CHAPTER XIX
GETTING THE NEW TWIST
_No_ story is an old story if you give it a new "twist"--a fresh turn,
an original surprise, an unexpected course of narration. As a matter
of fact, this is what fiction writers and dramatists have been doing
for hundreds of years; taking an old idea, they have twisted it about,
enlarged upon it, provided a new setting for the story, and created
something new, yet in truth far from new, from the idea furnished by
another writer. Who evolved the "original" plot in any certain case is
a question that will forever remain a question, for the earliest plays
and stories are no longer extant. But this we do know: there are only
a very few original or primary plots, and all the plays, novels, and
short-stories that have been written are variations of these. Some
writers have made the twist more pronounced, and their work, judged by
present-day standards, is classed as original. Others, without trying
to conceal the source of their plots, nevertheless give them new
treatment, and so are not charged with plagiarism. Therefore we may
conclude that that writer is entitled to be called original who is
capable of so twisting and remodeling the theme used by another writer
that it is, in the remodeling, virtually recreated.
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