Wild GooseAgency

Ian Gibbs

The "TOVO" Collection

A witty, humorous collection of classic fairy tales retold from different perspectives, revealing that truth is always subjective — and every character has a story worth hearing. TOVO: five short, darkly comic stories — quick to read, fun to share, and surprisingly good at making you question the news you hear.

Genre
Satirical British comedy / Fairy-tale retellings
Structure
5 short stories
Rights available
World English / Translation / Film & TV
Audience
New Adult, Adult
Word count
15,000 approx
Narrative style
Irreverent, character-driven retellings told from the perspectives of the supposed villains.
Narrative tone
Wickedly funny, occasionally dark and playfully subversive, with a distinctly British sense of humour
Narrative Perspective
Narrated in past tense

Comparables

Likely to appeal to readers who enjoy the absurdist British humour of Douglas Adams and the playful subversion and wit associated with Terry Pratchett

Synopsis

"The TOVO Collection – The Other Version Of…"We all know what happened. Cinderella married the prince. Snow White was poisoned. Hansel and Gretel ended up in a witch’s house. Three little pigs were terrorised by a wolf. Or at least, that’s the version we’ve been told.

"TOVO – The Other Version Of…"is a wickedly funny, irreverent and occasionally dark collection of five familiar fairy tales, retold by the characters who have spent centuries being cast as the villains. The basic facts haven’t changed. But the storyteller has.

With a distinctly British sense of humour and a willingness to stray close to the boundaries of political correctness,"TOVO"turns familiar stories upside down and asks a deceptively simple question: what happens when we finally listen to the other side? Because whether it’s a fairy tale, a news story or the latest piece of neighbourhood gossip, there’s always another version of what happened.

The question is: who do you believe?

Author's Note

TOVO started with an argument between my twins, a boy and a girl. They were young, furious with each other, and both absolutely certain they were telling me exactly what had happened.

The problem was that their stories were completely different.

As a parent, this was hardly a unique experience. But it got me thinking. Neither of them was necessarily lying. Each was simply telling me the event as they had experienced it — with their own assumptions, emotions and selective memories filling in the gaps.

So what had actually happened?

That simple question stayed with me and eventually became TOVO: The Other Version Of…

I began playing with the idea through fiction: take something that appears perfectly clear, then change the point of view and see what happens. Suddenly the villain may not be the villain. An obvious motive becomes questionable. Something we accepted as fact starts looking suspiciously like interpretation.

I wanted the stories to be fun. TOVO isn’t intended to lecture anyone about critical thinking or media literacy. The five stories are short, accessible and darkly comic. My hope is that readers enjoy the twist first - and think about its implications afterwards.

Because the idea that began with two children arguing seems increasingly relevant to the adult world.

We live surrounded by news, social media, gossip, commentary and competing accounts of the same events. We worry about fake news, quite rightly. But sometimes the more interesting problem is information that isn’t deliberately fake at all. The person telling us genuinely believes their version.

Perhaps this idea also resonates with me because I’ve spent much of my professional life speaking to audiences and teaching others how to communicate with them. One lesson I’ve learnt repeatedly (whether giving a talk, coaching a speaker or simply trying to persuade someone) is that communication looks very different from the other side. What matters isn’t only what we say or intend; it’s what somebody else hears, understands and remembers.

Looking back, TOVO feels like the fictional, slightly mischievous extension of that same fascination with perspective.

I don’t want readers to finish TOVO distrusting everything they read. I’d be delighted, though, if occasionally they encountered a confident headline, a piece of gossip or somebody’s indignant account of what happened and found themselves wondering:

What’s the other version?