Remakes, Spin-Offs & Rewrites

We all strive to create work that tells the seven or so stories that are iconic to the human condition in a new, fresh way. The stories that express the truths upon which our civilization depends for its strength and civility are based on human experience and imagination. Writers provide the context in which these ancient stories become the fabric of the future through a contemporary interpretation.

Stories of change, departure, arrival, love, betrayal, struggle, finding a home resonate deep in the human psyche, no matter what the circumstance, characters’ nationality or sex, location or any of the other choices authors make to form a credible world in which fictional characters act out a real-life truth regardless of the genre in which the author writes.

Science fiction, romance, mystery, crime fiction and fantasy, no less than mainstream fiction, must have a modicum of “truth” underpinning the action. And that is because we demand to be enlightened as well as entertained; we demand that, despite our willingness to “suspend disbelief,” the underlying foundation is based on our intrinsic understanding of experience.

Some of the highest paid writers make their fortunes using material created by others and, in some cases, themselves. The Star Trek franchise is one example. The Star Wars saga is another. J. R. Tolkien began with a miniature humanoid and built a fantasy world that became the playground of millions of devotees. J. K. Rowlings created a pre-teen wizard, leading the way for Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga and Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games which all burgeoned into vast industries of film and merchandise.

E.L. James exploited the work of Stephenie Meyer to build a Sadomasochistic world through fan-fiction. Amazon has created an enterprise for fan-fiction exploitation with its “Kindle Worlds”—stories inspired by books, TV shows and comics.

Although there are no real new stories, copying the work of J.M. Barrie to make a film (Hook) based on characters created by Barrie or redefining the premise of the original story to fit the narrative of another time so that these become the accepted “truth” of the story is an unfortunate result. My advice: read the original novel; that will enhance your understanding of the interpretations.

If you haven’t read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland but enjoyed Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the Madhatter (or my personal favorite, the White Queen), read Lewis Carroll’s original, fantastic, imaginative story for all the thrills and spills the film left out.  

A writer has the task of creating, with words, all the vivid, emotive, intense experience that film and fan-fiction take for their platform. Many of the most memorable films began as books—in fact, it is hard to name a film that didn’t have a written origin. Casablanca started its journey as the unproduced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett and Joan Allison. One of the most beloved films, It’s a Wonderful Life, was based on the short story "The Greatest Gift", written by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1939 and published privately in 1945. And who can forget Gone with the Wind, one of the most famous books to become a film.

We all hanker for the film deal that will shoot our book/s into the space continuum of the darkened cinema or the digital living room screen. But that will never happen without those words on the page, neither will the fan-fiction or the multi-book saga.

Write the book first.

Sanitizing Fairytales

From the day my three boys were born, we read to them as part of the bedtime routine, no matter where we were in the world. Choosing books with illustrations was a must until they all began to read the words for themselves, which they accomplished before they started school at the age of 3½. Because we were reading to them in Welsh (a phonetic language despite what you may think when you see words such as llywyddiaeth), they learned faster.

One of the main publishers of Welsh children’s books is Gwasg y Drefwen (The Whitetown Press), which translates classic fairy and folk tales, as well as publishing many of the classic Welsh language stories.

My boys were also given opportunities to hear classic European stories such as Hans Christian Andersen’s most famous stories such as The Red Shoes and The Little Mermaid. Of the two, these three rapscallions were particularly fond of encouraging me to read The Little Mermaid for this:

“The wedding ceremony was a marvelous occasion, and that night the prince and his bride set sail for his own country. There was music and dancing on board, and the little mermaid danced as she had never danced before. Though her feet hurt with every step she hardly felt the pain, so intense was the pain in her heart.”

This is the real story—with consequences. The reason my sons wanted me to read this was because I always cried. Though they were too young to fully comprehend the sad end for the little mermaid who gave up the life she was destined to live, endured great pain and could never speak nor confess her love for him, they were exposed to depths of emotion and realities of life.

Andersen was no teller of happily-ever-after stories.

I stopped reading Gwasg y Drefwen books to them when the publisher presented stories such as The Three Little Pigs, not as tales from which children learn the basics of life without having to experience them. In the Drefwen version, the first two little pigs are never held to account for their lazy, make-do attitudes to house-building. They escape to their smarter, harder-working, forward-thinking, prepared brother who gladly takes them in and shelters them from the wolf.

