Re: Writing / Re-Writing

Question: When it’s not a book in the Christian Old Testament, what is ‘The Book of Job’?

Answer: It’s an episode of the American satirical animated series The Simpsons. Specifically, the 6th episode of the 23rd season that first aired on Fox in November 2011.

In the episode, Homer Simpson decides to get rich by writing a Young Adult (YA) fantasy novel. He recruits other characters from The Simpsons, and real life fantasy author Neil Gaiman, to do the writing for him. The book is going follow the tropes of YA fantasy. It will be set in a school, but instead of a school for vampires, werewolves or wizards, it will be about trolls: The Troll Twins of Underbridge Academy.

Homer and gang sell the book to a dodgy publishing company that decides to change everything unique about it. The trolls are replaced by vampires and the title is now The Vampire Twins of Transylvania Prep. Before the book is published, however, the Simpsons stage a daring, hi-tech break-in at the publishing house. They replace the bowdlerised version of their book with the original. Except they have been double-crossed by Neil Gaiman. When the book is published, it is Gaiman’s name that appears as the sole author.

The Simpsons ‘The Book of Job’ episode is liberally sprinkled with elements from popular YA film and book series, in particular Harry Potter and Twilight. However it is principally a parody of the George Clooney/Brad Pitt heist film Ocean’s Eleven.

Your writing prompt is as follows. Take a story, a film, or a TV show episode from one genre and re-write it in radically different genre. The example is a comedy, but you don’t have to go for laughs. Can you turn a zombie horror story into a work of literary fiction? Can you retell a classical myth as a chick-lit?

For the purposes of this exercise, don’t write the whole story. Write a c.500 word summary. You should perhaps also state which story (or series) you are starting from, and which genre you are transposing it into.

Good luck!