Using Pre-Existing Works as Basis for New Fiction – Bad Idea?
Not referring to fan fiction, which I have mixed feelings about*. I remember over a decade ago when visiting Barnes & Noble a certain book titled “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters”. Intriguing. It wasn’t a re-write of Jane Austen’s work, just a re-weaving (if you will) of her words with a new subplot involving sea monsters. A new take on a classic that many people welcomed. Others like it cropped up, and gained some level of success.
Then I began to see other stories, not so much expanded works as using public domain fiction as the basis but writing from a different character’s perspective. There’s a slew of them based on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that come immediately to mind. Then there are the works which take a well-known character and interweave them in a new narrative, for good or ill**.
Reading comments on the forums, I noticed an argument cropping up that these kinds of stories are “lazy”. What made them lazy? Few commenters qualified their opinion, which they didn’t necessarily have to do, but it would have been more interesting for the argument.
Assuming you’re here because you are interested in what I have to say, you want to know if I think it’s lazy, right?
It depends.
Some of the examples of the first type (expanded classics in public domain) may be lazy. After all, they are just weaving in a new subplot with extra language. But it’s not as easy as it seems, especially to make it work well. Many argue that Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters fell flat in its endeavor to make something new of the old.
Writing a whole new work, like the ones around Huck Finn, for example, aren’t really all that lazy, as it’s a whole new perspective on a different character that still has to successfully navigate the waters carved out by the river of the classic. Those who call it lazy may be conflating “coming up with an idea” and “setting it to words and getting it published” are one and the same. I can assure you, ideas are a dime a dozen. Fleshing them out as a full, satisfying story is where the challenge arises***.
“Lazy” shouldn’t necessarily be conflated with “awful”, either. I’m aware of a good number of stories that I’m sure someone *ahem* put a lot of effort into that ended up sucking hardcore. Some works from the bottom up (idea to accolades) may have come effortlessly to the author.
All in all, everyone’s going to have an opinion of their own on a story, and all we authors can really do is write stuff that pleases us, get better at it, and hopefully find the folks out there who love what we write.
* Mixed feelings about fan-fiction come from several arenas. It’s not bad if the writer stays true to the character and writes a good supplementary tale that casts new (non-canon-breaking) light on something that occurred. It’s awful if it forces the character(s) to be someone they’re not just to satisfy the writer’s sick perversion (slash fiction. Save yourself and don’t look it up unless you want to be scarred for life). It used to be an honor to be asked to write a story for a well-known character (I personally know someone who was invited to write a story about Darth Vader published in a genuine Star Wars anthology, awesome lady), but now these freaks treat it like something they can take a shit on and claim it’s part of the canon. Hell, even their own original writers take a shit on their own characters (I’m looking at you, Steven Spielberg, and that travesty that came after the last Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade).
**Yes, I’m thinking of you, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. You read like “wahman-awesome” fan fiction. That’s not a compliment.
***Actually, this was an exercise a creative writing teacher I had way back when liked to use – write another scene for a story we read as a class, paying attention to the characters’ voices, the narrator’s voice, the tone, etc. A great way to learn story construction is by reverse engineering another’s, brick by brick. I was especially proud of my Bastard Out of Carolina “epilogue” scene that got good reception from my classmates. If I ever come across it again, I’ll post it on my blog so you can form an opinion. Fair warning if you want to read that novel, it’s one of those books that you come out of it really wanting to hurt someone, even though he’s (sort of) fiction.
