agency and, having learned from her mentor the Fairy Godmother, lays down some Terms & Conditions of her own. In this version she refuses to be with him while he remains a prince and she remains in bondage. The power imbalance, she realises, would be toxic and she’s just not into it. So if they’re to be together, either her place in this world must shift, or his. At which point perhaps he grandly renounces his wealth? Or a patriarchal prince tries to ‘turn her into a Lady’? Maybe he’s a creep or a bully or very insecure? Maybe they both grow up and stop pretending to be someone else?
13. Once we start to unravel it, there’s a lot of story here to work with; story that the conventional telling of the story (the one we all know) misses. And that maybe reveals something about how dominant narratives drown out the possibility of considering another side, an unheard perspective. The fairytale can go comedy or tragedy, realist or fantastical, and still follow the shape of the story we all know.
14. The point is: as storytellers, we have options, always. Even if we think we’re dancing on a pin, incarcerated by cliché, patriarchy, capitalism, clients, managers, markets, funding committees, the alogorithm—we’re making choices, that’s what we do. And whether it’s a fairytale or a Unicorn, a reality show or a brand campaign, we have the choice to either accept the dominant (conventional) narratives or challenge them and make new ones. 
15. But, as with Cinderella, while the rules can be joyfully broken or disregarded, certain terms and conditions still apply, and if you don’t want to be turned into a pumpkin you need to learn the rules before you break them.

Get in touch if you’d like to know more about the story mapping workshops and one-to-one language coaching sessions I offer individuals and teams with stories to tell.