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cjbolan · 1 year ago

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How I Would Rewrite Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret

Inspired by @aquaheartgirl and @deepestphotoshopwonderwomanpaper 's E.W. rewrites. I have a love-hate relationship with this book. Re-reading it years later, and knowing it might get adapted into a movie, I can think of a million ways it could be better. My biggest issue is all its inconsistencies with the previous books, so for each issue I proposed several solutions...

*WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD*

The Sirens made the story way too unfocused. They are the title characters and should've gotten way more focus. They should have been introduced much earlier in the story. The first half of this book kept switching conflicts and adding subplot upon subplot, and the Sirens don't come in until Chapter 9. Up to that point they are briefly mentioned here and there, but the Sirens really should have been the main focus. This story had so many conflicts happening at the same time, I really don't know what the main conflict is. My proposed solutions are...

A) Have all the Sirens appear in the prologue instead of just one. That way their appearance in Chapter 9 doesn't feel completely out of nowhere.

B) Have the Sirens actually try to help Emily save Shiprock while she's trying to rescue them at the same time. Maybe they could each have different solutions and differing opinions about humans. The moment the Sirens arrived, I feel like we suddenly started a completely different story. It's quite jarring.

C) Have Emily's parents be extremely worried about her disappearance when she comes back from saving them. That would make the story much more coherent. The Sirens subplot and "unite two worlds" subplot would better fit together. Mary especially would notice Emily is missing longer than usual (she doesn't do much in this story), she'd panic, maybe even start regretting how harsh she'd been with Emily (more on that later).

2. The Windsnaps being homesick for Brightport then being sent on a mission there feels like a contrived coincidence. Again this contradicts the Book 3 ending of Neptune giving the Windsnaps freedom to go where they please. My proposed solutions are either...

A) Have the Windsnaps decide to move back to Brightport themselves (seriously what is stopping them?). Then Neptune gets word that they're in Brightport and gives them his mission.

B) The Windsnaps instead are just on vacation to Brightport. Being on vacation means there's no reason for that pointless retconning of Emily's school situation. In this scenario, Emily would sneak into Shiprock School to see Shona because Shona is too busy to come see her. So you could still have that whole scene where Emily is kicked out for being half human. By the end of the story, with everyone getting along and realizing how much they are missed in Brightport, the Windsnaps would decide to stay in Brightport.

C) Mr. Beeston enlists the Windsnaps' help instead of Archie and Neptune. It would demonstrate his fragile friendship with Emily's parents and effort to make amends with them. It would also be in character with Emily and Jake's rule-breaking tendencies, by doing something they weren't assigned to do. It could even demonstrate Mary's kindness and proactiveness, by going out of her way to help hundreds of innocent people when she didn't need to. Even if that means having to work with an old enemy.

3. This book completely undoes the ending of the previous books. Book 3 ended with Emily's parents declaring they'll travel wherever they please and started actively planning a balanced human-mermaid school curriculum for Emily. But in Book 4 they’re completely back to where they started. Back to staying in Allpoints Island, Emily's back in mermaid school school only, Mary's back to being miserable on Allpoints Island, Jake is back to wanting only mermaid school, Mary is back to wanting only human school. For some reason this book brings back a bunch of conflicts that were solved earlier and should've stayed solved. My proposed solutions...

A) Have it open with the Windsnaps actually sailing all the seas...you know, like they said they would! They're so focused on spending quality time as a family that they're not even thinking about school, so nothing they do is actually contradicting everything. This would be a prime moment for Mary and Jake to repair their relationship, Mary could be momentarily happy with the family's newfound freedom granted by King Neptune, and then later realizes she misses Brightport so the Windsnaps decide to go home and that's where the story picks up.

B) Have it open with the Windsnaps coming back to Allpoints Island from a long vacation across the seas.

C) Have it open with the Windsnaps back at Allpoints Island actually planning a vacation.

D) Have it open with Emily's parents still discussing and trying to figure out Emily's school situation.

