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Author Craft / Adapting Myth or Creating New?
« on: August 04, 2011, 06:45:45 PM »
In the book series I'm planning a lot of the back story has to do with people and creatures popular in mythology. There will be Wizards, Vampires, Valkyries, and more.
My question is what would your opinion be on using these types of creatures versus original created creatures.
Take the Dresden Files and The Twenty Palace Society novels. Jim uses a lot of mythology for his books, but he adapts it and makes them fresh, for example taking the Vampires and splitting them into courts, or having multiple types of Werewolves. Harry Connolly on the other hand in his first two novels as far as I know creates the creatures that threaten his hero's world.
So does the reader jump to the new ideas because so many of the mythological ideas have been played out? Or is mythology so enticing that it actually has a better chance at luring a reader to see how loyal or how much of a risk you took with the source material?
I'm going to attempt to do both. I'm going to try and keep the mythological creatures as faithful as I can while at the same time adding my own twist to their origins, but I hope to create a couple new ones in the process.
I just thought I'd ask for everyone elses two cents, and see how many dollars I can get from that
My question is what would your opinion be on using these types of creatures versus original created creatures.
Take the Dresden Files and The Twenty Palace Society novels. Jim uses a lot of mythology for his books, but he adapts it and makes them fresh, for example taking the Vampires and splitting them into courts, or having multiple types of Werewolves. Harry Connolly on the other hand in his first two novels as far as I know creates the creatures that threaten his hero's world.
So does the reader jump to the new ideas because so many of the mythological ideas have been played out? Or is mythology so enticing that it actually has a better chance at luring a reader to see how loyal or how much of a risk you took with the source material?
I'm going to attempt to do both. I'm going to try and keep the mythological creatures as faithful as I can while at the same time adding my own twist to their origins, but I hope to create a couple new ones in the process.
I just thought I'd ask for everyone elses two cents, and see how many dollars I can get from that