Moving Characters To New Places

There have always been stories in which characters were moved through space or time or both, in order to reinvent them or tell new stories with them. The BBC series “Sherlock” and the CBS series “Elementary” both bring Sherlock Holmes from his own time into the present, even though their premises and plots differ greatly. While “Sherlock” remains outright mystery, “Elementary” has strong elements of a police procedural about it. And just a little while ago, I read the novel “Bulldog Drummond: On Poisoned Grounds” (review here), which takes a character from the early 20th century a hundred years into the future for a new start. King Arthur and Robin Hood as two very old pieces of storytelling have been re-imagined more than once as well.

How and why does this work best? First of all, it seems to work much better for Sherlock Holmes (and Bulldog) than for King Arthur and Robin Hood. Why? Perhaps because King Arthur and Robin Hood were historical fiction already by the time their stories were written down for the first time - centuries after they supposedly lived. Sherlock Holmes, Bulldog Drummond, and many other pulp heroes have originally been written in their time. They weren’t supposed to be period pieces, they were simply pieces written in their authors’ time (the late 19th century for Sherlock Holmes, the 1920s for Bulldog Drummond). Because of that, they might be easier to pull out of their own time and put into another, be it earlier or later in history. Sherlock Holmes was pulled into the future early on, within the Basil Rathbone movies. Then, of course, it was a move to the future by decades, not by a century as today.

Personally, I could imagine a lot of ways to reinvent King Arthur or Robin Hood, too, but they seem to be much more rooted in their times (or the times the authors put them in), than the pulp heroes (and, yes, Sherlock Holmes, with the original publishing in a magazine, is pulp, too, to a degree).

One big question when you’re trying to pull a character into another time is, of course, if it’s possible. Will the character still work in another time? Are they compatible with a modern setting (or whatever setting you are looking for, I’ll stay with the modern one for this post)? With Sherlock Holmes, it’s easy enough. He is characterized by being the greatest detective. A detective will work in every setting, from Ancient Egypt to the far future. Of course, with his scientific inclination, he’s easier to settle in modern times (or the future) than in the distant past. Bulldog Drummond (who, surprisingly, was also pushed into the future) also works in a modern setting. He’s a former soldier dissatisfied with his civilian life, which can also happen today. Originally, the first novel was set right after WWI, which explained how so many relatively young men were discharged from the army. In the new novel, Bulldog and his team were Black OPs, which might explain their discharge. It also explains how they will still help their former commander - they’ve served together in some strange situations, they’re all friends, and they’re all still a little in the whole soldier mindset.

Pulp heroes in general, above every other skill, have the skill to cope. They can and will make the best out of any given situation. Putting them into another setting isn’t inherently difficult, as long as you get your reasons right - or don’t give any. The new Sherlock Holmes series and the new Bulldog Drummond novel never give a reason, for them, the main characters simply live in modern times. Other stories use suitable reasons (such as time travel or magic) to explain how a character happens to be out of their own time.

With other characters, it’s more difficult. There are ways to reconstruct their situation in time, in a fantasy setting, in a sci-fi setting, even in a modern one. While I can’t really think of how to bring King Arthur into the modern time, Robin Hood would lend itself well to a heist story - let him bring in all his merry men, pit him against a modern version of Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. It is doable, but needs a lot of careful work when deconstructing and reconstructing the world.

There are other considerations, too. Like the availability of a known character. Sherlock Holmes has been out of copyright for a while (although it might depend on where you are and where you wish to publish) and the Doyle estate seems to care little for the use of the character these days. Bulldog Drummond fell out of copyright in 2012, 70 years after the death of the original author. Other properties will drop out soon (with the end of the prolonged copyright phase in the US, many properties dropped out of copyright there last year). Of course, old characters like King Arthur or Robin Hood have no copyright whatsoever on them.

The next consideration is whether you want to actually shift the character and what you might gain from doing so. A lot of material on Sherlock Holmes produced today is firmly settled in the original period, pastiches and period movies with varying levels of success. Most of Airship 27’s catalogue is set in the original time period of the material (even modern characters like Brother Bones are set at the high time of pulp), but their release of “On Poisoned Ground” shows it’s not a necessity with the publisher.

The movie versions of “Fu Manchu” and “Fantomas” which are among the most well-known (Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu and Jean Marais as Fantomas/Fandor) are set several decades after the original stories, which doesn’t much hurt the movies (although “Fantomas” doesn’t retain its original mood, which is mostly due to employing a comedian for one of the main characters).

Again, it comes down to distilling the core of the character and see how it can be transported to another time. Fu Manchu is always an evil mastermind, no matter the time he’s in, and Fantomas will always be a criminal mastermind, no matter the time he’s in (for the difference between those masterminds, see this post).

Moving characters to new places and into new situations can be very interesting and a good way to bring about a change. It can be a lot of fun to write and to read.