Vlog adaptations: Northanger Abbey
Mar. 13th, 2013 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ladyherenya, an interesting article about How the Vlog & Transmedia Set-Up Make Plot Harder for LBD, which I think is excellent. There’s definitely a tension in LBD between “Lizzie growing as a person and not being judgmental all over the internet,” and “Lizzie doing super entertaining costume theater.”
Also, I’ve been thinking about other books that would make fun modern vlog adaptations. You need a main character who would be willing to share her life with the internet (so Fanny Price and Elinor Dashwood are definitely out), and a story that doesn’t depend on information that you wouldn’t really want to put on the internet. LBD has already been stretching the “would someone really put this on the internet?” limits, and making a vlog of something like Jane Eyre would shatter them like glass.
Plus, Jane Eyre is probably too circumspect to have a vlog.
Northanger Abbey, however, would be pretty much the perfect book for a vlog adaptation. Think about it! Catherine starts her vlog because she’s leaving home for the first time, so she starts a vlog to keep her family updated on her doings. She’s pretty stunned to get as many viewers as she does. I think in this version, she’s probably going away to college rather than on a vacation. Possibly she’s going a long way from home, so she won’t be able to visit much?
Catherine and Isabella Thorpe meet at the bookstore, where they are scoping out the same new urban fantasy book in this series they both love. Isabella Thorpe would obviously leap at the chance to be in a vlog: think of the way that she dramatizes her life in the book.
I’m not sure how we get from “love of urban fantasy” to “Catherine thinks maybe General Tilney killed his wife!” but maybe the connection will not be as overt as it is in NA. (I think “Catherine thinks maybe General Tilney is a vampire!” is possibly too silly even for Catherine. Although it might be hilarious! What do you think?)
Catherine and Henry Tilney meet...in class, maybe? Perhaps they are assigned to work on a project together? Or! They could meet at ball-dancing club. In Catherine’s next vlog, Isabella teases her about her crush on Henry Tilney, which makes Catherine blush, although she is totally delighted to talk about him. (Later, Isabella will tease Catherine about things she doesn't necessarily want the whole internet to know.) However, Isabella gets bored when Catherine chats about Henry too long and jumps in to talk about her own conquests.
(I really like the way that LBD fleshed out Lydia, and it would be cool if an NA adaptation did something similar with Isabella. But conversely, Catherine and Isabella’s friendship not working out would work really well in this adaptation. The people you’re friends with your first semester of college are not necessarily going to be your best friends all through, and it would be nice to see Catherine fumbling to find her real friends.)
Etc. etc. more stuff happens. Catherine gets invited to the Tilney’s house for Thanksgiving (she can’t afford a plane ticket home for the holiday). She confides in the internet that she thinks maybe General Tilney killed his wife. Henry Tilney walks into the filming of one of her videos while she’s talking about this possibility and is all “WTF Catherine,” because not only is she entertaining the possibility that his father killed his mother, but she’s been telling the internet about it.
Catherine is horrified and chastened and makes an “I am SO SORRY” video.
Then the General sends her away, and Catherine is convinced that Henry convinced him to do it, and she is all sad panda and possibly swears off vlogs.
But she does one last vlog - “I just had to let you know how the story ends!” Because Henry came to tell her that he didn’t ask his father to send her away at all! (I’m not sure why the General does send Catherine away in this version. Maybe he thought she was pre-med and is just horrified to learn she’s studying, like, art history.)
And then Catherine and Henry start dating, happy end!
ladyherenya, an interesting article about How the Vlog & Transmedia Set-Up Make Plot Harder for LBD, which I think is excellent. There’s definitely a tension in LBD between “Lizzie growing as a person and not being judgmental all over the internet,” and “Lizzie doing super entertaining costume theater.”Also, I’ve been thinking about other books that would make fun modern vlog adaptations. You need a main character who would be willing to share her life with the internet (so Fanny Price and Elinor Dashwood are definitely out), and a story that doesn’t depend on information that you wouldn’t really want to put on the internet. LBD has already been stretching the “would someone really put this on the internet?” limits, and making a vlog of something like Jane Eyre would shatter them like glass.
