Nothing New Under the Sun

How reboots can work, because Reboot

Hey friends,

So, I am not a TV critic or anything close to it. I have very few intelligent things to say about TV or movies (except Back to the Future) unlike my friends Maggie and Jesse, who you should all read all the time. At Maggie’s recommendation (she said on the group chat “real jokes!!!” which is HIGH praise in our circle) I watched Reboot this week, on Hulu.

AND IT WAS GREAT!!! Real and actual jokes, not just gags and bits (though some gags and bits because why not a bit of everything?). I have not laughed that much at a TV show in so so so so so long. I am eagerly awaiting more episodes! Appointment TV!

Here’s how this TV show ties into my newsletter about publishing and writing. Reboot is about a young showrunner (i.e. the person in charge of the actual making of a TV show) who wants to reboot (get it??) an old sitcom but modernize it and wash off the corny sitcom bits. It’s for sure a metanarrative about our current reboot culture (everything old is new again!!!!!) that is both critiquing this urge while at the same time showing how to do this in new and funny and interesting ways.

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SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED BY THE TWIST IN THE FIRST EPISODE DO NOT KEEP READING. YOU ARE WARNED.

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Hannah is the young and promising showrunner with the great idea to reboot Step Right Up and the script to back it up. The original cast LOVES it and is excited to breathe new life into the hackneyed old show. HERE COMES THE TWIST! The show’s original creator, Gordon, elbows his way in and wants to undo all the fun, interesting, progressive, honest things Hannah is doing and guess what? He’s Hannah’s dad! Twist!!

It’s a fucking great twist. You know why? Because it gives the whole show emotional heft and stakes. Hannah has a chance to make a great show that everyone will love and her dad, who was largely absent from her life and and who’s mega hit TV show was about his second family without a single mention of her, is going to sabotage it. And they have to work together!! Stakes! Conflict! Emotions running high! This is what will bring gravitas to the lighter side of the let’s remake a goofy show part of the story. It’s both of those halves together that create a dynamic, interesting, and new show.

How does this relate to books? Well, let’s say you want to reboot something, do a retelling of another story. Shakespeare or Austen or Grimm or the Bible or whatever you want (and won’t get sued for doing). That’s been done a million times, right? Do we really need another Austen-inspired anything? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But let’s say you really want to do it. That it’s the book of your heart or the one you just know will hit it big and change your life. (Or maybe you are thinking hell, if everyone else is doing it why shouldn’t I?) This is how you can start to tell if what you’re doing is Reboot-level genius or just another rote retelling.

Does your story have emotional heft, like when it’s revealed Gordon is Hannah’s dad? Does it set up a new and/or interesting scenario between the main characters that makes the reader go now how are they going to get themselves out of this one? How exactly are an estranged farther/daughter team going to make a TV show, one that the other characters revealed they need, for various reasons. (Stakes!!!) How is your retelling set up for conflict and/or for interesting, new things to happen? Hannah has her slate of writers in the writers room and then Gordon brings in his cadre of old school (and chronologically older) writers and hijinks ensue!!!! (I can’t wait to see more of Rose Abdoo, who was so great as Gypsy on Gilmore Gilmore girls, among many, many other roles.) Is your retelling saying anything new about the original story, at all or even in a meta way? (This part is trickier and not necessary, but amazing when it lands just right.)

Retellings and reboots sound easy. I mean, the ur-story is right there for you, all the beats laid out, all the characters established. What makes a good retelling is not just keeping to the beats and characters, but creating something exciting and interesting for readers to sink their teeth into. Even if they can guess what’s going to happen (for example, Cinderella usually goes to the ball regardless), you want your readers to feel something new and keep looking for the ways you might subvert the story and shine new light on the things they already know. This is why and how tropes work. The reader knows there is going to be a happily ever after, but it’s the getting there that’s the fun and new part.

It’s easy to complain that there’s nothing new under the sun, that everything is just a retelling of something else and no one wants a new story and tbh, you’re not wrong. The entertainment industry as a whole should not rely so much on past performance guaranteeing future success. Reboot is not an actual reboot—they’re not like remaking Three’s Company or anything—but it is apt and interesting commentary on the whole culture of this. If you’re thinking that a retelling is an easy on-ramp to publishing, I hope watching this show will dissuade you from that assumption. If you can do it that good, please do so and send it to me asap. (This is not a sly way of saying I’m reopening to queries. I am not.) There is no easy on-ramp to publishing. There’s only writing the new, funny, sad, great, interesting, exciting, terrifying, curious, shocking, whatever book you want, and hoping publishing is ready for you.

OXOXOOXOX,

Kate