REDO and REBOOT

We're looking at how bringing a familiar story into the current climate can inspire you...and give you room to focus

Of course we're noticing how many of our beloved '90s TV shows are getting the reboot/remake/revisit these days... Sabrina, Murphy Brown, Will & Grace, Charmed, and even Dynasty. Even Westworld is a reboot of an old seventies flick.

Rather than writing yet another think piece on the WHYs of it, we want to use it as an opportunity for generating new work. Which is why we're launching a Spring Writing Prompt Series that will focus on some of the most interesting and generative aspects of this cultural ouroboros. Spring is about new growth, sure, but it's also about green buds on 100-year-old trees. New growth among old scaffolding, if you will. Which is where we begin.

Remakes, reboots, revisits...they're as old as Adam & Eve (er, we mean Inanna and Dumuzi...or Pandora...or...). How many updates of Jane Austen have we seen (Clueless)? Or Shakespeare (10 Things I Hate About You)? Or fairy tales (Freeway)?

As a generative tool, updating a familiar story gives the writer an opportunity to focus on just one or two things (character development or interplay between setting and characters) without fretting about other elements -- since the plot, story, and situation are already in place.

Prompt: Take a familiar story -- Shakespeare! Austen! Grimm! Goodnight Moon! The Goonies! -- and update it for today. Let "update" mean whatever you want it to...settings, situation, character identities/relationships. You get to decide. This is about generating ideas and connections within the safety of familiar scaffolding.

Recommended viewing and reading: Bride & Prejudice; Strange Brew; The X Files 5x05 "The Post-Modern Prometheus"; Psych 7x05 "100 Clues"; Pride by Ibi Zoboi; The Fever by Megan Abbott; J.B. by Archibald MacLeish; Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld; Alena by Rachel Pastan; "Headwater LLC" by Sequoia Nagamatsu; Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi.

Reflection: This month, just let it flow and don't worry about editing or analysis. We'll get to those in due time.