Plus, Jane Eyre is probably too circumspect to have a vlog.
Northanger Abbey, however, would be pretty much the perfect book for a vlog adaptation. Think about it! Catherine starts her vlog because she’s leaving home for the first time, so she starts a vlog to keep her family updated on her doings. She’s pretty stunned to get as many viewers as she does. I think in this version, she’s probably going away to college rather than on a vacation. Possibly she’s going a long way from home, so she won’t be able to visit much?
Catherine and Isabella Thorpe meet at the bookstore, where they are scoping out the same new urban fantasy book in this series they both love. Isabella Thorpe would obviously leap at the chance to be in a vlog: think of the way that she dramatizes her life in the book.
I’m not sure how we get from “love of urban fantasy” to “Catherine thinks maybe General Tilney killed his wife!” but maybe the connection will not be as overt as it is in NA. (I think “Catherine thinks maybe General Tilney is a vampire!” is possibly too silly even for Catherine. Although it might be hilarious! What do you think?)
Catherine and Henry Tilney meet...in class, maybe? Perhaps they are assigned to work on a project together? Or! They could meet at ball-dancing club. In Catherine’s next vlog, Isabella teases her about her crush on Henry Tilney, which makes Catherine blush, although she is totally delighted to talk about him. (Later, Isabella will tease Catherine about things she doesn't necessarily want the whole internet to know.) However, Isabella gets bored when Catherine chats about Henry too long and jumps in to talk about her own conquests.
(I really like the way that LBD fleshed out Lydia, and it would be cool if an NA adaptation did something similar with Isabella. But conversely, Catherine and Isabella’s friendship not working out would work really well in this adaptation. The people you’re friends with your first semester of college are not necessarily going to be your best friends all through, and it would be nice to see Catherine fumbling to find her real friends.)
Etc. etc. more stuff happens. Catherine gets invited to the Tilney’s house for Thanksgiving (she can’t afford a plane ticket home for the holiday). She confides in the internet that she thinks maybe General Tilney killed his wife. Henry Tilney walks into the filming of one of her videos while she’s talking about this possibility and is all “WTF Catherine,” because not only is she entertaining the possibility that his father killed his mother, but she’s been telling the internet about it.
Catherine is horrified and chastened and makes an “I am SO SORRY” video.
Then the General sends her away, and Catherine is convinced that Henry convinced him to do it, and she is all sad panda and possibly swears off vlogs.
But she does one last vlog - “I just had to let you know how the story ends!” Because Henry came to tell her that he didn’t ask his father to send her away at all! (I’m not sure why the General does send Catherine away in this version. Maybe he thought she was pre-med and is just horrified to learn she’s studying, like, art history.)
And then Catherine and Henry start dating, happy end!
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no subject
Date: 2013-03-13 06:08 pm (UTC)(In other news, I still need to get around to reading your Robot Story. I've been putting it off until I have a decent amount of time to digest it
and fangirl over it, because robots = YES, and robots in a Depression-era AU = EVEN MORE YES.)no subject
Date: 2013-03-13 08:21 pm (UTC)Ha, I may ask you to read the whole Robot Book when it is done if you are into 1930s robot AUs.
(Also, this reminds me, I need to read your new Hetalia story! Am behind on All the Things.)
no subject
Date: 2013-03-14 01:39 am (UTC)Twilighturban fantasy could be ingenious.(I have to wonder, though--what would that make Henry? Would Catherine think he, too, is a vampire? A half-vampire? Would she find him all the more swoon-worthy for it? XD)
I would be honored and would love to read your Robot Book when it's done. (I know steampunk is all the rage, but I've always been a little more fond of dieselpunk, myself.)