So, the wolf, who is behaving according to his predatory nature by devouring the unprepared, lazy piglets, is denied the fruits of his efforts, teaching children that it doesn’t matter if you don’t take care of yourself, someone else will. It also teaches that the wolf is bad, despite his designated purpose in the natural order of the food chain.

For the same reason, I have lost respect for Disney. The animated film, The Little Mermaid, completely upends Andersen’s purpose expressed in his tale: be careful what you wish for.

For tens of thousands of years, humans have used storytelling to convey experience and life-saving truths. What Drefwen and Disney do is pander to the sensitivities of parents who don’t want their children to endure letdowns.

I confess that my children’s disappointment at not being invited to a classmate’s party was painful for me but, as their teachers pointed out, it was much better for them to learn how to handle disappointment early. Disappointment is a short-term low. A lifetime built on never experiencing failure is, at best, unrealistic and, at worst, detrimental to our children’s good mental health.

Fairytales sanitized to protect children’s tender feelings protect parents from having to explain the harsh realities of real life but as I told my sons, “Life is hard and then you die.” Or as the Navaho explained to their children, “Go too near the edge, you will fall and die.” Or as my mother told me, “Run with scissors and you’ll put your eye out.”

I still run with scissors but I take full personal responsibility for the results.

Coffee Coffee Everywhere and Not a Drop...

The emergence of coffee as America’s favorite beverage is purported to have been instigated by the unfair taxes imposed by the English government on American colonists in the late 18^th Century. The Boston Tea Party is one of many iconic events that set the stage for revolution and brought an end to the dominance of Indian black tea as ritual morning, midday and evening beverage of recent arrivals to the North American continent.

So how did this replacement activity actually happen? How did it occur that now, over 1400 million cups of coffee are drunk around the world each day?

In 1793, coffee was still mainly consumed for medicinal purposes and was too expensive for everyday use.

“New York's first coffee roaster opened on Pearl Street, selling wholesale beans to taverns and hotels, which led to an abundance of coffee businesses along the East River ports. Since coffee importers lacked appropriate communication tools and were at the mercy of the bean-toting ships' arrivals, most of this early consumer-grade green coffee (which would eventually be roasted) was months old, gaining unattractive qualities from the musty and damp wooden ships….

“[T]he Coffee Exchange of New York began regulating traffic in 1882, creating coffee standards and influencing the quality available to consumers. Through the progression of wooden to steam-powered ships, to paper packaging, advancements in roasting technology and selling coffee based on its taste instead of by sight, coffee morphed into a beverage which could be accessible to those outside the wealthy class and still taste good.”

“Coffee Chronicles: Coffee’s History in America, A Short Primer,” Allison Hemler

By the 1900s, coffee was a preferred drink for the wealthy urban dwellers, because it was still too expensive for the majority of Americans. The development of the Coffee Exchange and improvements in shipping, advancements in roasting technology and a preference for taste also boosted the availability to a wider public.

World War II slowed that process and cheaper Robusta beans made in roads, but the advertising campaigns for “coffee breaks” in the 1950s created the atmosphere that led to the appearance of “coffee shops” and “coffee houses” that spread the word into the counter-cultures of the Beatnik and Hippie eras. These in turn led to the comfortable atmosphere of overstuffed sofas and the perception of coffee as the drink most convivial to friendly discussion.

Another instrument for the promotion of coffee to the national drink was the appearance of the beverage on the increasingly influential medium of television. In my family, coffee was the only hot drink and, more often than not for adults, served during meals. Wine and beer were only served at celebration meals.

During the 1970s, the widely popular crime series, Twin Peaks, raised coffee to the level of a connoisseur’s drink with the line “Now, that’s a cup of coffee.” By this time, Americans were well-versed in the appreciation of this all-occasions drink, therefore my first visit to the British Isles was an eye-opener. In habitants of the country of the Magna Carta had no idea what coffee should taste like. For the remainder of the weeks I spent there, I drank tea, even when, according to my fellow B&Bers, it was “too weak to come out of the pot.”

Coffee reached celebrity status in the 1980s, when the series, Friends hit the airways and made a huge difference to coffee consumption when the series was picked up by the independent telly networks in English-speaking countries around the world. The system of franchising and chain stores also extended the spread of “coffeemania” when enterprises such as Peet’s, Tully’s, La Boulangerie, among others moved into neighborhoods.

As citizens of an open society, Americans have embraced coffee and coffee rituals from around the world. We have also opened our taste buds to the joys of exotic teas but it is coffee that holds our hearts in thrall, as an emblem of our long-held and hard-won independence.