 Hello to all my conscious writing friends out there my name is Ian and on this channel I show writers how to transform the world with their work but today I am showing you guys a very important aspect of being able to do that and that is rewriting myths, fairy tales and old stories. So writers don't think about this very often but they steal all the time because if you've been a part of modern culture you subconsciously have been embedded with all the ideas within even the people you hate, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Beowulf all that is within us and we use a lot of those ideas just intuitively because they work. So today this video is for two different people because beginning writers love to rewrite old stories and old myths. They love to bring in gods and goddesses from Greece or exploring different cultures and older writers maybe have an affinity or experienced writers sometimes have an affinity with a certain mythological figure for instance like Orpheus or a certain historical event that they maybe want to remix or fairy tale they've loved since they were young. So when you are going to start crafting these stories though you have to realize that objections are going to come up that if you remix some a great old story the first thing that most readers are going to have is objections when they are reading it because they loved the first story and that's why they're reading your story now. So first of all you have to make the characters the myth the story a lot more interesting because a lot of people think that just adding those things will make the story more interesting that if you just add a crazy historical remix or make Orpheus a Mexican rapper in 2030 that suddenly that's going to make the story interesting. Nope sorry you still have to use variable sentence structure, contrast, characterization, have a nice plot, do all the same do all the typical things that great writing has and with all of these objections you have to show and not tell. Once again beginner writers or writers sometimes will try to breeze through all these objections to this new world. You've created this new world and of course the reader is going to have some objections because they're so familiar with that world. So the way that you can end the in pass right break through that kind of awkward period is just let characters wonder the same thing. Give the reader it's almost like direct marketing that you are putting the objections into the character's mind so that the reader can have a more smooth and relaxed experience so a lot of the big objections like for instance if we wanted to write an old story about what if Napoleon took over all of Europe well we would have to have some historical context to that if we were remixing that we would need to for instance maybe wonder about Napoleon's successor or the fate of the United States all these you know those are just random things but you guys get what I mean that there's always going to be objections and you need to get those out of the way through the characters at the start to ensure more success for instance in the new remix book not that new Cersei the author whose name I can't remember adds so many details to fill us into the life of Cersei and who she was and what she feels and what she's doing the backstory all these different things so by the time the plot actually kind of got going and all the deep stuff happened we already felt comfortable with her I already felt comfortable with that world and what was happening even if there were all these familiar faces and ideas around so another thing you can do is change the point of view that you that the story is being told from from the original and you know what's really funny I just realize this is that rewriting old myths and stories are like fanfiction at some level but fanfiction kind of sucks because the the stories that were being told in the first place most of the time suck too like harry potter fanfiction I know there's I love harry potter but in terms of can harry potter transform the world no it already tried harry potter was read by tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people and look out look at the world today did that really do the intellectual work or lead us to the door to do that work no and she had what seven books do that thousands of pages and I know that's not what writing is supposed to do but it can do that and it has done that in the past so if we're looking at a work that we're taking a myth something that's in the canon something that has influenced us for hundreds of years one of the best ways to remix it is just hell it from a different point of view it could be in the same time period right it could be we're talking about nero the roman dictator we could have nero have an old best friend who's watched this watch this whole collapse and he's trying to help him and that's just a simple way and you can also if it pretend it's a modern remix pretend we have like we were talking about like the mex Mexican rapper orpheus well you could have a different point of view on the whole situation once again from the outside or have a very a very third person omnipotent point of view where a third person close instead of maybe the very visceral first person point of view you would expect from a story like that the second thing you can do is change something completely about the story so if we are rewriting an old fairy tale right and let's say it took place in England or in Scandinavia well how about in Chile or South South Africa Australia you know change the whole location make it a desert tale that's a very easy way to make you know and if you're a beginning writer and you're struggling with things to write that's a really easy just novel throwaway novel that you can do you could take the story of iron john add some weird surreal elements and make it in the desert the next thing you can do and this kind of has a the field that Dickinson did if anyone's ever seen the show Dickinson about Emily Dickinson on apple tv you guys know what i'm talking about because they speak and they say words like dope and fire and they have you know asap rocky music in there and it's not like a typical period piece they modernize it a lot Margaret Atwood is really good at this and this brings life to the story so easily that if you just add some modernization to it once again like we talked that's what i did with the orpheus story i could write a different perspective of orpheus i could write from the perspective of one of orpheus's friends or a lover an earlier lover there's you know all these different things that we could write from but it would instantly be more interesting if i change the point of view put it in present day and then you have to make it unique you have to make it yours you have to as Neil Gaiman would say you have to make it your own and by doing this it adds flair to it it becomes a co-creative experience because you have all this experience you have all this knowledge and you get to add to that for instance to the orpheus story you could add all your opinions of art and criticism and the criticism and ideals of our society and of music to that story and that is so cool and that is such a good way once again if you are out of creative fire you don't need to write your own story it's okay to rewrite an old story if you add the flair if you change the some points of views and modernize it a little bit and add you know change the setting change some characters genders you know um you know there's so many different things that you can do to a story if you're in writer's block this could be with a short story a poem a novel a piece of music a piece of art just take from the past and just make it better no one's going to copyright infringe you and look at all historical fiction is such a potent field how could you ever not be inspired if you're looking at all this material that's already right there for the taking and the way you start to get in touch with these things is through journaling it's through understanding yourself through more reading you can find these ideas and these things by understanding your own interests and understanding your own self because once again we you shouldn't be looking for the next big hit you should be looking at something that you're motivated to write because if you write it and you do it well maybe it won't be the best right maybe well maybe it won't be like the most marketable thing what if you write a weird story a story about a gay cupid in 1930s Louisiana you know maybe that's not going to be the next New York Times bestseller but by finishing a project to be highly motivated to make it really good even if it gets picked up and sells 2000 copies you'll have a lot more experience for a more serious story in the future maybe one that you actually write to sell a little bit more and all that experience you know you want to ride motivation waves as a writer whenever you can because you might be able to finish a book in under a year and let's say i'm 28 right now which i am i'm 28 that means if i write a book a year i could have 60 books out more books out before i die which is insane 60 books out but i have to find those motivation waves or i might be taking a lot longer and you might need to anyway but it might take a lot longer so these are some things to think about as you were thinking about rewriting an old myth fairy tale or story and let me know how it's going let me know maybe in the future if you're inspired to do this let me know how it went send me a link and check out this video right here on david lynch's favorite books if we're talking about inspiring artists