Re: Mixing

[cupidsbow]

Having finally found a formula that seems to work for remixing, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the process. I'm not big on prescriptive Do's and Don'ts, so I've written this more as a travelogue, looking at how I went about writing " Home Fires," which is the first remix I've been really pleased with as a story in its own right

Comments

[isiscolo]

Oh, I totally agree about staying true to the spirit rather than the detail. Too many remixes are the exact same story retold from another POV - retaining dialogue and everything - and man, those are boring. Far more interesting to boil the story down into "this is the essence of this story" and then tell it your own way.

[cupidsbow]

*nods* I agree the stories that go somewhere new are the best. I do have some sympathy for the 'boring' remixes though. The first couple I did were like that, because I couldn't quite work out how to think outside the lines. It was only after a couple of practice runs that I really grokked it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same for other people.

[zvi_likes_tv]

I feel like I'm coming to remixing from a very different place, and I think that partly it's because your working off victoria's thoughts, and victoria has said several times that she feels "remix" is sort of a misnomer, that instead we're doing covers. So, if you're doing a cover, saying "What is this story?" and "Now how do I tell it?" are the right questions.

But I always feel like the remixes should be, well, remixes, where you're saying, "Okay, this is a story. It's made up of all of these different parts. What story do I want to tell using some of these parts?" And the parts that I usually latch onto are the events, so my approach is typically something closer to, "What happened here?" and "Why do I care about it?" and "What do I want to tell some hypothetical reader about what happened?" Because I think within a story there should always be an answer to "and why are you, madame author, telling me this stuff?"

So the closest I've ever come to a straight ahead retelling was when I took Helping Hands and made that story the

[cupidsbow]

Hmmm. Having just read your Farscape remix, I'm not sure I agree that you are coming from such a different place.

It seems to me that regardless of the writing process we use (and your process *does* sound different), remix stories tend to fall out into two types: those with one small change (commonly POV), or those which are re-imagined. Your Farscape remix is definitely re-imagined, even though the first of your 5-things is a simple POV change.

It's the re-imagining that I was struggling with in my first few remixes; I couldn't quite see how to get past the original author's vision. So I developed a very methodical way of extrapolating in order to try and break-out of that. It's certainly not the only way to remix, or even the best. In fact, I think yours works really well! I wish any of my remixes were half as inventive as your one Farscape remix! I may have to try your way next time--maybe it will prove even more productive than my plodding step-by-step approach.

[zvi_likes_tv]

Could you break down a little bit more what you mean by re-imagine? I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at.

[cupidsbow]

When I did my first remixes, I really just changed the viewpoint. My story started in pretty much the same place and ended in pretty much the same place, and covered no new ground in the middle--even the dialogue was mostly the same

[msilverstar]

Hah! This is great, fabulous, so perfect that I'm linking to it in my reminder posts :-)

[cupidsbow]

Yay, I'm glad it's useful. Good luck with the remix :)

[foxrafer]

Now that I've finished my first remix I wanted to come back here and thank you for this and the other posts you've linked to. feelforfaith sent me this link right after I received my assignment and had a bit of a meltdown and reading through the posts and comments went a long way toward putting things in perspective. I'm sure my first attempt well and truly sucks but I got through it and I was able to begin because of this and your other remix discussions. Thank you very much.

[cupidsbow]

You're very welcome, and I'm glad it helped ease the way.

[melissima]

Just wanted to say thanks! I used parts of this (particularly your "cheat sheet" suggestions) in my first remix and it really helped.

[cupidsbow]

Glad it was helpful!