Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Matthew Buckley => Topic started by: Firemeboy on February 07, 2006, 02:46:59 PM
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So, I'm thinking about doing my dissertation on the rewriting of classic works of fiction. Take a Shakespeare play, throw it in a wiki, and let large groups of people rewrite it with a hip hop flavor. I've talked about this a bit before, and I think the results might be interesting.
But is rewriting somebody else's work sacreligious? Would this be an interesting exercise? Are there any short stories you can think of that might be well suited for a 'remix'?
I've already posted one to a wiki I set up, and then added a few very short excerpts of my own stories. If anybody wants to check them out, you can do so here:
http://www.editthis.info/fictionremix/
Feel free to add your own stories, or stories in the public domain that you think would be interesting to 'remix'.
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What exactly do you mean by rewriting? Is West Side Story a rewrite of Romeo and Juliet, or an update, or a version, or are the three terms interchangeable?
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Good question. Maybe rewriting isn't the best term. For a finished work, in a sense you are re-writing. But for a work in progress, it's not really rewriting, rather it a type of collaborative writing.
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That is a really cool idea. I'd like to see things like passages from the bible and other scriptural works re-written like that. I think it would be fascinating to see the different interpretations people bring to such things. And especially interesting to see the finished work after a whole slew of people have fiddled with it, thus giving a broader slice, spectrum, whatever you want to call it.
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I, too, think that idea is very interesting. My impression is that you're looking at the way people remix music, and applying that to fiction. Another thing you could look at is the mashup craze that's happening. What would happen if you mashed two pieces of literature together?
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Fanfiction writers do mashups all the time--they're called fusions. The collaborative wiki idea is interesting, but it could have implementation problems--like, would you want to keep bad writers out?
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Another thing you could look at is the mashup craze that's happening. What would happen if you mashed two pieces of literature together?
That is brilliant. Any suggestions for two pieces to mashup?
I do see a problem with 'bad writers', but I see several things happening. If you ever had the problem of a story being edited too much, you could limit it by a password so that only those making 'good edits' could change the story. But even then, it's very easy to revert to a past section. And they way I've got it set up, you edit paragraph by paragraph. So if somebody comes and kills one section, but somebody is doing great work on another setion, you can trash the bad stuff, and keep the good stuff.
I think the key is you will need one (or a very few) 'key authors' that have the final say. Otherwise you'll end up with a story that has 14 voices, 18 endings, and is just a mess.
I've already added a 'mashup' section on the wiki.
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I see mashups as being very different from fanfiction fusions, but I'm not sure how to translate the musical mashup into literature without it simply becoming a fusion. A fusion, as I understand it, is characters from one story meeting characters or visiting locations from another story, like the X-Men showing up on the Enterprise. A mashup is two songs played on top of each other--they are changed very little, if at all, but compliment each other. I would like to see that same kind of idea applied to literature, but I'm not sure how or what to do.
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You'd have the characters acting independently but in a shared world.
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Fell, what you describe is a crossover. A fusion is where personalities and plots are joined: the new characters and situations take elements from both (or all) the original sources, but the original characters do not precisely exist anymore. For example, if Ranma Chiba finds himself engaged to Usagi Tendo and they both discover they are reincarnated ki-blast throwing sailor-suited warrior animals of justice, that would be a fusion.
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/me screams in horror.
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I see, Ookla, interesting. So the X-men visiting the Enterprise would be a crossover, but the Enterprise crew manifesting the powers and roles of the X-men would be a fusion.
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Nerds.
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I see, Ookla, interesting. So the X-men visiting the Enterprise would be a crossover, but the Enterprise crew manifesting the powers and roles of the X-men would be a fusion.
You realize that Spock is already an honorary X-men.
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I see, Ookla, interesting. So the X-men visiting the Enterprise would be a crossover, but the Enterprise crew manifesting the powers and roles of the X-men would be a fusion.
Exactly! Write it already, will you??
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Actually, I was talking about actually taking two original pieces of literature and using the actual text to try and make one story that works together. Not like fanfic fusions or crossovers, but--like in a music mash-up--a blending where you take the actual pieces and combine them. One chapter from Dracula. One chapter from Emma. Perhaps with some minor changes, such as making the names of characters in two pieces be the same.
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Actually, I was talking about actually taking two original pieces of literature and using the actual text to try and make one story that works together.
Yes, this is what I pictured too. So you might take two conversations, and try to add them together in a way that makes sense.
For example, taking the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene, and then adding something else taking place further down the alley. Maybe something from Pulp Fiction.
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That would be totally awesome
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Wait, I heard about this already being done, like on NPR or something. I think they just used individual sentences.
But after searching for 15 minutes I can't find any trace of this actually existing.
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There was a recent contest in Salt Lake--in fact, I don't think the submission deadline has passed yet--where you have to use sentences from existing books to write an all new one. I was excited to try it, until I learned that you have to use books from Time Magazine top 100 novels list, which is a tragic mockery of literature.