Keskustelujen arkisto

For A.C.: Hi friend. Hope to see you in Danmark this June.
Our mutual friend, Gorm Traansgard is a great and prolific storywriter. When I
lived and worked in Denmark for Gutenberghus/Egmont, I had regular writing
brainstorming sessions with him (among other Disney writers). He came up with
hundreds of great story ideas which were very original.
He does NOT need to plagerise stories from other writers. Re-using a plot
from a famous or little-known story is just about as old as storytelling,
itself. He used that oft-used plot element (shrinking device shrinks people, so
that they are smaller than small animals, who have their changed from having
their lives depend upon the whims of humans, to the shrunken people reversing
roles with them). Of course, Gorm has read the Barks story. He grew up reading
Anders And! he used that plot element in this story for a similar (but slightly
different purpose). One might claim that it is TOO CLOSE to the Barks
storyline. But, I, for one, knowing the hundreds of stories Gorm has written
that have been totally original, would overlook the fact that he has employed
an oft-used plot device in this one story. The idea of turning the tables on
Mankind and a tiny species is universal to Humans, and if there had been no
Human literature, any person might have come up with it, independently, to make
a related point.

---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using the LA Free-Net - LA's best kept secret.
http://www.lafn.org/

Hi

The movie series "Honey, I shrunk the kids" (which I believe is made by Disney) reuses the gag in several movies, and now even started a half-hour comedy show based on the storylines.

Yours sincerely,
Mads

Concerning "An Entangled Encounter" specifically, I felt like the story was
elevated from being a rip-off of a dozen other stories by its clever
characterization of the spiders. I thoroughly enjoyed the spiders' dialogue
and names, in particular. The exchanges between Scrooge and Donald were
fresh and funny as well. The accidental shrinking and the conclusion where
Scrooge flew off at the businessman for wanting to smash the spider seemed
familiar, but I didn't feel like I was being served reheated leftovers.

Approaching the issue from a more general standpoint, I would argue that
truly original plot lines are hard to come by. I wonder how many truly
original plots are left out there! Reducing most plot lines to their basic
elements might seemingly reveal a lack of originality on the writer's part.
Still, consider all of the Barks' stories where the ducks become entangled
with a society of little people. Many of these stories share very similar
plot details and motifs, but when I read "Land of the Peewigahs," I don't
worry that Barks is ripping off "Mystery of the Swamp." Some of Barks
ten-pagers are even more direct rewrites of earlier stories. Take the two
ten-pagers where the boys rebel against bathing. Barks brings enough
originality to the second story to keep it from being a disappointing rehash
of the first story. Additionally, it's important to remember that all of
Shakespeare's plays were based on older stories or plays. Only immature
students would accuse Shakespeare of plagiarism, though.

To me, a good story can have a very familiar plotline and still be a good
story. It's just important that SOMETHING about the story is original. The
gags should be fresh, or maybe something unique should be revealed or
reflected about the characters. In the comics, often an artist's fresh
style redeems a story that would be trite otherwise. Many Rosa stories
follow a time-tested treasure hunt plot development, but Rosa keeps the
stories fresh with a basis in historical truth (of course, Rosa uses many,
many other devices to keep his comics fresh).

And I'll say one more thing! I like original story ideas-a large part of
the success of Van Horn's "The Whistling Ghost," for example, is due to the
bizarre, original plot. Still, plot isn't at the top of my list of story
priorities. Character, dialogue, and humor all come before plot for me. I
think a story is only truly a failure when it lacks originality in multiple
areas.

Thanks for letting me ramble!

Matt

Matthew Williams <kingofduckburg at apptechnc.net> wrote:

> I wonder how many truly original plots are left out there!

There's actually a thin little book out there called "Twenty-One Plots"
or something like that that posits that there are only a few possible
plots (e.g. Man vs Nature, Man vs Man, Man vs The Gods, Man vs His Own
Nature, etc.).

These are at a very high level of abstraction and that, I believe, is
the clue to understanding. Congruence tends to be in the abstract,
divergence in the details.

Anthologies have been written of different writers approach of the exact
same abstract plot.

Think of the boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl. How many
times has that been done? Why, kill them all in the end and it's
Shakespeare!

From a professional viewpoint, I always find it interesting (and
sometimes quite painful) to watch the dictums that editors and
publishers have regarding writing. "The character must always undergo
change, or there is no arc." Sorry, wrong. "Drama is conflict. The
villain must be strong." Nope, not true.

Virtually every dictum I've been handed by those in the know is silly
with lots of tremendously successful storytelling to point to in
"violation" to any given "must be".

Usually all I learn from a dictum is how poorly read or culturally
under-exposed a given authority is.

I actually had an editor excise the word "hubris" because he didn't know
what it meant and angrily pronounced that no one else, therefore, would
either.

Regardless, a freelancer is hired to do a job and ignores the stated
requirements at their own peril, so ultimately it matters little about
the dictum and the reality. The dictum becomes the contractual
requirement and one accepts that and performs as requested.

