I’ve previously shunned fanfiction for its restrictiveness on original creativity and I stand by that sentiment especially for new writers. That said I stumbled into a goofy exercise which may help some discover an important aspect of their own writing. Recently part five of Dracula Flow came out (if you don’t know what that is go out and watch it, you owe yourself the laughter) and man was that a good time. Enjoyed it like all the other parts. Then something about it stuck with me, some sort of bug under my skin. For whatever reason I couldn’t stop imagining Dracula participating in the Kendrick Lamar/Drake beef. Don’t ask me why that popped in my head. The worm was rooted deep. The only thing that extricated it was writing my own Dracula vs. Drake bars.
It was a fun night. I couldn’t stop laughing at all the stupidest thoughts escaping my brain onto the page. “Them Compton boys threw the Cuban link round my neck as we roasted the op at the cookout.” “If Drake had sneak dissed Dracula on the Gram, they’d have to put a chapter in after Revelations.” Nothing was sacred, nothing too low brow, nothing that needed firm logic. Pure spitballing from an unregulated creative wellspring. I can’t remember the last time that’s happened for me. Probably not since I first started writing and had no framework to separate the good from the disastrous. True groove. True muse.
But as I got further in my mind went to different places not directly related to the beef. “If Drake had fought Dracula, the housing market in Canada would become even more unaffordable.” “Bando in the six came with an HOA fee. I didn’t even put down a deposit.” “If Drake had fought Dracula, Trudeau would be in a perpetual state of unabashed ‘cosplaying.’” It happens when you brainstorm that you look for connections to the source material to expand the directions you can take a bit. It’s asking yourself or a writers’ room what if X but also Y. The sinew there is clearly just Drake is from Toronto so here’s a bunch of Canada jokes I have in my back pocket. Did it have to go specifically into the high cost Canadian housing market or Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s disadvantageous history of applying shoe polish to his face? No. Some were just corny stock fodder. “If Drake had fought Dracula, he’d be extradited to the US in exchange for outlawing the phrase America’s hat.”
Not all were winners. That’s the nature of uninterrupted brainstorming. As with any session that runs long I started writing what would make myself and possibly only myself laugh. This included an Aimee Mann reference which ended in a statement on the unending peril of Montreal’s construction repair efforts, a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas reference, the smoke clouds from the Alberta forest fires, the War of 1812, the HMS Discovery, and an extended runtz joke naming as many appropriate Rush songs as possible. The question I took from that screed wasn’t if it was good material or not, it was all written by me for me at the end of the day so I’m not editing it to appease anyone else. What I thought after stepping back from it was who else would have written this? Who would have thought up this concept in the first place and who further would have taken it to this direction in this degree, format, etc.? Probably just me. This stew of nonsense could only come from my brain. I wish I’d done something like this sooner because it would have taught me what I have to offer as a writer.
If modern creative works are remixes of those that came previously then the coalescence of interests and inspirations, unique to you, which influence your pursuits is what you have to offer. Your voice. If I didn’t have any knowledge of rap I wouldn’t have watched almost forty minutes of Dracula Flow. If writing didn’t make me feel better as an outlet for my creative energy I wouldn’t have jotted down my own bars based on the Dracula flow format. If I didn’t take notice of Drake then getting verbally destroyed I wouldn’t have used him as the focal point. If I didn’t have a myriad of interests I wouldn’t have brought them to the work. Ultimately if I didn’t have the confidence mixed with a lack of concern necessary to try something with no guarantee of success I wouldn’t have even began writing.
If working off other material you know and enjoy and feel comfortable with gives you the push to start your own creative endeavor then go ahead. Empty your head of all those initial ideas without pause. Lay everything out there in a sprint. Then look upon what you’ve made and find what differs from the source material. What in isolation could only come from your mind? Find and follow it.
Colin Klawans 