Write What You Know: Public Domain Edition

It's free real estate

One of my favourite things about January is when a fresh collection of golden oldie media is released into the wild on Public Domain Day — AKA when classic works that become copyright-free and available to anyone who wants to use them.

Works in the public domain are prime inspiration fodder for reworking, adapting, mutilating, subverting, or dismantling, however you may wish.

Also: a fine opportunity to make the most of your ‘Write What You Know’ skills…

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Learn How to ‘Write What You Know’

This post is part of the Write What You Know (WWYK) series for paid subscribers, in which we explore how to utilise what we know as humans, as writers, as creators of made-up things, and tap into out authentic experiences to write realistic people, places and things.

Future WWYK topics include:

• Cultivating your observation skills

• Creating a ‘life resume’

• Drawing from physical experiences

• Exploring emotions

• Writing about places you’ve never been to

• Crafting three dimensional characters

• Using detail and description

• Working from photos and memories

• Transferring real life into fiction

Upgrade for monthly posts on ‘writing what you know’ as well as the occasional invitation to ‘unfuck your writing’ with tips on writing, editing and finding a creative process that works for you.

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Borrowing from the public domain

I’ve already delved a little into the whole ‘write what you know’ ethos in my posts on finding your theme and starting a story from a place of truth, but Public Domain Day made me think about the ways we can take something someone else has written and make it our own.

Uhh. Isn’t that kinda stealing?

Well, no. Not if it’s in the public domain. And not if it’s connecting with how you interpret and experience that piece of literature or art.

In fact, adaptation can be an incredibly personal and transformative act, and help us to explore the same stories through different lenses and perspectives, throughout the ages.

I mean, just look at Shakespeare. Dickens. Frankenstein. Alice in Wonderland. Sherlock Holmes. Dracula. Grimms’ Tales. All fairy tales and mythology, come to think about it.

Chances are, you’ve already got some kind of connection to some of those works — memories, opinions, fresh ideas on how to skew or change or reinvigorate them.

And every year, new (old) work gets quietly filtered into the public domain — open to interpretation and totally free to play with….

Here are a few ways to go about it: