So over the weekend we watched a short documentary series called Everything is a Remix. It's a really concise, fascinating look at intellectual property, the film and music industry, as well as social and technological progress, that makes the point (among others) that great strides forwards are never the result of a single blast of inspiration, but rather follow the formula of copy, combine, and transform. The documentary uses Apple's first Macintosh as a good example of this works, really worth checking out.

Although it didn't deal with books or writing much, it did get me thinking along those lines. As you probably know, it's widely acknowledged that there are only seven basic plots from which all stories draw. Some stories use more than one of those plots (I think you can make a case for Lord of the Rings using all of them), but all stories use one of them. If you look at fairy tales, you find plot cycles, ie the Cinderalla cycle, encompassing stories like Cinderella (obviously), Cap-o-Rushes, Catskin, etc. All these stories follow a common motif in which an unappreciated heroine achieves recognition after enduring hardship. In other words, these fairy tales copy common elements, combine them and transform them into something new. Everything is a Remix makes the case, more or less, than nothing is truly original and in fact copying is an essential element of creativity.

The reason this interested me so much is partly down to the current debates about fanfiction and its legitimacy, which of course leads you to Fifty Shades of Grey. By the rules of Everything is a Remix, EL James has only done what is a natural creative exercise in lifting Meyers' characters from Twilight, copying essential details, throwing in new details, and finally transforming them into a new story. And, you know, I kinda see his point. The first novel I wrote at age thirteen was a complete rip-off of my favourite book at the time. If you read the two, you'd definitely see the similarities, even though I hadn't actually plagiarised anything - only taken the themes and general, loose plot of that book and used them in mine. I guess the difference is I didn't then sell my book and pretend I'd never heard of the original or whatever.

But I see the point that sometimes creativity comes off the back of, well, copying. In another world, EL James might never have published 50 Shades of Grey. She might have done what I did with my rip-off attempt, viewed it as a practice book not good enough for the rest of the world, and written something new. And that something might have had more of her own voice and feelings, and less of the influences picked up from Twilight.* Her fanfic may have been a starting point for an improved, more original book, rather than the be all and end all of her writing career (so far). But without that copy/combine/transform formula to get her going, there'd be no book at all. Whether that's a good or bad thing isn't for me to say...

It's inevitable that we're all influenced by the things around us in the act of creating; if and when you all read Undertow, you'll probably see the Lovecraftian influences there. You wouldn't have Rorsharch if you didn't have The Question. There'd be no Stairway to Heaven without Taurus, and no Macintosh without earlier computers...And so it goes on. I find this idea fascinating. I don't know if lends legitimacy to works like 50 Shades of Grey. I don't object to fanfic (I think it's awesome), but I do feel funny about someone profiting off work built on someone else's shoulders, so to speak. Yet if you buy into the rhetoric of Everything is a Remix, there's simply no other way for culture to advance.

I'm very interested in what everyone else thinks!

*Note - I've only read the first three chapters of 50 Shades and was too bored to continue, so take anything I say about it with that in mind.