Works based on classical material

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SusanTheCat
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Works based on classical material

#1 Post by SusanTheCat »

I was brainstorming and thought it would be great to do a project based on the narrative poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-highwayman/ (Have a tissue handy)

In converting it to Visual/Kinetic Novel should I:

1- Keep the poem as is, and create a kinetic novel with great visuals and music.
2- Keep the story as is, and create a kinetic novel re-interpretation.
3- Keep the characters as is, and create a branching storyline based on them and their situation.

Have any of you seen a good visual novel interpretation of a classical work?

Matches and Matrimony comes to mind. http://www.matchesandmatrimony.com/ It combines three Jane Austen novels to fill out the story with choices.

Susan
Last edited by SusanTheCat on Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Works based on classical material

#2 Post by Fungii »

I think the first one would be wonderful to see, if a little short.

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Re: Works based on classical material

#3 Post by OokamiKasumi »

SusanTheCat wrote:I was brainstorming and thought it would be great to do a project based on the narrative poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-highwayman/ (Have a tissue handy)

In converting it to Visual/Kinetic Novel should I:

1- Keep the poem as is, and create a kinetic novel with great visuals and music.
2- Keep the story as is, and create a kinetic novel re-interpretation.
3- Keep the characters as is, and create a branching storyline based on them and their situation.
I vote #3 since the ending to that story is actually fairly open to re-interpretation.
  • -- Was he a spy for the American Rebels all along and the gold was in fact meant for Gen. Washington to help the war effort?
    -- Did he have time before he died, to bury the treasure and leave a note for the Inn Keeper's daughter that could have been found by another girl who may have liked him too?
    -- By the way, who actually saw the two at the window and tattled on them? And Why?
    -- After being wounded by the musket, did Belle actually survive and fake her death to meet up with him later so that he could fake his death too?
    -- Did he fake his death, and fake his attachment to the Inn keeper's daughter all along to cover for the fact that he was actually having a forbidden affair with the red-coat captain in the inn stables?
You could have all kinds of fun with this one. :)

By the way, this is not actually a poem, it's a Ballad.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teq2m0BN-Wo
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Re: Works based on classical material

#4 Post by Taleweaver »

Strongly voting for the third option, for the same reasons OK already mentioned. This story has so many opportunities for things to go differently and so many perspectives from which it can be told - definitely go for a branching storyline. However, don't forget that this is a romantic tragedy, so there should, at best, be bittersweet endings to it.

Also, remember that the poem ends with the possibility that there now may be a ghostly highwayman riding out there. Why not begin the VN with just that: a ghostly, mysterious rider in the dark and the mystery of who he really is. This could be a perfect otome game, with the female protagonist somehow getting in contact with the ghost, then through some strange development go back in time and actually take the role of Bess the landlord's daughter.

Damn. I should be doing this for NaNoRenO this year, but
a) I don't have the time
b) it's your idea.

Do this. Definitely do this.
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Re: Works based on classical material

#5 Post by SusanTheCat »

Taleweaver wrote: Damn. I should be doing this for NaNoRenO this year, but
a) I don't have the time
b) it's your idea.
I would love to have you along as an "idea bouncer". :)

Other poems I was thinking of:
"The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer
"Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll
"The Wreck of the Hesperus" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

But The Highwayman won the day.

Susan
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Re: Works based on classical material

#6 Post by phoenixhymn »

I also vote #3--it's definitely the most interesting to me, and I think it would be equally fun for people who are familiar with the story and those that aren't. I'm still new to visual novels, so I'm afraid I don't know any examples of the kind of adaptation you're thinking about doing. However, it does make me happy to know that other people have been thinking about doing adaptations! I decided to do an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet for my first visual novel. (I have some help here in that there are earlier versions of the play that I can--and have--stolen ideas from in order to create the branching paths/different endings.) It's been a ton of fun coming up with what-ifs, even if I'm not that far yet.

