A New Cinderella Story

Let's see... where did we leave off last time? Right. In this fairy tale, Cinderella isn't pretty. But, she's incredibly kind. And generous. And determined. And has this little bit of fire in her (I want to describe it as a soft fire, but that seems strange), and... well, you get the point. I happen to think she's a pretty great character. Anyways, here I was with this Cinderella who isn't pretty, and as it turns out, that kind of throws a wrench in the works of the typical Cinderella story.
From my perspective, a Cinderella who was not visually extraordinary in any way wouldn't catch the prince's eye. Now, if you're like me, you may be thinking something along the line of, "This prince is a real jerk if he's only worried about beauty when picking out his wife." And you would be absolutely right. Except I didn't want this particular prince to be a jerk, so I had to do some reconfiguring. I needed to figure out why the prince wouldn't choose Cinderella, why she wouldn't catch his eye, and make it a little more complex than just being that she isn't pretty. (That is, after all, kind of the whole motivation here.) That train of thought led me down a very interesting path of exploring character dynamics, complex personalities, and a pretty complicated father-son relationship.
Once all of that was established, I started to consider what would happen at the ball itself. As it turns out, she meets two of his best friends, which was not planned, but definitely a pleasant surprise. Of course, I then needed to determine who the prince would choose. He did still need a potential wife, and if he wasn't picking Cinderella, that position was open. I wanted this change to be something that set my story apart from the traditional story. Something that sparks the thought of, "Where exactly are we going from here?" And definitely something that provided the opportunity to showcase my main character's kindness. So, in this Cinderella story, the prince doesn't choose Cinderella. He chooses her stepsister.