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Rewriting someone elses story, good idea or horrible?

CurvySassyAJ

CurvySassyAJ

Smut Writer Amy Jo
Joined
Nov 4, 2021
Posts
673
I recently read a series here that I found parts were very good and other parts were not so good. So in my fevered imagination I thought , "I could write a story like this." I know there are so many stories here that are very similar but they might not be based off of any other story, just simliar.

I want to take the first couple of chapters and reimagine them. It does not appear that the original author is active here, otherwise I would duscuss it with him.

Thoughts, insights?
Thanks,
AJ
 
"I became a writer because I read something and said to myself 'I can do better than that'" seems to be a common origin story.

It's not necessary to "borrow" characters and settings from someone else, though, and in fact it's a real bad idea. You might try identifying the elements that you like in the existing story, and building something along the same lines. Above all, don't lift their prose and "repurpose it."
 
As long as you don't copy it verbatim.

Change the names, make sure that the resemblance isn't too canny and you should be fine. Especially if you are writing some original chapters.
 
Great points.

I was already thinking change the character names, so I was on the right track there. There was one scene I really liked and Iadmit I would have written it the same way. Not an exact copy, but closer than it should have been.

Now I think i will figure out how to tell a similar story but not have the same scenes in mine that were in the original.

And yes was thinking multiple chapters, if I can mangage it.
 
I recently had a reader message me to tell me that since I'd gotten so many things wrong about my characters in one of my stories that he rewrote the series the way it 'should be', with no women who could be construed as sluts and save themselves for decent guys.

Admittedly, I wouldn't be all that cool with someone doing that with my own works, but as we all know, nothing and no idea is new under the sun, so claims to originality can be wonky.

If you rewrite someone else's story, is this retelling the same story with new names? Somebody told me that 50 Shades Of Grey was actually Twilight fanfiction. I've never read or seen either, so I'm taking their word for it. I guess you need to avoid that trap.

And if it's obviously a knockoff of someone else's work, despite name changes, I guess give credit where it's due. Like I said, this JUST happened to me where somebody said the rewrote my stories, but they're not publishing them, it was for their own edification. So I'm unusually thoughtful on the matter, I suppose.
 
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Intro to the story I'm working on:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One of my favorite stories to reread is silkstockingslover’s Daughter's Initiation into Incest. The story starts with Minister Harper providing marriage counseling to James and Eleanor. James and Eleanor leave, and we find out that their daughter Katie listened to the counseling and is one of Minister Harper’s lovers. Minister Harper and Katie fuck, and, at the end of their fuck, they strike the bargain that Katie will seduce her dad while Minister Harper will seduce her very sexually uptight mom. James and Eleanor don’t appear again in the story or either of the two sequels (Minister Harper does think of her at the very end of the second sequel). I always thought the “Katie seducing her dad while Minister Harper seduces her mom” concept to be very hot, and an idea for my version of it came to me. So this story uses the same characters and set up as the first two scenes in silkstockingslover’s story, but then goes in a very different direction. Silkstockingslover gave me permission to use her characters and story set up.
<<<<<<<<<<<<

It's been very interesting to take someone else's characters and write a story that keeps them the same in terms of what they do but making them very different.
 
The essential distinction in copyright law is idea v. expression.

Nobody owns the copyright in an idea. You are perfectly free to read someone else's fictional story, tell yourself, "I could do a better job with that idea," and take that idea and write your own story. You have not infringed anything or done anything unethical by doing that.

So, for example, somebody somewhere was the first person to write a "Mom sits on son's lap in the car" story. And many authors borrowed that idea and wrote their own stories. There's nothing wrong with that.

But if you take the original story and borrow too many specific elements -- specific words and lines, character names and traits, specific plot points -- then you've taken the other author's EXPRESSION, not just their ideas. That's copyright infringement. That's wrong.

Many of my stories originated after I read another erotic story and thought I could take the germ of the story's idea and do something new and original, and, I hoped, better, with it. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what Shakespeare did.
 
"Tad Overdon" owes his pseudonymous existence to the sweat-stained work of unsung legions of 20th century paperback pornographers. ;)
 
CurvySassyAJ said:
I recently read a series here that I found parts were very good and other parts were not so good. So in my fevered imagination I thought , "I could write a story like this." I know there are so many stories here that are very similar but they might not be based off of any other story, just simliar.

I want to take the first couple of chapters and reimagine them. It does not appear that the original author is active here, otherwise I would duscuss it with him.

Thoughts, insights?
Thanks,
AJ
Click to expand...

I can't say I've never used the setup for a story I've read to make my own, I think we all have. However, there is a huge difference (and a fine line) between using the basic premise of a story to make your own and tweaking someone else's work to suit what you think it should be. My Freakin' Friday story is an example. I hit on the basis of that story from another I read. How many times has a body exchange story been done? I'd tire myself out trying to count them. But I didn't take another's work and tweak it to what I wanted it to be. I can't and won't try to delineate where that fine line is, I just know it exists and I tend to walk shy of it.

All I can say is choose wisely

Comshaw
 
Every time I've tried to write "my version of a scene I like" it turns into something very different within a few paragraphs. I'd imagine that's the experience of most anyone who tries it even as an exercise. Our own brains have learned narrative each in our own ways. What's our own existence as personalities, after all, other than a well-learned story that we've invested in?
 
Comshaw said:
I can't say I've never used the setup for a story I've read to make my own, I think we all have. However, there is a huge difference (and a fine line) between using the basic premise of a story to make your own and tweaking someone else's work to suit what you think it should be. My Freakin' Friday story is an example. I hit on the basis of that story from another I read. How many times has a body exchange story been done? I'd tire myself out trying to count them. But I didn't take another's work and tweak it to what I wanted it to be. I can't and won't try to delineate where that fine line is, I just know it exists and I tend to walk shy of it.