The hardest part for me so far has been trying to figure out what I should keep and what I should change. Some things are no-brainers for me (expanding the time of the play so Romeo and Juliet aren't falling in love and dying over one another in a week), and others have required a lot of thought (switching the Nurse for Rosaline and making her an actual character).

Good luck with your adaptation! I'd love to see a visual novel based on The Highwayman--it's gorgeous.

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Re: Works based on classical material

#7 Post by Sapphi »

OokamiKasumi wrote: By the way, this is not actually a poem, it's a Ballad.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teq2m0BN-Wo
I'm glad you linked to Loreena McKennit, if you didn't do it I was gonna have to do it :mrgreen:

I don't really have an opinion on the options, since I can see pros and cons to all of them. But I think that if it were me, I might have fun taking a classical poem like this, keeping the words the same but illustrating it as though it were taking place in a different time and setting. (The Highway Man - IN SPACE)
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Re: Works based on classical material

#8 Post by Taleweaver »

SusanTheCat wrote:Other poems I was thinking of:
"The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer
"Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll
"The Wreck of the Hesperus" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

But The Highwayman won the day.
Good choice. "Shalott" and "Hesperus" hardly have a plot to speak of, "Casey" may be a little, well, too American, and "Jabberwocky" has been overdone (I mean, Terry Gilliam made a movie of it), so the "Highwayman" is definitely most suitable.

If you need an ideas bouncer, I can definitely do that. Just drop me a PM.
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Re: Works based on classical material

#9 Post by OokamiKasumi »

Sapphi wrote:
OokamiKasumi wrote: By the way, this is not actually a poem, it's a Ballad.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teq2m0BN-Wo
I'm glad you linked to Loreena McKennit, if you didn't do it I was gonna have to do it :mrgreen:
I've been a die-hard Loreena McKennit fan since she first came out. I have almost all of her albums on CD. She does spectacular ballads. Even so, her rendition of "Highwayman" is my favorite, followed closely by "Mummers Dance".

Also, I adore ghost stories!
-- I grew up in Connecticut, AKA; New England where stories of ghostly riders and haunted inns are very common. Ladies in white wandering along old roads looking for their lost loves are also very common. They disappear when you offer them a ride, or Kiss them.
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Re: Works based on classical material

#10 Post by SundownKid »

I prefer choice #3 as well, because visual novels are more interesting and it's certainly possible to have multiple endings to a classic story (see: Cinders). Perhaps there could be a visual novel where Casey has the choice to A) strike out by accident, B) strike out on purpose (blackmail?) or C) get a home run against all odds?

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Re: Works based on classical material

#11 Post by Sapphi »

OokamiKasumi wrote: I've been a die-hard Loreena McKennit fan since she first came out. I have almost all of her albums on CD. She does spectacular ballads. Even so, her rendition of "Highwayman" is my favorite, followed closely by "Mummers Dance".
Somehow I knew you would be :)

I love almost everything I've heard from her, but I think "Dante's Prayer" takes the cake for me. Followed by "The Lady of Shalott".
OokamiKasumi wrote: -- I grew up in Connecticut, AKA; New England where stories of ghostly riders and haunted inns are very common. Ladies in white wandering along old roads looking for their lost loves are also very common. They disappear when you offer them a ride, or Kiss them.
I am so jealous.
"It is [the writer's] privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart,
by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride
and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past."
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Re: Works based on classical material

#12 Post by OokamiKasumi »

Sapphi wrote:
OokamiKasumi wrote: -- I grew up in Connecticut, AKA; New England where stories of ghostly riders and haunted inns are very common. Ladies in white wandering along old roads looking for their lost loves are also very common. They disappear when you offer them a ride, or Kiss them.
I am so jealous.
When ghosts come knocking on the second or third story windows, you might change your mind.

