There is a particular fictional media figure that I have a long and multi-faceted fondness for. I won’t go into any detail, because Intellectual Property, Sweetie (as you shall see). Let’s just call him Boy Adventurer.

Several years ago, a good friend of mine was starting up a new TTRPG, using the fine Masks game rules. In the setting that goes with those rules, the players are high school aged super-heroes of various sorts — which can mean anything from traditional heroes (whether of the mutant powered or just highly trained normal folk) to aliens to tech-based to whatever you want. On one level, the powers don’t matter, because the game mechanics and goals all center on dealing with the life of a teenager, and having super-powers, and making decisions, and going to high school, and balancing prom and homework and your super-powered dad’s expectations and the Cosmic Planet Eater showing up during finals week.

Awesome stuff. So I adapted the Boy Adventurer to work in that world, aging him up, filing off a number of the obvious serial numbers, changing some fundamental things about his life, but still, being able to play the Boy Adventurer.

It was a hoot. It was tremendous fun. And I don’t think I’ve ever journaled so many cut-scenes for a character before (and, mind you, I often go overboard with that).

And, after a year or so, I retired him to NPCdom, and instead started running his arch-nemesis-but-redemption-story-kinda-maybe-girlfriend, who was quite non-canonical to the original Boy Adventurer tale, kinda-sorta, but who had been a major part of the Boy Adventurer (in this iteration)’s life growing up.

And that went on for a while, with tons more journaling. And then the game wrapped up (in a most satisfying fashion).

And then, some months later, in November 2019, I started writing Legacies, taking another IP-scrubbing pass at those two characters as my NaNoWriMo work. And I cranked out about 50K words, about half the first book of a planned trilogy (yes, I know).

And I’ve been running that through a Writing Group since then, which has prompted further changes from the preceding versions / canons.

And another friend who was in the game has been doing up some cards for a super-hero card game, taking the versions that were in our TTRPG sessions and scrubbing them of that setting’s IP.

And yet another friend who was in the game (and who journaled cut-scenes at least as much as I did) is writing up the Further Adventures of the in-game universe characters.

So, as I sit down to NaNoWriMo this year (having skipped last year), I have running through my head:

• Boy Adventurer (the original inspirational IP Which Shall Not Be Named)
• Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as played in the game.
• Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as written up in NaNoWriMo 2019
• Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as they’ve evolved through writing group feedback.
• Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as Friend 1 as adapted them for the card game.
• Boy Adventurer and His Nemesis Girlfriend as Friend 2 has taken their in-game story further.

Themes and Variations can be fun. Just … change things up enough that you’re not just ripping something off.

Which is a lot of different versions to keep straight. And, as the Boy Adventurer’s name has now changed twice (once from the original inspirational IP, again when I did the first NaNo story), I still find myself writing the wrong name for him (and for her) as I do further writing.

But I also put it forward as a lesson for writing: being willing to use — with changes — previous material from other media (both inspired by things out there, and things you’ve created) is useful.

Don’t just rip-off others, or repeat something you’ve already done. But inspiration (and adaptation) can come from a lot of places. Don’t let your inner voice tell you that you have to be utterly original and working from de novo with every tale. Every story, at some level, has been written. The challenge is, not to write a new story, but to take an existing story, and truly make it yours … and, in your own way, better.