Photo by Jennifer Uppendahl on Unsplash
I appreciate a good origin story. I especially like prequels that are crafted for pre-existing stories.
For example, I love Endeavour, an ITV/Masterpiece collaboration that presents Inspector Morse’s early days as a police constable. This series stays true to the ITV crime series based on the novels of Colin Dexter. I also appreciate Black Sails, a STARZ series that presents an origin story of Long John Silver and other pirates from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
I was thinking about this after a recent conversation with a writer who enjoyed the series Better Call Saul, an AMC prequel to Breaking Bad.
After we talked about the excellent qualities of these shows, he asked, what do you think makes a prequel work? I hadn’t thought about it, but this is such a good question. I immediately started considering.
My first thought was that the creator must love the source material. But more than that, they have to be curious. Curious enough to consider questions about the characters, the world, and what could have caused the events of the original text. Once they are cusious enough to consider crafting an origin story, the successful prequel writer leans into their curiosity to consider answers to the questions. They simulate what could have happened while relying on the constraints of the original story.
It occurs to me that a similar process happens in fictionalized stories based on real events. In these tales, the writer uses some historic facts as constraints to show what might have happened. The novel Georgia by Dawn Tripp is an example. This story imagines the behind-the-scenes life of the painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Similarly, Stephen King’s novel 11.22.63 relies on historic facts about the assassination of JFK to write a story that features time travel.
These thoughts raise interesting questions that are important for any writer of fiction or nonfiction: How true to life should my characters, story world, and events be? For example, in a realistic story, should we use a real location or make it up (like Thomas Hardy’s County Wessex or Richard Russo’s Empire Falls, Maine)? Should we show technology with hyper accuracy (like Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for the Red October) or make up the elements. In a fantasy story, how much of our own real world should we smuggle into the story? How far should we go to portray the reality of people and events in literary nonfiction?
My hypothesis is that we can best answer these questions by staying curious about the intersection of our story’s essence and our reader’s expectations.
This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will often be longer than 400 words.
At the end of the challenge, I will organize and revise the material with intention. For now, the object is to explore and share.