It's summer, and if you're like me, your brain is trying to go on hiatus – even if you have a ton of work piling up and a deadline to meet. Jog those grey cells with this little exercise in imagination.

The Mash-Up

You may not be aware of the phenomenon, but the 'mash-up' is all the rage right now, especially on YouTube. Enterprising video editors take two separate ideas – say, an old standard song and a popular television show – and mix and match themes and ideas. Sometimes the results are artistic, as in this polished song performance. Other times, what comes out is a mere pastiche. Either way, it jogs the brain cells to think in new ways about familiar material.

Mash-ups are popular in writing, too: in fact, there's a whole category on the Fan Fiction websites devoted to such efforts. I recently read one in which Mad Men's Don Draper ran into Darrin and Samantha Stevens of the 1960s TV sitcom Bewitched. After all, Don and Darrin worked in the same business – Madison Avenue advertising. It was a fun tale, true to both the comedic potential of a witch married to an ad man and the sensual proclivities of Mr Draper. It didn't start to get really weird until the author threw in Jeannie, the genie from the bottle. By the time Major Houlihan from M.A.S.H. showed up, I was falling off my chair.

Written mash-ups have even made it to publication. Who can forget the classic Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith and (of course) Jane Austen? You may wish you could, but you can't. What Janeite could resist? Resistance to mash-ups is futile.

So Give It a Try

The trick: think of two genres or classic works you know well and enjoy thoroughly. Then pretend they are peanut butter and jelly – nice together, but unbeatable in combination. Have fun writing them into a mash-up of your own concoction. If you're worried about copyright, don't be: as long as you don't make money from it, it's legal. If you're cautious, however, just use public-domain material.

Here's a starter list of things you might try from classic fiction:

• Tom Sawyer meets Phileas Fogg in an adventure called 'Tom Sawyer Around the World'. Write like Mark Twain. Make fun of the French, as he always did.
• A Tale of Two Planets. Pick two planets, Rocky Jones-style. Send Dickens characters there. Don't forget the funny dialogue.
• William Blake meets Edgar Allan Poe. Have Poe rewrite 'Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright' in the style of 'Ulalume'. Have Blake turn 'The Raven' into a lullaby.
• Pick your favourite F Scott Fitzgerald novel, say The Great Gatsby. Redress all the characters in costumes from this month's J Peterman catalog.
• Mash your favourite Arthurian epic up with The Godfather. For extra points, find a part for Jason Statham in it.
• Hannibal Lector meets Dracula. Enough said. (That mash-up idea is so delicious, I may dream about it.)

You see? The possibilities are endless – as wide as literature itself. This week, as you are dozing in the summer sun, let your mind wander to Jane Austen and zombies…or Tom Sawyer floating over Paris…

If you ever get to the point that you get it down on computer, we'd love to read it. Or tell us your suggestions.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

12.08.13 Front Page

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