E) Have it open with Emily actually being homeschooled. Maybe homeschooling doesn't work for Emily or maybe her parents become too busy with Neptune's mission to homeschool, which could justify them wanting to send her to either Brightport High or Shiprock High.

F) Have Emily in Chapter 3 fight with Jake instead of Mary. Imagine Jake saying he wants Emily in Brightport school instead of Shiprock school. No doubt it'd be a hard choice for him to make. But it's consistent with his Book 3 arc of deciding to balance her human life and mermaid life, and trying to be a stricter parent, and trying to listen to his wife. Especially if his wife is there watching him and he's trying to show he can be a firm parent when needed. Book 2 showed Jake being stern/firm with Emily several times, and losing his temper near the end, so them fighting wouldn't be that out of character. Neither of them would want Brightport High, but only Jake is mature enough to understand it might be best for Emily. And when Emily rants about her being bullied and shunned in Brightport school, it makes more sense for Jake to be dumbfounded because he was gone for most of Emily's life. Because I REFUSE to believe Mary would be dumbfounded at learning this. This woman, who could always tell when something's bothering Emily...wouldn't know her daughter is being bullied at school?! And by her daughter's former best friend, whom Mary often saw and would surely have noticed Emily and her ex-friend not hanging out anymore?! Also the "we're your parents" line feels super out of character for Mary, who was always able to establish her authority without ever having to pull the "I"M YOUR MOTHER/PARENT" card. That's the kind of parenting mistake a new parent like Jake would make. Honestly everything Mary says during that argument is more in character for Jake.

I don't normally rewrite stories, but since this rewrite is just changing and adding some words, here's what I would have written. Swap out Mary for Jake, add Mr. Beeston (Beeston is Jake's only real friend and I think the only person Jake would say all this to), and you have the following:

"'Well, Mary wants her to go to Brightport High of course. Normally I think she should go to Shiprock School, but for once I agree with Mary.' Dad was pouring cups of tea for himself, Mr. Beeston, and Aaron's mom..."

"'Of course you'll have some say," Dad replied a bit sharply. "But we're the ones who will have to make the final decision.'

'Why?" I asked. I bet Mom made him say all this.

'Because we're your parents!' Dad snapped. Maybe I was embarrassing him by arguing with him in front of everyone, but I didn't care...'

"Dad looked at me. 'We'll have to see what your mom says first.' I sighed in relief. I can't believe Dad just said I should go to Brightport High..."

4. Emily kind of forgot the Rainbow Rocks can restore people’s memories. Instead she went through so many complicated loopholes to restore her grandparents' memories and reunite with them. My proposed solutions when she learns they got their memories wiped...

A) Have Emily bring her grandparents to Rainbow Rocks. After the failed first attempt to reunite them with Mary, this would've been a much quicker solution and they wouldn't have to walk on eggshells around Mary. I think the moment the grandparents regained their memories, they'd immediately go to Mary and reconcile with her without Emily having to arrange this whole elaborate meeting for them.

B) Have Emily TRY bringing her grandparents to Rainbow Rocks, but a bigger problem stops her. In the books all it took to stop her was just seeing her picture in the newspaper. Are you fucking kidding me, Emily?! You've been in far worse situations than this and just a photo is gonna stop you from saving everyone? Maybe Rainbow Rocks gets destroyed. Maybe Mary P. overhears Emily discussing plans to bring the grandparents back and stops her because she's still mad at the grandparents. Maybe Mary P. overhears Emily's plans and, realizing she's been way too proud and stubborn just as Emily said, decides to contact the grandparents herself. Maybe Emily is about to bring them to Rainbow Rocks but gets sucked in by that whirlpool to where the lost Sirens are.

5. Jake turned into a cowardly Henpecked Husband. Jake seems strangely afraid of his wife. Which is pretty out of character for him. Up to this point they were always very direct with each other. Here he's suddenly a spineless doormat to Mary letting her harshly berate both him and Emily. When Mary very firmly lectures Emily for wanting to contact the grandparents, I would’ve liked to see him intervene in some way. But nope. Instead he just keeps his mouth shut until after the ordeal has blown over , and quietly mumbles to Emily : “You know what your mom is like…”. I REALLY lost all respect for him in that moment. Like he’s Emily’s scared little brother instead of her dad.

