The Secret of Making Old Stories New Again for Blockbuster Novels and Films

By Jurgen Wolff

If your script or novel has a familiar theme, how do you turn it into something fresh and original?

One solution is to brainstorm how you could use unusual characters, settings, or situations to give the story a new context.

Let's look at the classic film, "E.T." The theme of the film is love and friendship: a little boy befriends an endangered, stranded alien and risks danger to help the alien get home again. It was one of the most successful films of modern times.

The thematic elements could all have been done in a much more conventional way-for instance, the boy could have befriended another kid, maybe a foreigner, who moves into the neighborhood. For the danger element, maybe this boy's father could be trying to kidnap him to take him away from the mother, who gained sole custody.

That could have been an excellent film, but would it have had the same success? Probably not.

The ways you can refresh a familiar story include:

• Change the gender of the protagonist. It was casting a woman as the protagonist in the "Aliens" films that helped make them successful;

• Change the setting. Again, "Aliens" has been called a haunted house story-but with a spaceship as the haunted house.

• Change the expected behavior of the main character. In "Silence of the Lambs," what makes Hannibal Lector so scarily fascinating is that he's a monster, but acts like a cultured intellectual.

• Give your story echoes of current events that will resonate with viewers and readers. One master of this technique was Rod Serling, with the old "Twilight Zone." They used sci-fi metaphors for many important themes such as racism, the pressure to conform, and the concept of beauty and ugliness.

Over the ages, themes such as unrequited love, coming of age, and overcoming the fear of the unknown have maintained their resonance; what changes is how they are expressed. If you can dress up traditional themes in a new way, you are on your way to success as a writer.

Your writing coach Jurgen Wolff shows you how to achieve writing success in his new book, YOUR WRITING COACH (published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing), available now from barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com and bookstores (find more information at http://www.yourwritingcoach.com). He has written more than 100 episodes of television, six non-fiction books, short stories, articles, and plays. He is also an international creativity and writing teacher coach. More tips and techniques are available at his website: http://www.timetowrite.com, where you can also sign up for his free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Also see his blog at http://www.timetowrite.blogs.com

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