Genres
Fairy tale
A short folklore story of magic and enchantment, set once upon a time, told as fiction rather than believed fact.
A fairy tale (also called a fairy story, magic tale or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. It typically involves magic, enchantments and mythical or fanciful beings: dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, giants, goblins, merfolk, trolls, witches and talking animals. Unlike the legend, which involves belief in the veracity of the events described, a fairy tale is set "once upon a time" rather than in real times or places. The form lives in oral and literary versions: Madame d'Aulnoy coined the name in the late 17th century, Straparola and Basile shaped the genre, Perrault and the Brothers Grimm stabilized the canon of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, and researchers suggest some stories date back thousands of years.
The skeleton audiences already know is the serial writer's asset: every divergence from the expected shape lands as a deliberate signal, which is the premise of the fairy tale retelling. Compare the sacred weight of myth.