The Ship of Theseus, Homage, and Inspiration in Writing

Thanks to the success of Wandavision, most of us are pretty familiar with the idea of the Ship of Theseus by now. Perhaps the simplest version of it is to suggest you have an ax. You kill someone with this ax, remove the head, melt it down, and throw it away. You replace that head with a fresh head. Then, years later, the haft snaps, so you replace it with a new haft.

This begs the question... is this the same ax you killed that man with? Even if it's made of entirely new components now than it was when you committed the murder? And if it's not the same ax, then at what point did it become something new? When the head was replaced? When the haft was? What was the essential change that gave it a new identity?

Now, there's no actual answer to this question. It's a philosophical exploration of identity, after all. However, I started thinking about the Ship of Theseus again because of a story I heard from a friend of mine about a writing group they're in. It also reminded me of another (mostly) facetious quote.

"Stealing from one source is plagiarism. Stealing from many sources is research."

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So How Do I Write a Story Like "Avatar: The Last Airbender"?

If you've been in any writing group of notable size for any length of time, you've likely heard a question like this before. The property may change, going from Lord of The Rings, to Dragonball Z, to The Avengers, but the heart of the query is always the same: How do I make something like this property, but which isn't just this property with the serial numbers filed off?

Something I feel I can speak about reliably at this point.

If you've ever had that moment where you felt really inspired by a particular property, and you wanted to try something similar in your own work, you should totally do that. However, if you want to still publish the story as your own creation rather than as a piece of fan work (or a derivative work, if you prefer that title), then you need to ask yourself about the Ship of Theseus, and when the source material for your inspiration becomes a whole new story.

What I find helps in this scenario is to break a story down to its disparate elements, and to look at which ones are wholly unique to this setting, and which ones are things you can safely use without worrying about lawyers banging on your door.

For example, let's look at Avatar and break down that desire this person had to recreate it. What are the elements of that story that make it what it is? Is it a child of prophecy come back to save the world in a time of darkness? Probably not, there are hundreds of stories that have that in them. Is it different nations that are based around the 4 elements of earth, air, fire, and water? Well, this series isn't the only one to do that, but it would likely be a good idea to give them different names in your story, even if the theme was kept intact. And probably to change up the cultures so it doesn't look like you just traced them over. Is it the elemental arts of bending? Well even that unique form of elemental control is something we've seen in a wide variety of fantasy stories... but the name for the art would likely need to be changed in the tale you're telling.

One thing that you need to consider as a writer, though, is not just the exterior components of a story (the boards of the ship, if we're following the thought experiment). Because you can swap the palate, change the names, and generally create something that's aesthetically unique with relatively little issue. But you also need to come up with a unique take on the tale it tells, and to tell it in such a way that it feels new and unique rather than a made-for-TV version of a beloved film.

A story about going to different locations to acquire the necessary skills/upgrades so you can fight a dangerous enemy at the conclusion of the story/series is not unique by any stretch of the imagination. In many ways that's as much The Legend of Zelda as it is Avatar. The question you have to answer is what makes the path your characters are taking, and the world they're exploring, similar to that other property, but unique enough that fans of it are going to want to step sideways into this new domain with you?

You Can't Be Unique, But You Must Be Different

I've said several times on this blog that there are no new stories under the sun, just different ways of telling the same old tales. Because at their core, every property we love, every game we enjoy, and every movie that we adore, has a relatively simple core story that we can recognize. A Man Tries To Get Home is as much a story about Quantum Leap as it is The Odyssey. A Hero Proves His Worth could be A Knight's Tale, Aladdin, or any of a hundred other stories of protagonists who come from humble beginnings to step up when they're needed.

The list goes on.

That central column that the story's conflict is hung on, though, is not the whole of the story. The story, and what brings your readers in, is made up of the details. The unique traits of your characters, the curious quirks of the world they exist in, or how you present the fantastical elements of their setting. No story is truly unique in and of itself, but the difference that makes them stand out is in the details.

Lastly, if you haven't gotten your copy of Old Soldiers yet, pick it up and give it a read!

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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