All I can say is choose wisely

Comshaw
Click to expand...

I've never read a story here that made me want to closely mimic it.

However, I have written several stories based on porn clips that stood out to me. In that case, the clips are pretty much a minimal 'lead in' then on to the sex so I'm creating characters and an entire story to get to that set up, so its mostly my story, just using visual inspiration so to speak.
 
If it's used for inspiration and is a look from a different angle or through the eyes of different characters as in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" or Sondheim/Lupine's "Into the Woods," it's fine. Just use it for inspiration for a takeoff that is your own and wasn't the original author's.
 
Just think, if authors weren't allowed to use a scenario someone else did, we'd be denied all those mom sitting on her son's lap masterpieces.
 
CurvySassyAJ said:
I want to take the first couple of chapters and reimagine them.
Click to expand...

Led Zeppelin took blues riffs and re-imagined them as different types of songs. Blues took church music and revitalized it as a folk fusion. Classical composers borrowed from each other all the time to take themes in a new direction. Authors use allusions and often borrow archetypes and characters from other books. Just about all of us rip off the Bible or The Odyssey. Christianity took heavily from Buddhism and Greco-Roman religions in addition to Judaism, and Judaism took extensively from the cult of Mithras, Babylon, Egypt, and the Greeks. Nietzsche based his writings on Schopenhauer, and Schopenhauer lifted from The Upanishads to counter Kant. Most architecture borrows from past edifices, and the chicken cordon bleu I cooked has part of a recipe from a soup can in it. If you can do something interesting with someone else's stories, characters, etc., go for it.

It's polite to make the allusion formal, if you can find a graceful way to do it. Looking forward to what you write.
 
lovecraft68 said:
Just think, if authors weren't allowed to use a scenario someone else did, we'd be denied all those mom sitting on her son's lap masterpieces.
Click to expand...

Every time my Mom used to do this to me I tried to tell her she was being so damn unoriginal, but that never stopped her. So I had to spank her ass till it was sore.
 
NoJo said:
Every time my Mom used to do this to me I tried to tell her she was being so damn unoriginal, but that never stopped her. So I had to spank her ass till it was sore.
Click to expand...

I thought when you told her to get off your lap she yelled at you to stop being selfish, "Think of the votes! The Views!"
 
lovecraft68 said:
I've never read a story here that made me want to closely mimic it.
Click to expand...

I have looked at authors whose collection of followers on pay sites have made me want to clone their libidos. I'm never really able to imitate them for long.
 
CurvySassyAJ said:
I want to take the first couple of chapters and reimagine them. It does not appear that the original author is active here, otherwise I would duscuss it with him.
Click to expand...
Some writers get very possessive about their characters and storylines, and if you picked up some of my characters, for example, and explicitly and tactlessly dropped them into your "better" story I'd be annoyed.

If on the other hand you thought, "Wow, that character's hot, I'm inspired to write my own," that's different.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; blatant character theft and so called "improvement" is an insult.

Write your own stories is my default on this. Sure, be inspired, but don't take someone else's characters without getting their permission first, and if you can't get their permission, definitely don't do it.
 
Many years ago, I won a short story contest with a retelling of 'The Tortoise and the Hare'. There was nary a peep from Aesop's lawyers. :)
 
electricblue66 said:
If on the other hand you thought, "Wow, that character's hot, I'm inspired to write my own," that's different. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; blatant character theft and so called "improvement" is an insult.
Click to expand...

Several years ago I read a one off story which I enjoyed very much and one scene in particular has stuck in my mind. I’m in the process of writing a series (for several months) and this scene inspired me to write a scene for my story with some similarities. The main similarity is that they are both strong, independent women. But I’ve written other stories about strong women. So no one can nail me with that one. The location for the scenes are similar but the storylines are vastly different. Their backstories are totally different as are their physical appearances.

Would I have written this scene if I hadn’t read the other story? Possibly not but who can say?

I appreciate writing a thousand words inspired by an account of a similar length has a few differences to a complete chapter. I also consider inspiration is completely different to imitation.
 
CurvySassyAJ said:
I recently read a series here that I found parts were very good and other parts were not so good. So in my fevered imagination I thought , "I could write a story like this." I know there are so many stories here that are very similar but they might not be based off of any other story, just simliar.

I want to take the first couple of chapters and reimagine them. It does not appear that the original author is active here, otherwise I would duscuss it with him.

Thoughts, insights?
Thanks,
AJ
Click to expand...

I started writing during the pandemic for myriad reasons, one of which was inactive authors in specific categories that I found interesting in the past on Lit (some temptation w/ voyeuristic themes). I started chugging out a few stories, thinking I might generate something akin to some of these old classics (in my mind), but then my muse simply produced stories that I didn't expect. My work veered darker and more graphic than I expected or intended. The journey my mind wandered on in front of the screen was surprising and interesting.

I suggest you use your inspiration from this story to dive into writing, and as others have said in more eloquent terms: see where it leads of your own volition. You might surprise yourself!

Cheers,
RichardK
 
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Thanks for all the good insight here, I am grateful for the input you all have provided.
 
SamScribble said:
Many years ago, I won a short story contest with a retelling of 'The Tortoise and the Hare'. There was nary a peep from Aesop's lawyers. :)
Click to expand...

Pride and Prejudice and Penises.

Elizabeth Bennett learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and overcomes her prejudice against weak men when she figures out that with her corset, boots and a whip, they'll fork over huge wads of cash for being humiliated in private.

Fcuk marriage :devil:

Public domain works are :cool:.
 
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