And no worries about not having read my new fic yet! I am obviously no stranger to Real Life happening. (And while I always appreciate your feedback, by no means is it required.) :)
(Edited because I obviously should not try to post when tipsy, damn it.)
no subject
Date: 2013-03-14 02:21 am (UTC)I'm not sure it's exactly dieselpunk (but then I'm not quite sure where the lines between steampunk and dieselpunk are? But it's not steampunk either). But yeah, robots! And hopping trains! And pilfered ancient Egyptian mummies!
no subject
Date: 2013-03-14 08:54 pm (UTC)And OMG, TRAIN HOPPING. CANNOT WAIT.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-15 01:03 am (UTC)YES TRAIN HOPPING. Originally they were just going to take the train normally to visit Kittyhawk's aunt, and then I was like, "You know what would make this book more exciting? If they RUN AWAY and HOP ON A TRAIN to get to their destination!"
This is a pretty awesome way to plot.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-12 09:41 pm (UTC)Plus, it would make a great stopgap project after they finish Emma Approved! They'll finish it EA next autumn, just in time for Catherine Morland's going-to-college vlog in the autumn.
Although maybe they'll want to branch out from Austen eventually. I wonder if they have a long-term plan for this, or if they're just making it up as they go along.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-14 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-14 06:00 pm (UTC)The only problem would be the amount of time WH covers: the story takes like 30 years to unfold. I'm not sure how to compress it.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-14 05:46 am (UTC)Plus, Jane Eyre is probably too circumspect to have a vlog.
YES. I saw a lot of discussion sometime ago from people who wanted Jane Eyre to be the next vlog adaptation, and while I'd love to spend a year analysing Jane Eyre, I just don't see how it would work.
I really like the idea of a Northanger Abbey vlog, too! Catherine would love telling the internet all about her theories, and Isabella would be very happy to tell the internet all about herself.
Catherine could just be a fan of murder mysteries, but that's not quite the same... perhaps she reads urban fantasy mysteries and while she recognises that vampires etc don't actually exist, "people do murder others in real life!"
It'd be interesting to see Catherine and Isabella's friendship explored further, because it's about meeting someone new and working out that perhaps they're not the best person to be friends with. That's so relevant and prevalent today.
More so than some of the friendships in Austen's other books, because a lot of those are sister relationships (sisterships?) and today people are more likely to be BFFs with someone outside their family (as opposed to having an inbuilt BFF, like Lizzy does with Jane) who they haven't known all their lives...
no subject
Date: 2013-03-14 06:14 pm (UTC)Obviously a modern adaptation wouldn't go with a literal mad wife in the attic, but I think it's necessary to have Rochester do something pretty awful so Jane has to leave him for a while. Hmm. Maybe I will make a post about modern Jane Eyre adaptations....
I like the idea of Catherine Morland, Urban Fantasy Fan because I think urban fantasy occupies the same dim place in many people's hierarchy of genres that gothic fiction did: it's something women are thought to read more of than men, it's considered overwrought, etc.
It would be fun if there are a couple attitudes where it's not entirely clear whether Catherine really thinks General Tilney is a vampire, and then she's like, "I know vampires don't exist! But murderers do!"
Although IDK, telling the whole internet you think maybe your host killed his wife in cold blood seems much more awful than just entertaining the possibility in the privacy of your own head.
I had another thought! Maybe General Tilney and his wife divorced (this would also give Henry a good reason to be gone when General Tilney kicks Catherine out: he's visiting his mother), and Catherine speculates that he drove her to it. It's slightly less awful than murder, but still not a great thing to put on the internet.
And yes, I think exploring Isabella and Catherine's friendship more would be great, because making new friends is such a looming issue for many people today, and sometimes it is important to realize that so-and-so really isn't such a good friend.
I think adapting the sibling relationships would be one of the more complicated things about adapting Northanger Abbey, actually, because it does deal with three pairs of siblings (the Morlands, the Thorpes and the Tilneys) and I'm not sure how well that would translate to a modern college setting.