Disney, I think, has the magic touch when it comes to magical stories. They have delighted audiences for so many years, many people haven't known a time - and can't imagine one - when Disney hasn't been in their lives. Even as old and wrinkly and dusty as I am (not really, honest), I'm pleased to be one of those people.

I love Disney. Yes, I'm a grown man, but Disney lets me be a child again. And no, I didn't have children of my own just so I could go see the movies without being embarrassed, but they do help!

Honest.

Now, Disney are the masters of retelling. They have made many original films, but there's a whole host that are based on popular stories, such as the works of Hans Christian Anderson. They do, of course, put their twist on thing - the ending of the original Little Mermaid is not as happy as the movie - but they are our happy-ever-after store. You go there for escapism and a smile. You go there for Oscar-winning songs you'll still be able to sing years after without being able to 'let it go.'

So, when my daughter suggested I write a retelling of the Little Mermaid, I was somewhat shocked. Though I have been known to produce some children's stories, I'm known for writing horror. In fact, when she asked me, I'd recently finished writing Suffer the Little Children for the film Sinister II. But, she had an idea (she was twelve at the time) and wanted me to listen to it. Of course I would.

When she told me the idea, I was still skeptical. It's such a well-known tale, I didn't know if I could do it justice. The last thing I wanted to do was write something that fell short or seemed forced. But, I agreed. I'd write it.

It had been SO long since I'd seen the Disney film. In fact, I'm not sure if I ever had seen it all the way through. So I watched it. I also researched and read the original. They have a very different feel to them. Hans Christian Anderson's version is much more savage than Disney's. But, savage was what I wanted. Mine wasn't going to be a fairytale. Mine was going to be a combination of the two. Meg, my daughter had put forward a delightfully sinister twist.

Have Ariel (Aren in mine) have her tail cut off and sew on human legs.

Perfect! And she was twelve! I was hesitant when I started writing And the Meek Shall Walk. I was pretty much doing it for her as I had other things I wanted to get on with but, the more I wrote, the more the story and the characters captured my attention. Seb was my favourite, I think. I really felt for his plight. Briony - I wish she could have lasted longer. She was nice. Every so often, I'd revisit the other versions, but the book ended up writing itself. It more or less followed the general arc, but had its own kinks. The epilogue was, actually, never going to be written. Neither was the sequel I'm currently writing. I was going to end it as I originally had but the readers were so supportive - even to the point of crying at the end - I felt I needed to continue it.

There's some stories which mean a lot in my house. Alice in Wonderland is one such. The bluetooth name for my phone is The Rabbit Hole. We had an Alice in Wonderland birthday party, where I dressed as the Mad Hatter. I think, once I'd finished And the Meek Shall Walk and discovered how much I enjoyed it, I'd been bitten by the bug. As well as writing other pieces (I had a hand in six anthologies in the latter part of last year and also wrote for the film Incarnate), I was enticed by the thoughts of entering the rabbit hole myself. What, I thought, were the real origins of the poor, misunderstood Queen of Hearts? She's quite mad, as we know...

And then I had it. I've already written Sin, where the main character (don't tell him he's fictional, though) spends time in an asylum. The Red Queen could do that too! So she did and won a Wattpad FCRAs Award too!

I saw the brilliant musical Wicked a couple of years back and, more recently (Father's Day, to be exact) Maleficent. Both of these rewrite how we think of the 'baddies' of the stories. The Red Queen in my book is just such a person. She's misguided and can't help how things will work out. It doesn't help, of course, that her name is Alice.

Because that's what we can do with a retelling. We take the main aspects of a well-known story and turn them on their heads. Maleficent is really a 'guardian angel' to Aurora. The Red Queen just wants to help but had such a fierce upbringing, she begins to fall apart. Ariel (Aren) doesn't want to fall for the prince, she wants deadly revenge on the human who killed her mother and has a cave with the dismembered remains of those she's killed trying to exact that revenge.

The story is there, overall, after a fashion. You can relate to it and feel at home, but you are still able to be surprised. The amount of times readers of And the Meek Shall Walk have shouted NOOOOO at exactly the same point of the story is heart-warming. As is those who have called it 'savage,' a word I used earlier to describe the original work.

Of all stories, perhaps the most loved one in my family is The Wizard of Oz. It's my wife's favourite, for a start. Because I'd written And the Meek Shall Walk and was working on Red Queen, she wanted to know why I didn't try my hand at Oz! Her love for it was one of the things that had prevented me. I really couldn't get it wrong. But she insisted. So I went for it. And, in Dorthy, you meet Dorothy, a zombie scarecrow and a serial killer tin man who's trying to rebuild himself from the parts of his victims.

See what I mean? A retelling can be quite different from the original material, but it can still be totally familiar. I had never considered writing one before Meg asked me to and now I'm working on two together. I have to say, it's SO much fun!