This guy who…

unapologetically tells his wife exactly when she’s being unreasonable,

bravely defied Neptune’s laws for a long time,

angrily grabbed and screamed at Neptune’s enforcers,

screamed demands at King Neptune in a fit of both rage and grief.

…is suddenly too scared to stop a family squabble inside his own house. Also in Chapter 4 he's WAAAY too calm/indecisive. Jake suddenly lost his protective parental instincts here. Hard to believe the guy who viciously assaulted Beeston to save Emily and snapped at Mary for disliking Emily’s mermaid school, would be that calm when Emily’s being bullied BY A TEACHER. I get Jake not wanting to confront the school because he always tries to avoid conflict, but…the fact he didn’t have any other ideas just pissed me off. Even a bad idea would be better than no idea, because it would’ve shown he ultimately cares for Emily. Jake SAYS he won't let Shiprock make an example of Emily, but his delivery is way too calm and makes his words seem false. Even worse Jake's inaction leads to positive outcomes. I think this sends a terrible message to kids that it's OK to let your romantic partner treat you like crap. My proposed solutions are...

A) Have some chapters written from Jake's POV. Like how Book 2 was from both Emily and Mandy's POVs. If we can go into his inner mind, we can better understand why he's acting so out of character.

B) When he sees Mary tell off Emily, he backs up Mary by telling Emily “listen to your mom/your mom is right”.

C) OR when he sees Mary tell off Emily, he interrupts Mary telling her to go calm down and let him talk to Emily.

D) Have Jake be completely absent during Mary and Emily's fight in Chapter 5. Because why would Jake seriously just back and watch his daughter keep antagonizing his wife by bringing up painful memories?? He should've been trying to stop Emily when she kept pushing the subject. And Jake KNOWS that HE'S the reason Mary's parents cut her off, he really should've expressed some opinion about those parents!! You could easily write him out of that scene and have him be busy working with Mr. Beeston.

E) Have Jake act/sound much more angry when Mary berates him during Chapter 4.. It would show how much Jake fiercely cares for his daughter's well-being and normally would raise hell, but is also frustrated at the supposed restrictions of his new job. At this point Mary really doesn't deserve his patience. Here's how I would rewritten his response:

"'Look, I understand what you are saying,' Dad said, trying and utterly failing to stay calm. "But we're going to have to tread carefully. I'm NOT going to sit doing nothing while Shiprock makes an example of Emily...I'll do something. But I want to make sure that whatever we do, it's the right thing! IF WE GO CHARGING IN THERE SHOUTING OUR GILLS OFF NOW, HOW'S THAT GOING TO HELP OUR CAUSE?!" Mom turned away. Dad took a deep breath and tried again..."

6. Mary P. became a bitch. I HATE her in the 4th Emily Windsnap book . I used to admire her stubbornness and perseverance. But here it’s made her really bitchy to everyone: her daughter, her husband, her daughter’s school(though that’s completely justified), her friend, basically everyone she cares about, for all sorts of reasons. Literally all the characters walk on eggshells around her, because she’s that difficult to reason and be honest with. And seeing how much Mary’s parents actually missed her, her going no-contact seems like a big overreaction…

I think to justify her refusal , we’d need to SEE Mary’s parents being awful to her — without Mr. Beeston’s intervention— and not just hear about it . Like how we saw Mandy’s parents being awful, to better understand Mandy’s awful attitude. Even worse Mary never learns or grows from her stubbornness. There’s no moment where she decides to change her behavior, no moment where she realizes she made a mistake. Everyone else seems to learn from their mistakes , except her.

In fact, Mary is rewarded for her stubborn attitude! By forcing Emily and friends to bring Mary’s parents to her.

