Monday Musings: ReImaginationland

I’m back from vacation now–though writing this before I even left, so wouldn’t it be weird if I actually didn’t come back from vacation but this entry said I did?  Have I blown your mind now?–with another Monday Musing.

One of my stated goals for the summer was rebooting this story.  Perhaps the toughest thing with rebooting a story like this is I have to constantly remind myself that it is in fact a different story.  That means that what was set in stone before is now set in mud.

By that I mean a character who may have acted one way before is now free to act a little bit differently because this isn’t the same story.  For example, one of the characters in the story is named Renee.  She’s 17 and has a unique set of parents: her mother comes from an alternate universe and her “father” is a witch.  (How do they make a baby?  Simple:  the witch becomes a man for a few months and then changes back.  Did I blow your mind again?  If yes then you should stop reading before you don’t have any mind left.)  Because of this unusual background, Renee develops a power like Rogue in the X-Men where she can absorb the magic of magical items or magical people and use it.

Now in the first story, Renee learned about all this when she was 13 and touched her “father” only to accidentally absorb her father’s magic, which nearly killed both of them.  After that some other witches try to teach her about magic, but they get freaked out about her.  Renee herself in that story is nice and a little shy except around her best friend and often wiser than her years.

When I started thinking about the reboot story, I had to force myself to ask, “What if she were still 17 only she didn’t know about what she could do?”  Then eventually I asked myself, “What if she weren’t nice, a little shy, and wise beyond her years?  What if she were brooding and angry–more like a normal 17-year-old?”

That opened up some new lines of thought.  Because the thing is, even when you’re somewhat retelling another story, you have to remember that it is supposed to be a different story.  If you wanted to just tell the same story all over again, maybe just copy and paste the old one into a new file and slap a new title on it.   The point of “reimagining” a story is to reconceive it in such a way as it keeps the fundamental principles of the old version but incorporates some new ideas.

Or you could just add zombies to it.

If your mind isn’t too blown, Wednesday is a BIG announcement!!!  (Prepare to have your mind blown yet again!)