Something else

[matril]

So…the makers of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Emma Approved are doing this next. And guess which poor schmuck spent the last few months working on a script of a modern web series adaptation of Frankenstein, complete with a female lead? This schmuck.

I have a few thoughts about this, other than ARGH.

1. It was, of course, highly unlikely that I could have successfully gotten a web series off the ground. Sure, webseries can be produced much easier than mainstream TV shows, put up for free on YouTube and so forth. But I don't really have access to a pool of actors and crew aside from my husband's high school students, and the transmedia savvy that's rather essential for reaching out to potential fans of this sort of thing? Don't have that either. But it was one of those pie-in-the-sky dreams that I couldn't help indulging in.

2. The fact that I came up with this idea independently isn't all that surprising of a coincidence. If you're looking for female authors whose works are in the public domain, Mary Shelley is definitely a prominent one, as someone who basically created the genre of science fiction. And making the lead a woman? An obvious choice, since the potential fanbase is overwhelmingly female.

3. Just from their brief description, my take on the lead looks to be quite different. Theirs is a Woman of Science trying to prove herself in a Man's World. Meh. Not a terrible interpretation, I guess, but that's been done so many times with female characters. Mine is motivated primarily by the fact that she never properly grieved the loss of her mother, and she's subconsciously obsessed with defeating death. I'm also curious how they'll manage the tricky turns of the narrative, what with the frame stories within frame stories. I'm rather pleased with how I managed it. I really doubt they'll go in the direction I did.

4. So since there's no way I could actually attempt to make the web series without looking like a pathetic copycat, is anyone interested in reading the script here? At least then I can have a tiny audience for it. Sigh.

Comments

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I'd be willing and interested to read your work; it's piqued my own interest.

[matril.livejournal.com]

Great, thanks!

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see it! You know, I've had that "scooped" feeling a lot -- I come up with a neat story idea, get to work on it, and suddenly someone's publishing something that sounds just like it. It's more than a little humbling to know that I'm as subject to zeitgeist as anyone else (not to mention reading the same thought-provoking news items that everyone else reads as well). I like your background for the story better as well -- external struggle matched with internal right from the start. I'm sure the vlog series will have that as well but I like to have it be organic, so to speak.

Embarrassing admission: I've never actually read Frankenstein. Somehow through years of English classes I just never encountered it. I do know that Frankenstein is the scientist's name, not the monster's, but I don't go much beyond that. So I'll have to read that now as well :).

[matril.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty quick read. Honestly, it's far from perfect - it's frequently overwrought and melodramatic - but its significance can't be discounted. If nothing else it's useful to be familiar with the original story rather the classic Hollywood version that most people think of when they hear Frankenstein. The movies, unsurprisingly, took enormous liberties with the text. ;)