Just about every house, park, and business in the town I grew up in was actively haunted. My grammar school was built in 1904, and you didn't go there after dark; not even to the playground. Seriously.
bunker_hill_school1.jpg
bunker_hill_school1.jpg (21.89 KiB) Viewed 1856 times
The school -- today.
The school -- today.
My childhood home was built in 1920; relatively recently compared to some of the other houses in the neighborhood, and we had ghosts knocking on the second and third story windows roughly once a week. We also had a ghost that would randomly open doors; bedroom doors, closet doors, bathroom doors... I was used to it, (you just needed to say 'hi, yes, I know you're there' and the ghosts would stop,) but my cousins from Pennsylvania and Long Island would wig-out. They refused to be left in the house alone.

The woods right next to the house was haunted too, by a pair of Native American ghosts; a boy and a girl both wearing fringed deer-skin. (I didn't see them, but my brother and a couple of kids from school did -- on separate occasions.) However, during the heavy snowstorm of 1978, I actually saw a one-horse sleigh jingling down Bunker Hill Ave in broad daylight, only to disappear into thin air right in the middle of the street. And I wasn't the only one who saw it! The news of the ghost sleigh was all over school the next week.

As I was saying, ghosts and ghost stories are common in my home town, but that's New England for you.
Last edited by OokamiKasumi on Wed Feb 06, 2013 9:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Works based on classical material

#13 Post by Sapphi »

OokamiKasumi wrote: As I was saying, ghosts and ghost stories are common in my home town, but that's New England for you.
:shock:

K, you just made my eyes get all watery and my hair is standing up...

How can I say this... I both want, and DO NOT WANT, to go ghost hunting. I want, because I believe in ghosts and while I both value and trust (to varying degrees, depending on many factors) the testimony of others, I don't have a specific personal experience that lends me that extra "Yes, I believe in ghosts - BECAUSE I SAW ONE" punch.

I do NOT want, because I am easily terrified and I would probably flatline if I saw anything like what you are describing. But I do want... but I don't want... but I do... the concept of different dimensions "crossing over", having one foot here and the other there... recently I was feeling very bad and tried to reach through reality so that I could maybe find and hold a person's hand who lived very long ago (it didn't work)... I know it sounds completely crazy to most people but I can't help it, these are things that utterly, utterly fascinate me!

Here in Illinois we're only haunted by crime and corrupt politicians :mrgreen:
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and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past."
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Re: Works based on classical material

#14 Post by OokamiKasumi »

Sapphi wrote:
OokamiKasumi wrote: As I was saying, ghosts and ghost stories are common in my home town, but that's New England for you.
:shock: K, you just made my eyes get all watery and my hair is standing up...

How can I say this... I both want, and DO NOT WANT, to go ghost hunting. I want, because I believe in ghosts and while I both value and trust (to varying degrees, depending on many factors) the testimony of others, I don't have a specific personal experience that lends me that extra "Yes, I believe in ghosts - BECAUSE I SAW ONE" punch.

I do NOT want, because I am easily terrified and I would probably flat-line if I saw anything like what you are describing. ...
Truthfully, most ghosts (at least those from my experience,) seem to be pockets of "imprinted memory" rather than wandering spirits. Think of them as being Tape Recordings that go off under the right conditions. That sleigh I saw was clearly a "recording" as are the two Indian ghosts in the woods. The two Indians are always seen in the exact same spot. However, my window-knockers, and the door opener probably are spirits.
Sapphi wrote:Here in Illinois we're only haunted by crime and corrupt politicians :mrgreen:
Illinois does have ghosts! There's more than a few stories about ghost trains; steam engines that run along railways no longer in use, and right through neighborhoods. Those, of course, are likely to be memory imprints. However, there's a white lady that gets into taxis right outside of one particular graveyard dressed for a 1920s party too. She asks to 'go home' then disappears when the taxi driver gets to a particular address. That one is definitely a wandering spirit.
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Re: Works based on classical material

#15 Post by phoenixhymn »

@OokamiKasumi ...your stories are terrifying and amazing and I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight. I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with your cousins. *shudders*

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