Image Credits: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Images of book covers from Bridge House Publishing. Many thanks to Dawn Kentish Knox and Paula R C Readman for their images of me at previous Bridge House Publishing Celebration events. Am looking forward to trying to get some more photos – the event is a great way to celebrate books out.
I was sorry to hear The Chameleon Theatre Group had to cancel their production of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters (based on the play written by Stephen Briggs who wrote the Discworld plays with Terry Pratchett’s blessing).
As well as looking forward to seeing my first Discworld play, I was especially looking forward to this story as it is a strong one and a classic example of a wonderful tale based on another one. Wyrd Sisters is based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth but with the Discworld version, it is the witches (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick) who are the heroines.
The underlying theme for Wyrd Sisters and Macbeth is what the lust for power can do to someone. That theme can be used time and time again. Sadly in many ways, it will always be one we can identify with (and I am sure we can all think of examples where it happens for real).
Many stories inspire others and I would say it is the strong theme behind the original one which makes this possible. Every writer builds on what has gone before. We’re inspired by other authors so we write our own stories. There will be themes which appeal to us more than others and while there is nothing new under the sun (to quote the biblical book of Ecclesiastes), by writing our tales we can add (a) to the sum total of literature out there and (b) show the world our take on the theme in question.
Stories Inspired by Other Tales
The musical, Wicked, is the prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Wild Sargasso Sea is the prequel to Jane Eyre. Prequels can only work thanks to the original story. Bridget Jones’s Diary is inspired by Pride and Prejudice, as is Death Comes to Pemberley. The Once and Future King is inspired by Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.
Plays get into the act (some pun intended!) with Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead directly inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Using minor characters from well known works is another way to create further stories from work which is already out there. I would say Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (my favourite of the series) is based on The Prisoner of Zenda.
Advantages of Writing Stories Based on Other Stories
Readers will know the characters already. Where minor characters are being brought to the fore, there is the opportunity for their tales to be told. It is possible to expand the world the original writer created. A good story will have resonance with readers. Its themes will be timeless. This can be capitalized on here.
Disadvantages
Readers will soon spot if a writer gets things wrong. The writer of the new tale has to stick to what the original author created in terms of setting unless they specifically state upfront they’re writing a modern take on, say, Hamlet, set in 20th Century America. But even there readers will be looking to see if the characters would fit with what the original author would have come up with if they were writing now. Hamlet is not suddenly going to become a ray of sunshine, is he?
Why Writers Write
We love books and stories. We are inspired by them to create our own. I have Christopher Booker’s Seven Basic Plots on my bookshelf. It is an interesting read. Just because we can’t invent something totally new, does this mean all creative writing should come to a halt? No way!
What writers can do is to put our own spin on classic themes and ideas. For instance, the Sam Vimes stories within Discworld are also great police procedurals, nothing new about those, but the idea of having these set in a fantasy world was new. Having a copper having to tackle a dragon (Guards! Guards!) was new too.
Themes are timeless because humanity doesn’t change much. Themes pick up on aspects of our nature – positively and otherwise. So writing a story based on themes like this is going to have inbuilt resonance with a reader from the start.
I know I personally have to write. This is my creative “bent” to exercise so to speak. So I will look for themes and characters I think a reader would want to find out more about. Naturally I am going to be inspired by the books and stories I love/have loved.
My first story in print, A Helping Hand, appeared in the Bridge House Publishing anthology, Alternative Renditions, back in 2009. My tale tells the story of Cinderella’s youngest stepsister but without the original fairytale, my story couldn’t happen.
Having said that, it was huge fun to write because I showed my character being resentful against Cinders (not an unreasonable supposition) and then that character being surprised when it turns out…. No spoilers here! But thinking of things my character might say when it looks as if Cinders may come into her life again was huge fun. Still no spoilers!
It was Isaac Newton who said “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” He was right. Scientists build on what has gone before but they’re not the only ones. Musicians do. Writers do.
So it is not unreasonable to have our stories based on themes which have been used before countless times and which will not have an expiry date on them. It is equally the case being inspired by previous stories themselves is also not unreasonable.
What is unique here is what the writer brings to their story having been inspired by the previous one as a kind of foundation. Different writers will find different things/elements to an original story to be inspired by too.
Conclusion and Publication News
Stories are wonderful things. They entertain. They can inform (often about what not to do! Many of the fairytales, including Little Red Riding Hood, are thought to have been written as warnings. Certainly in her case if she couldn’t spot something very hairy with huge teeth in a dress wasn’t her granny, well it justifies a trip to Specsavers does it not?!). They can convey messages and morals in palatable form (which is what Jesus’s parables do).
People remember stories. They won’t remember sermons. My late father-in-law, an excellent lay preacher, often mentioned he could not repeat children’s addresses because they always contained stories and people remembered them.
He was delighted when Captain Scarlett made a come back on television as his first children’s address based on that went out at the same time as the original show did (and his son, now my husband, was the right age at the time to appreciate it). Later when it came back, my father-in-law preached the same address to the newer generation who were seeing the show for the first time. This included his grandson, my son).
So stories matter then and it would be strange indeed if we weren’t inspired by what came before. It is a good way of keeping them in the public eye too. I don’t want to imagine a world without the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Wodehouse, Christie, Pratchett and so many more.
Am pleased to finish with news that I am in the 2023 Bridge House Publishing anthology, Gifted, with my tale, Desperately Seeking Talent. I haven’t been in all of their anthologies since 2009 but I have been in eleven of them from then to now. I love anthologies for the selection of stories in them and they’re perfect for dipping into as well.
My story is a humorous fantasy one (am very much inspired by Pratchett there) combined with fairytales (am very much inspired by the classic tales collected by Grimm, Perrault etc). So inspiration continues and that is how it should be and how I like it!
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Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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