Even after she’s told contacting her parents could save Shiprock, she STILL won’t do it. She’d rather let that entire town get blown to smithereens. She essentially said “LET THEM DIE 🧨 🧜‍♂️🧜‍♀️ 💀 ☠️ “

I get why she cut contact, but seriously Mary? You’ll let innocent people die just to avoid your parents? Damn gurl that’s cold. Also kinda weird we don’t see Mary apologize later for her stubbornness. That felt out-of-character to me. Yes she’s stubborn, but never too stubborn to apologize. Until now. And like the complete bitch she is, Mary P. is only nice to Emily after immediately getting something she wants (her old job,returning to Brightport, reconciling with her estranged parents).

I think another reason this angers me so much is , after reading the book… let’s just say I had some Book 4 Mary Penelopes in my life. People who are absolute saints to strangers, yet horrible to the people closest to them, and who conveniently bring up their personal drama as an excuse for their bad behavior, instead of just admitting they were wrong. So I guess rereading it years later brought back all those unpleasant memories. Even after Mystic Millie eventually calls her out, there’s no visible sign of Mary showing remorse or realizing her mistakes.

Yet somehow she forgives Mr. Beeston for doing far worse to her than what her parents did.

Oh and unlike the other characters, she did absolutely nothing to save Shiprock. Except hold hands in a group for a few seconds. I swear everything in this book was resolved by just holding hands 😆.

Also she’s a lot more gullible than ever. Somehow she believes all of Emily’s lies, and not once does she ever suspect Emily is hiding something. Again unlike the previous books. Where she’s still gullible, but not stupid. Earlier she often realized something was off about Emily, and would come pretty close to discovering the truth.

Worst of all is her interactions with her daughter Emily. She’s just suddenly much more impatient and snappy with her than usual. Mary P., this woman who…

hugged and comforted Emily when caught stealing their houseboat and driving it through dangerous waters, without ever acting angry.

comforted and gently assured Emily “I understand” when caught forging Mary P.’s signature to skip swim lessons at school.

calmly and gently asks Emily what’s going on, right after Emily angrily yelled at her out of nowhere and accused her of keeping secrets about her dad.

would always try reasoning with her daughter first for at least several pages, only getting firm with her as an absolute last resort.

would always calm down to reassure and be gentler with Emily , IMMEDIATELY after the few times she was firm with her.

…is now snapping at Emily for interrupting a conversation and for bringing up uncomfortable topics.

All this makes her both a nuisance and possible threat to Shiprock.

If Liz Kessler wants me to hate Mary P. Windsnap, congratulations she succeeded.

My proposed solutions are...

A) Add some scenes of Mary P. apologizing and admitting her mistakes to the people she was mean to (mainly Jake and Emily). One of my favorite things about Mary P. was that she always owned her mistakes.

B) Write some scenes from Mary P.'s POV. That way we could understand why she's acting so out-of-character. Even if she never says sorry, we could see her clearly feeling sorry via some internal monologue.

C) Have a subplot of Mary P. trying to find and apologize to Emily. Kinda like The Little Mermaid 2 when after their first fight, Ariel feels really guilty and goes searching for Melody so she can make amends with her.

D) Have Mary P. tell Emily all about her grandpa, instead of Mr. Beeston telling her. There was a good scene of Mary about to answer all of Emily's questions about her grandparents, until Mr. Beeston arrives and she tells everything to him instead. I think if Mary was the one telling Emily about her grandparents, it would show more of her positive traits as a patient mother with open communication skills, and it could be Mary's way of making peace with Emily after their tense conversation in Chapter 5.

E) During Chapter 5, have Mary finally snap at Millie instead of Emily. Mary has shut Emily down before. But this was WAY harsher than she normally does it, without even consoling or comforting Emily afterwards like in previous books. Also it was Millie who brought up and kept pushing the subject (contacting estranged parents)...so shouldn't Mary be mad at Millie instead of Emily? Emily only pitched in because of Millie. Here's how I would've rewritten the scene:

"'No buts,' Mom said firmly. Then she turned to face Millie. 'I'm not putting myself through that again. It took me long enough to over what they did. I don't intend to give them the chance to do it all over again. Subject closed. Now let's have some breakfast.' And with that she got some bread out of the cupboard and started to slice it. I opened my mouth to say something else, but Dad shook his head at me.

