Board index › Topical Discussion › Art, Writing, and Music

Those that love writing - does anyone else do this?

Page 1 of 1 [ 5 posts ] 

Previous topic | Next topic

Joe90
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 26,492
Location: UK

02 Aug 2018, 12:53 pm

Sometimes I like to buy an existing book and write my own version of it. At the moment I'm writing a similar story to "Room" (by Emma Donoghue), but my version is about a woman who was abducted and raped by pirates who then abandoned her on a tiny tropical island far away from any civilisation, and she raises her baby girl on the island. The baby grows into an adventurous 4-year-old, only thinking that this island is the only place in the whole world.

Next I want to write my own version of "Wonder" (the one about the deformed boy), but in my version the boy is severely autistic (and I might make the character a girl instead).

I love doing this. Is it OK to do this?


_________________
Female


naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 35,189
Location: temperate zone

02 Aug 2018, 2:31 pm

Isnt that what's called 'fanfiction'?

It IS a "thing" these days in some quarters.

In fact I think that Shades of Gray started out as fanfiction of Twilight (or something like that).


Some serious highbrow authors will take a classic story and riff on it. Tom Stoppard's play "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead!?!?!?" is Shakespeare's "Hamlet" rewritten from the point of view of two extremely minor characters in the Shakespeare original.

IMHO the Godfather movies are just one long overextended version of Shakespeare's "Macbeth".



Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 48,561
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

11 Aug 2018, 4:27 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
Isnt that what's called 'fanfiction'?

It IS a "thing" these days in some quarters.

In fact I think that Shades of Gray started out as fanfiction of Twilight (or something like that).


Some serious highbrow authors will take a classic story and riff on it. Tom Stoppard's play "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead!?!?!?" is Shakespeare's "Hamlet" rewritten from the point of view of two extremely minor characters in the Shakespeare original.

IMHO the Godfather movies are just one long overextended version of Shakespeare's "Macbeth".


Hell, even the Bard himself ripped off other plays of his day, and actually made them better. Though that had been common practise in those days before copyright laws. For instance, there had been a play called The Jew Of Malta, which Shakespeare rewrote as The Merchant Of Venice. When someone else first wrote a play called Othello, he didn't even bother changing the title; just gave it a hell of a rewrite.


_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


Mythos
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 12 Aug 2018
Gender: Male
Posts: 457
Location: England

12 Aug 2018, 9:55 pm

I don't think there's such a thing as absolute originality. Even the bible happened to "borrow" a little from Gilgamesh, and that's the damned thing telling us to not steal.



redrobin62
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 2 Apr 2012
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,009
Location: Seattle, WA

14 Aug 2018, 1:54 pm

When you consider that there are only six basic conflicts to all stories, there are bound to be stories that resemble each other in one form or another. The six conflicts:
Man vs Man
Man vs Society
Man vs Nature
Man vs Himself
Man vs Machine
Man vs Supernatural

If you were to look at any movie or novel, they would fit into one or more of the above categories.


_________________
One Day At A Time.
His first book: http://www.amazon.com/Wetland-Other-Sto ... B00E0NVTL2
His second book: https://www.amazon.com/COMMONER-VAGABON ... oks&sr=1-2
His blog: http://seattlewordsmith.wordpress.com/