The Same But Different
I know I’m attracted to new ideas. I love the promise of a new story, a bolt of bright colorful fabric or a ball of soft fluffy yarn. Unending potential.
Yesterday, while pushing paper at my day job, a book idea came to me. A great idea for a new story. Now, mind you, I don’t need a new project. I have a novella half written with a deadline at the end of the month. I’m writing a new short contemporary. I have a cozy I’m hitting final revisions for and starting to send out into the world. And I have another completed romance that I’m trying to salvage.
And a paranormal I haven’t gotten past page one.
But this story wouldn’t let me go. So I wrote the blurb running through my head, found the characters names – I can’t go on if the name isn’t right – and wrote the first couple pages.
Then I went to bed and told my hubby about the wonderful new book I was going to write.
“It’s already been done.”
He rattled off the plot of a television series that he thought was close to my idea.
I still think he’s wrong, but it forced me to look at the idea and see where I can make it my own. The Same But Different – all the publishers and agents are looking for that magic combination. Twilight but not. Harry Potter but different. The girl with the ….
Well you get the idea.
Last week I went to the movies with my BFF. Girl’s night – which I really needed. While watching the promos waiting for the chick flick to start, I was struck by one thing. Same But Different.
Gnomio and Juliet. The classic love story told through the eyes of Garden Gnomes. The reds versus the blues. How many versions of Shakespeare’s tale can there be? West Side Story? And how many versions was there before Shakespeare wrote what we view as the original?
So maybe my story is a lot like Highlander, the series, without the immortality or the Scottish flair. But if it’s the same, is it different enough to be my own?
How are you using the classics to inspire your work? And can anyone name another R/J rip off?
Lynn
6 comments:
You raise a good question: What makes an old idea new? Why is it some reworkings of familiar themes lead to best sellers, and others lead us to say, "Seriously, this again?"
I don't think it's in the mechanics. I don't believe adding new twists to the plot, or mutations to character, or finding a fabulous new setting can elevate a retelling to more than a derivative of the original.
I think more nebulous things are at work. Those slippery, non-quantifiables, like inspiration, talent, lush imagination, and sparks shed from a writer's soul that illuminate the narrative.
When an idea sets a writer on fire, and inspires him or her to invest a part of himself/herself in the work, that's when a story starts to live.
Doesn't matter if the same material has been covered a hundred times before.
So if you have a tale to tell, tell it.
I know you. And I know your story will be uniquely yours, uniquely you. Person that you are, your telling will feel like the first, because you'll weave slivers of yourself into the words to animate the story.
You'll create something that never was before, never will be again.
A Romeo and Juliet redux? I think a lot of boy meets girl stories are R/J with a twist. But seeing as how we don't much care for tragedy in the U.S. of A., the daggers are always Nerf, the poison turns out to be Pepto-Bismol, and the suburban Montagues and big-city Capulets begrudgingly shake hands, make amends, and accept each other's wacky, irritating family foibles in the end.
I just had to laugh at "Gnomio and Juliet". :-) Great post, Lynn.
Interestingly enough, what makes one person say "seriously, this again?" might make another person say, "yes, a new twist!" So I think some of that is subjective.
But after listening to Romantically Speaking a lot lately, I've definitely changed my mind about some of this. Normally, I would say, "write the book of your heart." But if your goal is to get published, and not just to write, you do have to look at the market and what the market will take.
So all that to say... I don't know. :-)
I just had to laugh at "Gnomio and Juliet". :-) Great post, Lynn.
Interestingly enough, what makes one person say "seriously, this again?" might make another person say, "yes, a new twist!" So I think some of that is subjective.
But after listening to Romantically Speaking a lot lately, I've definitely changed my mind about some of this. Normally, I would say, "write the book of your heart." But if your goal is to get published, and not just to write, you do have to look at the market and what the market will take.
So all that to say... I don't know. :-)
I know that there isn't anything new under the sun. I laugh when I hear writers lamenting...he stole my idea or my title.
And I'm not giving up on the idea. I may have to change the time traveling hero...(I love time travelers) but I think, scratch that, I know, this book is begging to be written.
Back to work.
Lynn,
Sorry to be late finding you.
I so know what you mean; something similar happened to me this summer--an idea in a genre that is so stuffed with titles even I can't read them all :) Like you, I couldn't let go of the idea and wrote a few pages, all the while fearing it was warmed over 'everybody else.'
It's still here on my computer's desktop waiting. Don't know what will happen to it.
Rebecca has a point; I suppose we ought to keep the market in mind (darn) when we write. But I also like what 'Joe' had to say (very eloquently). You will bring something different, unique to the story--yourself, your voice. So don't reject it too soon.
It reminded me of something my husband said once that really made me think (that was before I started writing fiction.) He was putting together all the human interest stories he'd done around a certain theme. I asked him if that hadn't been done before and he answered, "Not by me."
He was right--so was 'Joe'.
Good luck with it--but get those other stories out there, too!!!
Hi Barb! Nice to see you drop in.
I don't have problems getting my stories out there. I'm fearless in submitting. Sometimes a little too quick on the draw I think, but you don't know what you don't know until later.
Yesterday I ran around my small town looking for a post office open after five on a friday. I was thinking it was an urban myth.
But after several false starts, I found Bill (an ex Marine, post office guy and writer) waiting to take my package for the Malice competition.
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