Facsimile characters

[Sweet One]

There have been lots of discussions on this forum about what book made you cry the most, or the death of which SK character affected you the most. It got me wondering...

Are there other writers on this forum, and if so, has anyone ever done this: created a new character similar to one in a movie or book simlar to, but not exactly a duplicate of, a character who died, or got a raw deal, or suffered an unjust fate, or something happened to them you didn't like. Then put them in a different story, where they survive or escape a fate like that which befell the prototype character.

I actually have done this with a story of mine. It is NOT an SK character, by the way. It's a character who died in horror moive I saw long ago, whose death i considered unjust. The original characterwasn't very developed, however, and mine is much more so. I would actually be reluctant to do anything like that with a bone fide SK character, becuase just about ayone SK creates is very well-crafted, and the copy would have a hard time measuring up to the original.

You could also do it vice versa, I suppose. Take a character you wanted to die, and make a similar character and off 'em.

[aeroplane]

Interesting topic.

I write juvenile fiction and I've created a character similar to Ben Mears. He is a middling writer who had one or more of his books get ravaged by critics. He serves as a bit of a father figure to a teenager in my story.

However, the similarities end there. My character is openly bitter about his lack of success as an author. He has a child. He is already a longtime resident in one of the towns featured in my story, meaning he isn't simply moving back to town. Unlike Mears, he doesn't have other adult characters to "lean on" in the story. I haven't decided on his final outcome either.

[Bryan James]

I've borrowed ideas that have been borrowed from others down the infinite chain.