I actually enjoy reading or watching stories that violate dictums.

I remember seeing a Bonnie Hunt movie, I think it was the final work of
Carrol O'Conner. David Duchovny played a recent widower who falls in
love with the woman who received his former wife's heart.

There was no villain in the drama. Every character in the story was
humane. The conflict came entirely from whether or not the main
character would ever tumble to what the audience knew (above) all along.

I thought it was a very sweet endeavor to stage the story this way.

As far as "change", which seems to be THE giant requirement of a
generation of American editors, one need look no further than "A Day In
The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's study of the
Soviet Gulag, where it is the mind-numbing sameness that glorifies the
inextinguishable human spirit. Nothing changes, life goes on, and
therefore triumphs!

It doesn't take much thought to puncture the rules.

But one must understand the rules, to alter them.

You can build a house without framing if you wish, but you'd better
understand distributed stress and tension if you want to inhabit it.

All that said, my personal bugaboo in Disney Comics is the aping of the
super-hero. What if Mickey were Spider-man? The Hulk? Batman?

I know, what if Tolkein wrote with Disney characters?

What new movie is breaking and how can we loosely copy it and seem hip
and timely?

This seems to me a creator that can't find any originality, but is
desperate for approval and praise which, sadly, is often forthcoming. It
just seems so calculated to me that it makes me feel crassly manipulated.

Regardless, it's inescapable that I have my own sources and biases in
forming stories.

Likely that's why the most enduring advice for a writer is to write what
one knows, thereby increasing the chance for "originality", whatever
that might be.

Shrinking characters is indeed an old and popular cliche' also outside
the Disney world, there's Isaac Asimov's novel (and later movie) the
title of which I can never remember ("Hallucinating Voyage" back-
translating from the italian title), and of course Brick Bradford and
his trip whithin a coin, that was before the Barks' story quoted, I
seem to recall.

Also, in France there's a comic series devoted to "Les Petits Hommes",
a bunch of people whose diminutive size is permanent (freely chosen,
I seem to understand), rather than temporary.

I'm generally with GARY when he says...

>My own basic yardstick is this: has the writer done enough with the
>plot, characters, situations, etc., to keep me from thinking I've read
>the exact same story before?

But I might also add that it could be nicely challenging for authors
to try and measure themselves against old cliches to see if they
can revamp an old idea with a personal touch.

And they may even fail miserably without deserving being accused
of plagiarism, in my opinion, if they tried their best.

Of course it's not easy to tell when a less-than-perfect clicheed
story is the result of a honest attempt in the above fashion and
when it's due to plain lack of own imagination... :-)

Oh, BTW, I want to make clear that I'm not referring to Gorm
Transgaard's story with any of the above, I haven't even read that
one yet, this is all in general terms.

DAVE RAWSON then wrote...

>All that said, my personal bugaboo in Disney Comics is the aping of the
>super-hero. What if Mickey were Spider-man? The Hulk? Batman?
>
>I know, what if Tolkein wrote with Disney characters?
>
>What new movie is breaking and how can we loosely copy it and seem hip
>and timely?
>
>This seems to me a creator that can't find any originality [snip]

Well, I don't agree on that, again in general terms.
This is different than using "situation-cliches", here we come in
the realm of the parody/spoof, which to me is a perfectly "acceptable"
form of comic expression.

Again, we should judge the results obtained, I grew up with the
italian Disney parodies of classic literature and have always
LOVED them, I think they're actually quite educational... AND
funny to boot... :-)

On the other hand, I'm not exactly fond of Disney super-heroes,
either... I find those, especially the italian Paperinik (moreso
in the recent, "modern" incarnation) but also most of Super Goof
quite repetitive and unoriginal...

Maybe a good parody is best left "one-shot" rather than made into
a series...

Well, that's all cordially imho, of course :-)

Cheers!

Eta Beta

>
> Shrinking characters is indeed an old and popular cliche' also outside
> the Disney world, there's Isaac Asimov's novel (and later movie) the
> title of which I can never remember ("Hallucinating Voyage" back-
> translating from the italian title), and of course Brick Bradford and
> his trip whithin a coin, that was before the Barks' story quoted, I
> seem to recall.

The title of the book and movie is Fantastic Voyage. Asimov wrote the
novelization of the movie, so the story is not really his. He also wrote a
sequel several years later called Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain.

Sverre

David Gerstein wrote:
> "Super Donald" isn't a legitimate English name for the character. Donald
> is his *secret* identity, and he wouldn't reveal it by making it part of his
> public superhero name.

So calling himself Super Duck doesn't reveal his last name...?

Stefan

Olaf Solstrand wrote:
>> So calling himself Super Duck doesn't reveal his last name...?
> Uhm, not at all! After all, there's so many people named Duck. He could
> be... Daisy, or Louie, or even Grandma.

Aren't there other people called Donald too, that we have never heard of?

Stefan