Quicksand Fans

i was wondering if there was any interest in writing 'novelettes' of our fave qs scenes that never got a proper published adaptation of their own... or mebbe the scene in the book was a bit of a let down and could be given a proper written treatment more to our tastes?

which scenes would be the among the top ten here?

tarzan's hidden jungle?

ursus in the valley of lions?

ice cold in alex?

shelby woo?

valley of mystery?

any suggestions?

That wouldn't be a bad idea

I think this might be a good idea, but perhaps there is a need for the establishment of some ground rules. Otherwise, what you may get might be scenes that use the same character names but that don't really fit the original.

Also, I think you may be describing two different things here: 1) starting with a written description from a book, of a scene or situation in which a quicksand situation might have (but didn't) occur and fixing it, and 2) starting with a scene from a movie and writing a story from it. With the latter I guess you might try writing an improved script instead of a narrative but too many details in the script often become impossible to actually perform. I guess a third thing you may have in mind is simply "fan fiction" in which an original story or scene is created using the characters from some other work, such as a TV show or movie.

stefani_tg wrote:i was wondering if there was any interest in writing 'novelettes' of our fave qs scenes that never got a proper published adaptation of their own... or mebbe the scene in the book was a bit of a let down and could be given a proper written treatment more to our tastes?

which scenes would be the among the top ten here?

tarzan's hidden jungle?

ursus in the valley of lions?

ice cold in alex?

shelby woo?

valley of mystery?

any suggestions?

Fred588 wrote:Also, I think you may be describing two different things here: 1) starting with a written description from a book, of a scene or situation in which a quicksand situation might have (but didn't) occur and fixing it, and 2) starting with a scene from a movie and writing a story from it. With the latter I guess you might try writing an improved script instead of a narrative but too many details in the script often become impossible to actually perform. I guess a third thing you may have in mind is simply "fan fiction" in which an original story or scene is created using the characters from some other work, such as a TV show or movie.

actually i meant novelising scenes from films/tv episode where no novelisation existed but can see i worded it a bit badly so you may think i was adding - or embellishing - qs scenes to films/tv episodes which 'in our humble opinions' should have had... though that may not be a bad idee in itself!

i tend to think so these 'novelettes' stand up by themselves mebbe they should have a recap like 'the story so far' so if you haven't seen the episode you know who is who and what is what etc. it doesn't have to be detailed but just so the scene makes sense round certain characters. i had a fancy to do tarzan's hidden jungle but need to hunt out my vid... i couldn't remember if vera mile's character had met tarzan before the quicksand scene or not...

I think there is a lot of potential in writing stories that use characters already developed by others or building on a story already known to the audience. It saves the author from the need to pay much attention to character deveopment (which is why it can also be viewed as an infringement of the original author's rights) and it allows a single episode to take advantage of the history of past episodes. A Star Trek movie, for example, can start right off telling the story of the episode without having to tell the audience what a phaser is.

There is a trap here also, however. If we tell a story that really depends on characteristics of the actress playing the original role, then we are really just doing a manipulation kind of thing rather than really telling a story. Not sure i'm totally making sense here.

A few years ago I started a story series called "Psychic World Jungle Land," that was designed to allow individual stories to be more complex that any single story really was, because the audience (viewer) would tend to be familiar with the series history. I think the idea had some merit as it did generate enough interest that six of the individual stories were written by other people.