Storylines set in the ordinary real world inspire just as much creativity in the world of spin-offs as the fantastical does
By Caitlin Goh
While passively absorbing the endless stream of depressing news churned out by the media earlier this year, I found inspiration for a dystopian world. As I slowly built onto this world of science-fiction in my usual fashion – scribbling down notes on random pieces of paper, in odd notebooks or on the notes in my phone whenever a spark of creativity hit me – I found a few strands of the world and its characters and history that I was building on which would be best left out of the final story because it would like1ly be unnecessary information distracting from the main story and adding flabbiness.
I figured the natural move was to create a separate story for this excess worldbuilding to truly allow it to bloom on its own right.
The ease in which a spinoff was born from my original idea got me wondering about other genres, specifically genres more grounded in the real world of today.
It’s obvious why a high fantasy or sci-fi narrative would give birth to a spin-off or five. These two genres require some of the most extensive world building, and often attract large fan bases, whether they be creatives themselves or simply just an audience.
There are many assumptions when you hear the word spin-off. It’s a shameless cash grab. It’s a story with watered-down world building that pales in comparison to the original story.
But what do other writers think?
Like me, Al Fraser is a Professional Writing and Editing student at RMIT. I sat down with her over a grainy Zoom chat, the light illuminating her from her end contrasted with my dim lit room on that cloudy day. I knew Al had written a high fantasy series that she is working towards getting published through the writing stream of the Towards Publication course. I told her in an earlier email that we were going to discuss spinoffs.
‘I heard in class once you mentioned that you used to write fan-fiction which is kind of like a spinoff?’ I asked.
Al laughed sheepishly. ‘Yeah, my favourites have always been the ones I wrote in the Harry Potter fandom. I felt they were the ones with the most life to them because there was so much of the world that the writer hadn’t touched. Whereas non-fantasy ones, it’s kind of hard because the author has already written into a certain area.’
Al continued, ‘I just feel like with fantasy it’s easier because you can invent any details you want about the world. I could never do real world writing. It weirds me out.
Perhaps as a fantasy writer and fan through and through, she may be a bit biased regarding extended world building across genres.
‘There was an exercise we had to do in (Writer’s Workshop) class about time, where we had to write about something that happened before the story, and I wrote about how her parents met. I originally thought it was going to be boring, but I kept having these amazing ideas and I thought this could be a series on its own.’
But some of the most popular and iconic shows in pop culture have come from stories set in the ‘ordinary world’. Shows people may not even be aware are spin-offs. Ivan Cohen wrote an article titled ‘The 12 Most Unexpected Spinoffs in TV History.' Cohen lists The Simpsons, the longest running animated sitcom in history, and one of the most iconic shows around, as a spin-off.
Revolving around the relatively ‘real’ albeit satirical lives of a family in a small American town, the Simpson family have become easily one of the most recognisable American families. Do you recall the crudely drawn titular characters that occasionally pop up in the animated show? A call-back to their beginning as a skit on The Tracy Ullman show.
Laverne & Shirley chronicles the lives of two roommates and friends in 1950s Milwaukee who were first introduced as acquaintances to Fonzi on Happy days. By its third season, it had become the most watched American TV show. Another iconic spin-off set in the ‘real world’ was Frasier. As a spin-off to Cheers, it followed Frasier who moved from Boston to Seattle, focusing on his private life and new job as a radio host. Over the course of its 11-year run, it won 37 Primetime Emmys.
Apart from The Tracy Ullman show, which was a skit show, all these shows had rather simple premises set in the real world in time periods relatively close to – if not exactly – when the shows were made, and the shows they were spin-offs from shared the same characteristics.
While the fantastical genres engage the audience and inspire writers because of their almost limitless potential for creation, the stories grounded in the mundane world are relatable. These stories often seem like not much is going on, but there is a deep treasure trove of world building often overlooked since it’s set in the ‘real world’, many assume the worlding building is automatically done for you. It’s this treasure trove that makes these seemingly simple storylines resonate with the audience so much.
With the aforementioned examples, they were simply taking characters that already featured in the original shows and creating a life for them beyond it, rather than creating a story centred around a character or characters that were mentioned in the lore of the world of the original storylines. The latter is more commonly found in fantasy or sci-fi storylines. After all, stories set in the ‘real world’ come built in with facts and history we already know.
Returning to the world of books, Melbourne-based author Toni Jordan discusses her new novel Dinner with the Schnabels on the last ever Backstory podcast with Mel Cranenburgh. It’s a dramedy centred around a large family forced to downsize their life after the family business goes broke during the Covid lockdowns. Things are further shaken up when family secrets are revealed.
Despite the down-to-earth premise of this story, there has been extensive world building put into it. Jordan has five books planned for this series, each from a different character’s perspective.
Unlike Al, Toni believes that world building is the same across all genres. In a way, this makes sense. Recalling Frasier, the creators of that show moved the setting to Seattle to further separate it from its Cheers origins. They needed to create an entire world for Frasier in Seattle, even though the rules for the world were already set in reality.
As Jordan put it, ‘the world is kind of ridiculous’ and ‘stupid on so many levels.’
This perfectly encapsulates why a world can easily extend from a universe revolving around a group of average people in a bar or an average family. After all, truth is often stranger than fiction.
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