Do you ever play the guessing game when watching your favorite TV show?  Do you try to predict who the killer is or who is having an affair before the stars come back from the next commercial break?  While a good show will keep its viewers guessing right up to the very end, there are actually a finite number of variables the writers have to work with.  While there are a very large number of possible outcomes to any scenario, there are only so many choices to be made without becoming predictable, or being compared to a show on another channel.

Everything old becomes new again.

After all, who wants to be accused of copying someone else’s ideas?  It’s said that there are no original story ideas left, and that every plot, every story, is a repetition of something that’s been done before, many times.  It’s true there are trends in media and in literature; there are certain subjects that enjoy such popularity that they are omnipresent, if only for a short while.

Photo credit: Kat Northern Lights Man via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

For example, Zombies are really popular right now.  You can watch them on multiple TV channels and at the box office.  You can read about them in all types of books or shoot them in a number of video games.  You can even buy tee-shirts depicting the best way to survive a zombie apocalypse (my son has one).  Zombies are not really a new idea.  The “undead hordes” have been popular for multiple generations, and are close cousins with the old-fashioned victims of voodoo curses of past plotlines.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The fact is, certain story ideas are timeless, and I don’t just mean those that involve time travel, another popular trend that sees a resurgence every few years.   From Orson Wells’ machine to alien time lords, we have long been enamored by the concept of changing the past or previewing the future early.  Whether an adventurer faces prehistoric monsters or futuristic mutants, or simply has the opportunity to right a terrible wrong, we will tune in each week or turn the pages to see history as it is remade to a writer’s whim.

There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

 Sherlock Holmes quotes 

Photo credit: paurian via Foter.com / CC BY

Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic character Sherlock Holmes, written in the late 19^th century, features a famous detective and his veteran-doctor companion.  Almost every school child is familiar with Doyle’s works, and not just because it’s required reading in literature.  Sherlock is still as vital today as he was in 1890, thanks to imitation ranging from a Disney mouse detective to a plethora of movie adaptations.  (Of course, in my opinion the best of these is from the BBC/Masterpiece show titled simply “Sherlock” which is finally back for its fourth season, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.)

An idea may not be completely original, but that doesn’t always mean it’s familiar to us.  An enterprising writer can take an old idea and reshape it in such a way that its feels brand new.   In the end, what matters most to us regarding our TV/movie/literature characters and plots is that we are entertained.

So the next time you indulge in watching or reading, consider-does the plot seem familiar?  Does the writer keep you guessing, or are there enough clues provided that you can determine the ending?  Does your enjoyment come from suspense, or the familiarity of a favorite theme?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

I leave you with one more of mine-even if an idea is not original, each new generation can provide an audience to hear and see it for the first time, and an interpreter to retell a story in an entirely new manner.

Thanks for reading,

Amy

When we can order supplies from an Internet supplier with a verbal command, pre-program washing machines and dishwashers to start cycles at a certain time, and have small robots clean floors for us, today’s houses are starting to sound like a science fiction story.

This past Christmas my husband gifted me with an Alexa Dot, a device that, with a verbal command, will give the speaker updates on weather or notes on personal calendars, play music from an Amazon account or other Wi-Fi sources, connect to blue tooth devices, and a whole list of functions that can be downloaded.

This little gadget is only one more example of the amazing inventions that have come to pass, and the level of technology that is now commonplace at home.  We now have programmable thermostats and security systems that can be controlled from a smartphone.  We are being spoilt by devices that can record our favorite TV shows, pay for our gas with a wave of a piece of plastic the size of a thumb, and give us satellite data about current traffic conditions.

Ray Bradbury’s prophetic short story, “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains,” published originally in 1950, tells of a house that was so automated that it continued performing duties for a family no longer around to appreciate it.  Today, we are very close to achieving the level of automation in our homes that Bradbury envisioned, though hopefully our future will not be as bleak as in the story!

“In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o’clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty.”

A house that could potentially run itself is probably not that far off in the future, certainly something I could see in our lifetimes.  The question is, how will we manage?  What will we do to fill our spare time when we no longer have “housework” to do, because the house takes care of it for us?

Will we become so reliant on our technology that we can no longer function without it, or will we use our free time to become more productive, more creative, and more capable in other endeavors?

I welcome your thoughts on this subject; it is hard to dispute though that we are living in interesting times.

Happy 2017!

Amy

p.s. there is a YouTube video of Leonard Nimoy reading this classic story, just follow the link here: https://youtu.be/LzhlU8rXgHc