Uprooting my story and plopping it in a new setting

angeliz2k said:

Has anyone else uprooted an entire idea and switched time/place?

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Yes.

My trunked WW1 novel is now Contemp Women's fiction. Same plot it's just, this time 'round, the MC has a career and doesn't sit around and mope and make you want to smack her.

angeliz2k said:

Has anyone else uprooted an entire idea and switched time/place?

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Yep, to a degree. I expanded my story backwards to a different location being England. Which by my recent thread, now causes me some reason for thought, as by doing so, I changed the intended focus from one culture to another somewhat different, yet similar one.

I don't think though I could just pick up the charachters from either culture and reverse them in the setting of the other. Well, actually I've done that, but I believe if you have already written an entire story in one culture but are now considering moving it to another, that although you could keep the idea, the original charachters that you have written couldn't really be the same, as I'm sure that those charachters are a refexion of their their society and current culture.

I've been able to bring old charachters from different stories from the same culture into other stories, but I couldn't image having what was an Australian woman or man, suddenly being English, or American despite the cultures being similar. I feel that one's culture contributes to the one's charachter.

I look at it a bit like chemistry between charachters, I don't think you can force it, because what makes one charachter attracted to someone, may repulse another.

I probably just rambled - LOL - Ultimately I think you can move an idea or plot from location if it is a generic one, but not one of those charachters embedded in culture.

I tried to use a scene from my current WIP for a romance writing contest, and despite knowing I needed to make my MC flirtatious for the scene to work in the contest I was entering, I couldn't give my MC that attribute because I just can't see the woman in my current WIP as being flirtatious.

I've changed some things pretty drastically and been able to salvage the characters and general idea (like using pieces written specifically for challenges as part of a novel).

But I have to ask - why ante-bellum south? In my mind that period and type of character has been written about a fair amount - and there are so many for which stories are lacking. Puma

Puma said:

I've changed some things pretty drastically and been able to salvage the characters and general idea (like using pieces written specifically for challenges as part of a novel).

But I have to ask - why ante-bellum south? In my mind that period and type of character has been written about a fair amount - and there are so many for which stories are lacking. Puma

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Regency's been beaten to death thanks to an endless torrent of regency romances. I think even more so than the ante-bellum south.

angeliz2k said:

Has anyone else uprooted an entire idea and switched time/place?

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Yes. While working on my current WIP I am also making notes and writing scenes for my next novel. I thought I'd place it in the near future on one continent and have decided it would work better a little farther into the future and on another continent. Most of what I've written can't be used, just the kernel of the idea, but I'm okay with that. I'll save my material in case I come up with a way to use it another time.

You could place the story a bit farther north and still have those sentiments. There were abolitionists in Ohio and other northern states (underground railroad which does have some stories written). But there were also southern sympathizers in the north (all the way across as far as I know) and I don't think much has been written about them. Just a thought about a possibly not so "done" idea. Puma

Regency as a genre is quite different, and defined in the market, than other books set in the period.

I've changed genre once, from historical fiction to Fantasy, after the facts kept getting in the way of the story I wanted to tell. Things really fell into place when I added the lost kingdoms (all those fun legends about Ker Ys, Lyonesse, Vineta and others) and some magic stones and turned the whole mess into some alternate Europe with magic, à la Guy Gavriel Kay. No more worries about not being able to have a character kill a king because the real king didn't get killed.

But I stick to historical fiction in my Roman novels. Those don't give me so much grief when it comes to reconcile story and history.

I regularly switch an idea from low-tech fantasy to high tech futuristic and vice versa.

angeliz2k said:

Well, it wasn't going to be a "Regency" novel--it wouldn't have been a romance (in my estimation) and it wouldn't have resembled Jane Austen in style. It would have simply been a book set in the very early 1800's, or the late Georgian period, or the Regency era. I guess Regency does summon up certain expectations, though!

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My current WIP is written in the Regency/Georgian period (half of it takes place in England at this time) and it certainly doesn't fit into what has been defined as the Regency gengre. There are books defined as a Regency genre as you suggest, and there are others merely set in the same time period, called historicals set in the Regency or Georgian periods, that don't mirror those books at all. Nothing wrong with that, well I am hoping there is a market for books set in that period that don't fall into what are considered Regencies....they are a different kettle of fish, by what I can see...and certainly Romances in the defined sense of the word of 'Romance'.

When I send off queries I won't be mentionining the Regency or Georgian periods because my WIP doesn't fall into that genre, but ....well...I'll provide the years it is set between and the locations and I feel I'll define it as a ....

I haven't decided, but I certainly won't be attemtping to temp agents ect with a Regency romance novel. It most certainly isn't... although some of the aspects of that period have effected some of my choices... I certainly have a love story....but maybe that is the difference....Regency Romances focus on the romance and the setting of Englands Regency Period... I feel there is a great difference.

I would suggest that you are not put off by the current genres defefinion for some historicals, espcially Regency....that genre thanks to a very well known and loved writer - is what it is and I'd never attempt to take away from her for what she achieved - and I'm not talking about Austen who may very well have started it but Gergiette Harriet defined it..(spelt wrong I think in my haste, and yet still others came by and leaped over the fence and moved us into the bedroom

I personally think we need new writers writing in some periods that have been defined a certain way, wether it be the Southern States of the Us in a particular time period, or England in a period, that can push the boundaries of what has been presented by earlier writers...

Although we had periods defined as the Regency and Gergian period, or for that matter the Elizabethan periods, as writers I feel, it would be great to show a different side, another story, regardless if it is a genre that has been flogged to death...those genres came from nowhere, well, not true, if were talking about Regency Romance, Austin started it, others advanced it, but somewhere along the line, a writer wrote something that branched out from the expected. There is no reason another genre can't be created, or a precived genre can't be pushed over to a mainstream audiance.

I personally can't say I was influenance by any of the great romance writers, ...execept possibly Emily's Wuthering Heights, which is my favourite book to this day, despite never undersanding why it was called a romance anyway. (Yep, a romance perhaps, but well, to me a love story has something different....not sure what it is, but well that story I guess has influenances me lots, and gave me lots to ponder a lot. - It gave me a facination for moors and looking outside of windows to see where sounds come from - and a sense that possibly houses hold secrets :LOL )

I've got off track again, but I only read Jean/Jane? Austen a few weeks ago, and this year quite a few extracts from Georgette Harriett's works (OHHHHH sorry for still spelling it wrong) - so ultimately just because we are writing in a time period other writers wrote about, doesn't mean our stories must fit in the genre their stories did and do.

My curent writings have been affected by possibly great love stories that have been written, not romances (I see a difference but to list my thoughts on what are great love stories wouldn't serve any purpose in this thread as they all spilled over to other genres. (and gee, I must be rambling as I think you said, you weren't writing one anyway).

I think because certain genres are defined, there is room to move, if you have something to add to it.

Northern Maryland sounds good and you would have many opportunities for tension. Go for it! Puma

Sounds like a lot of fun! I like both eras and locations.

I've never uprooted a story idea and put it in a different historical setting, but I've only completed one historical novel, so the night is still young, as the poets say.