Making it new; making it shiny

There's nothing new under the sun, they say. And that's true. Everything that's been done has been done again a million times over. So where does that leave us, the writers, the storytellers, the mythmakers? How do we take the old and freshen up it enough to keep what-happens-next a secret from the readers until we're ready for them to know it?

My answer is this: I don't know.

I don't fully understand the process, the way I take something and twist it into a shape that differs slightly from t...