'Best leave it,' Millie said softly. 'You know what your mom's like when she's made up her mind.'"

(I think that mean-spirited "You know what your mom's like..." comment sounds way more in-character coming from Millie rather than Jake. Millie was always very blunt.)

F) Have JAKE say the angry “No buts…” to Emily instead. Imagine the dramatic potential of Jake, in a misguided effort to help his wife, lose his temper at their child, immediately regret it, and then try comforting his child with his much gentler “Best leave it…” line.

7. Mary P. kind of forgot she can scuba dive. Seriously her scuba diving skills would've helped avoid a lot of conflict. My proposed solutions...

A) Have Mary P. scuba dive to Shiprock School. She could've just dove to Shiprock School herself to give them a piece of her mind, instead of bitching at Jake to do it for her. Maybe Mary and Jake would argue not because of Jake's inaction, but because Mary went ahead and confronted Shiprock School without him. Jake is a guy who tries to avoid conflict, so he would be upset at Mary causing a huge confrontation.

B) Have Mary P. scuba dive with Jake and the other merfolk. She could've gone with Jake to meet with various merfolk and they would've found solutions much more quickly. It'd be a great chance for Mary to show how much she really loves and supports Jake, and care about Neptune's mission to unite the 2 worlds. Also it'd be a great test for the merfolk to see how well they can really get along with humans, when they meet one face to face. Because in this book only Jake is doing most of the hard work and giving any support for Mary.

C) Have Mary P. scuba dive searching for Emily. Remember when I suggested Mary having a subplot of searching for Emily? What if after not seeing Emily for a while, she realizes Emily is out somewhere at sea and decides to scuba dive to find her? Then in the end Emily and Mary could reunite at sea, with Emily seeing her mom in full scuba gear then realizing how much Mary goes through to keep Emily safe? It would be a great way for Emily and Mary to reconcile.

8. Too many subplots. The subplots about the mermaid hunt, Millie initially staying behind in Allpoints, didn't add much to the plot IMO. My proposed solutions...

A) Cut these subplots out entirely.

B) Have Millie still try helping the Windsnaps even from Allpoints Island. She could've easily borrowed a shellphone.

C) Have the mermaid hunt be for JAKE OR SHONA, instead of Emily. That way Emily has no excuse to completely abandon her mission and run away from Brightport. Imagine Emily's horror at seeing Jake or Shona's picture in a newspaper article placing a bounty on their heads for their capture. She'd have to swallow her own fears of exposure, to save someone she loves from a similar fate. Seeing a bounty on her loved one's head should make Emily even more determined to unite the two worlds.

9. Jake sabotages Emily's speech in the end. I do love Jake's big speech to Brightport, I just don't like that he interrupted Emily to give it. Especially since Emily was supposed to give that speech. This is yet another BIG retcon, completely undoing Jake's Book 2 arc of learning not to treat Emily like a baby. I know old habits die hard, but then shouldn't Jake give Emily room to talk after he interrupts her? He doesn't just interrupt his daughter, he completely takes over her speech and ruins her moment to shine. It reminded me of Kanye interrupting Taylor Swift. Here are my proposed rewrites...

A) Have it be planned for Jake to give the speech instead. That way he can have his moment without ruining his daughter's. MAYBE Mr. Beeston tries to find Jake but Jake is running late, so he makes Emily fill in and stall for time until Jake shows up.

B) Have Jake and Emily take turns giving the speech together.

C) Have Jake secretly help Emily give the entire speech herself. Like how Elinor helped with Merida's speech in Brave.

That's all I got for now. If you have any other ideas, disagreements, etc. feel free to share.

#this rant was a long time coming #emily windsnap #emily windsnap and the siren's secret #rant #critique #liz kessler #middle grade fiction #middle grade series #middle grade books

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