At the moment, I am keeping myself all creative and stuff by having several projects on the go. Whiked is the major project, the one I will definitely pursue publication with, but I have other stories that I’m writing to distract myself from Bella & Anthony when they get too much and my head is too full to move with any significance on them.
One of these stories is inspired by Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and, consequently, The Dark Knight. Christian Bale in all his moody darkness cuts an inspiring figure and, of course, my imagination ran rampant. Thus, I have a short (read: novella) story that I have been playing with for some time.
In the last couple of weeks, the story has felt more fleshed out and real, the characters becoming more compelling. However, now I don’t know if I should finish it and submit it for publication with an e-publisher. It is very obviously modelled on Batman, and I’m not too sure how to make it so it isn’t.
Here is the question – is it homage or plagerism? A lot of stories out there come about because the author sees another way of writing the same story. Only witness alternate histories, the spoof novel, the amount of pirate romances that came out after Pirates of the Carribean hit it big. Due to the success of Harry Potter, every author who kinda sorta has a story about a boy wizard is getting the Hollywood treatment (and more power to them – cash those cheques, my friends! I certainly would). My characters are not Bruce Wayne, or Alfred, or the Joker. However, they are similar. So is that homage? Plagerism?
Mainly, with this story, I don’t want to have to think about it too hard, or try to change it too much, as I don’t want to be distracted from Whiked with thoughts on how to make the Batman story into somethint that doesn’t resemble Batman (sidenote: maybe I should start by not calling it the Batman story). However, I really like the opening scene and think it could make a cool little urban fantasy story if allowed to flourish.
In that vein, I am toying with the idea of duality (as they do in the movies) and truth vs lies, the deceptions we practice on other people about ourselves, on the many faces we present to the world. Who we are with our lovers are not who we are with our friends, our parents, our siblings, our co-workers…
Hmm. Dilemma central, peeps. What do I do?
