How to Craft a Shakespearean Retelling That Inspires Teen Readers

I was in high school the first time I read Macbeth. My English teacher mentioned to a friend and me that a local theatre company was doing a production of the play and that we might want to check it out. My parents dropped me off for the show, which was staged in an old garage. The audience was seated in risers that were on wheels, so the cast could turn the audience around for scene changes. The witches were played by little girls who ‘possessed’ adult actors for their dialogue and the actors could pull the garage door open for entrances. It probably wasn’t the greatest version of Macbeth ever staged, but I remember thinking, Whoa, this is so cool!

(Why Writers Should Hang Out With Shakespeare.)

A lot of teen readers encounter Shakespeare for the first time in school, reading plays aloud in English class. Unfortunately, not as many teens get to see live productions, especially professional ones, which can do so much to bring Shakespeare’s language and characters to life. On paper, the words can feel stilted and the references to history, mythology, and politics can feel unwieldy.

A retelling of a Shakespeare play, however, can be a gateway into the plays. YA literature has dozens of Shakespearean retellings in multiple genres, and the best ones not only highlight the great things about the original plays but also stand alone as excellent works themselves. Here are some things to keep in mind if you want to write a retelling that helps teen readers connect with Shakespeare (creepy garage productions not withstanding).

You’re not writing a YA retelling to educate the youths about how great the Bard is. Teen readers are savvy and can tell immediately if someone is condescending to them or wants to spoon-feed them ‘real’ literature. Your motives should come from wanting to explore these classic stories and how they apply to contemporary life, not from tricking them into exploring Shakespeare. Which means you need to…

Shakespeare’s work is so lasting because his themes are so lasting—love, betrayal, envy, power, etc. While the language and plots of the original plays might feel overwhelming for many teen readers, they can definitely connect with those core ideas and emotions. I first had the idea for Winter White when I read several news articles about cases of domestic violence in my area. I was horrified by the brutality and thought, That’s The Winter’s Tale. In Winter White, I wanted to explore Shakespeare’s themes of trauma, violence within the family, and what forgiveness means for the victims through the lens of a teen girl.

While teen readers can connect with those big themes from Shakespeare, it’s important to tie them specifically to the experiences of young adulthood. This doesn’t mean necessarily keeping the setting contemporary—there are successful YA retellings of Shakespeare that include time travel or are set in fantasy Shanghai or take a noir spin. But you do need to make sure that the emotional landscape rings true to teen readers. In Winter White, the story follows 16-year-old Pia (inspired by Perdita in The Winter’s Tale) who has grown up in the shadow of family trauma. I wanted readers to connect with Pia’s yearning for community and connection, even as she struggles to escape her father’s domineering presence.

Shakespeare’s plays are lasting for another reason—high stakes and engaging plots. One of my favorite aspects of YA is the immediacy of the voice and intensity of the emotions the characters experience. This pairs so well with the intensity of Shakespeare’s stories—the betrayals, the first loves, the grasps for power, etc. By using the play’s plot beats as a guide, find ways to ramp up the stakes for your original characters. Winter White deviates significantly from the plot of The Winter’s Tale, but I wanted to capture the immediacy of Shakespeare’s Perdita falling in love and ultimately uncovering her family’s dark history.

While characters like Macbeth and Hamlet are fascinating, the plays offer so many supporting characters for writers to explore. For generations, actors have been making these characters their own in countless productions. Writers have the same opportunity to dive deeply into supporting characters and explore the story’s core themes from another perspective. In The Winter’s Tale, Leontes has a more clearly defined emotional arc than Perdita. For Winter White, I was very interested in the daughter’s perspective and what forgiveness means to her.

As so many of Shakespeare’s plays were inspired by other stories, I can only assume he’d approve of spinning these tales for contemporary teens. Explore his rich themes and characters and make them come alive in new ways for YA readers.

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