As I was watching “Inception“ this weekend, I saw how unexpected links in a story can possibly change the viewer’s understanding of a story.
This has been on my mind a lot lately because I just renamed and changed the wording I use for a key aspect of my first book because it happened to be the exact wording used in a very, very popular movie that came out in the last month or so. Initially, I thought I could just slightly tweak my story title, but this movie has grown so huge that I decided in the last few weeks to remove all wording that might inadvertently tie my story in readers’ minds to a movie that is very, very different in theme. I didn’t want to cause confusion in readers’ minds due to that unexpected link. Almost too late, though, because I sent out my earlier ”tweaked“ version that still uses part of that title — to a couple contests.
Back to Inception. The issue at hand is a relatively minor one, in my opinion. One of the characters uses as his ”kick“ the Edith Piaf song ”Non, je ne regrette rien.“ The minute I heard this I immediately thought there must be a link to Mal, Marion Cotillard’s character, who also happens to be Cobb’s dead wife (Cobb being the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio). I confess, I’ve been a huge Edith Piaf fan for more than twenty years since I discovered her music on a trip to Paris. I know many of her greatest hits by heart, so I may be oneof say fewer than five percent of ”Inception“ viewers who actually make this link every time that song pops up. If that estimate is true, then the director’s decision to leave the song in there after casting Cotillard as Mal makes sense because it is a relatively minor situation. Yes, the story altered just a bit for me, but not for most viewers. While I am looking around for a Mal connection when that Piaf ”kick“ happens in the movie, most viewers just hear an old French song.
Now imagine you are an as-yet unpublished author of Young Adult Fiction with three drafts in a series complete or under revision. The first one is essentially done when you hear of a movie coming out with your book’s title. Yes, the book was a cult hit, but not really with the crowd you are targeting, so you don’t worry. Then the movie hits and EVERYONE is talking about the dark psycho-sexual drama of ”The Black Swan.“ Suddenly, your innocent YA about a young mage who comes into a shocking amount of power, also named the Black Swan and which you renamed ”Black Swan Mage“ now needs an overhaul. All references to the black swan have to go. I loved the black swan imagery when I first came up with it a little over two years ago, which is why initially I just tweaked the title a bit. But in the face of a mammoth dark film, I knew it all had to go. So, I went back into revision mode to take out the references.
In the end, my story was more important to me than those few images, and I knew the links to the hugehly popular film would hijack my book if I didn’t remove them.
