In 1954, the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window starring James Stewart was released to the public.
The film follows Jeff, a professional photographer, who is stuck in his Manhattan apartment recuperating from a broken leg.
With his leg in plaster and unable to do anything, to relieve the boredom, Jeff begins to spy on his neighbours from his window using binoculars.
While watching his neighbours, Jeff uncovers a murder.
After hearing a woman scream ‘Don’t’ followed by the sound of smashing glass, Jeff notices that the husband of a couple he had been observing started acting strange.
The next day he realised that the wife had unexpectedly disappeared.
Jeff then had to convince the police that the man had murdered his wife although no body was found.
It’s been hailed a masterpiece and one of Hitchcock’s best films.
The film was based on a short story first published in 1942 written by Cornell Woolrich called It Had To Be Murder.
Okay, so you may be wondering why I am telling you this.
The reason for sharing this is that this weekend I happened across a recent episode of Not Going Out with Lee Mack.
In this episode, Lee is at home in a wheelchair recuperating from a knee operation with his leg in plaster, and to relieve the border… what does Lee do?
That’s right!
He spends his time spying on his neighbours from his window using binoculars.
In this version of the popular story, Lee believes that he witnesses one of his neighbours killing another neighbour’s cat.
As always with a comedy, it’s not all as it seems and with several twists and turns, it seems that Lee got it all wrong with hilarious consequences… if you find that kind of thing funny that is.
The point I am trying to make is that people use what has be done before.
It reminds me of the saying:
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There’s nothing new under the sun.
Obviously, you cannot take something as it is and use it as your own, (unless it is in the public domain) and you may need to ask for permission or buy a license to use something in its entirety.
I imagine Alfred Hitchcock had to license the story from Cornell Woolrich before being able to release it as a film.
However, I bet the BBC didn’t need permission to reuse the story in their sitcom. With it being just a half hour episode loosely based on the story, no one is really going to sue them.
The point I am trying to make is that 68 years after the release of the film (80 years after Woolrich’s original book) people are still referencing it and using it for entertainment.
You can do the same… sort of.
You may not be able to publish a book about a guy who is a professional photographer who, while recuperating from a broken leg, is spying on his neighbours with binoculars and witnesses a murder…
But you could have an agoraphobic home-bound woman in London who witnesses a gang-land killing and tries to get the police to believe her even though there is no body or report of a missing person.
The story is loosely based on that original concept.
Rear Window is a story about someone seeing something untoward while looking out of a window… but how many people actually see bad things happening while looking out of a window?
I imagine it is tens thousands of people each year.
Witness Number 3 is a drama on Chanel 5 here in the UK which has a woman as a key witness in a murder trial after watching (from her window) a man being lead away at knifepoint by another man.
The man being lead away was later found dead with stab wounds.
I’m not trying to get you to write the next ‘looking out of a window’ crime novel, I just want you to understand that there really is nothing new under the sun and that you can in fact take any story (or a collection of stories) and rewrite them to suit a new audience.
Change the names of people, swap the genders of the main characters, change the location, change the crime, change the outcome, change the period the story is set in, throw in a few new twists or characters, and you now have a completely new story.
You’ve just taken inspiration from what you have already seen, read or experienced.
After all, Star Wars is just the Second World War set in space.
The Empire is the Third Reich, the rebellion is the resistance and allied forces, countries became planets, and the Jedi Knights are Shaolin Monks… all mixed together with a giant spoon called imagination.
There is a lot of money to be made from writing fiction… but I have seen it being said that fiction is often easier to write when your bills and expenses are covered for the month or year.
Harper Lee who wrote To Kill A Mockingbird did so because of the best Christmas present anyone could ever receive.
In 1956 her friends gave her a note that said “You have one year off to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.”
Harper’s friends then supported her throughout the year by paying her a living wage.
She wrote the classic To Kill A Mockingbird in that year.
The book is a classic of modern American literature which is studied in schools. It also won the Pulitzer Prize.
If you are interested in writing as a way to make money, it might be wise to ensure that your bills and living costs are covered first.
David Houghton has come up with a way to earn between £110 and £350 per day, more than enough money to cover all of his living costs and as well as have plenty of money spare to enjoy.
And…
He does it all within ten minutes in the morning giving him the rest of the day to do whatever he pleases.
This would be perfect for any budding authors… or people who simply want more free time so that they can enjoy their hobbies or spend more time with their loved ones.
David spends no more than ten minutes checking one financial market to see if there is a trade. If there is, he sets up his system and then goes about his day.
That’s it.
This system makes him between £110 and £350 most weekdays… more than enough to cover his daily living costs.
There is little to know and it is incredibly simple to do.
If you would like to know more about David and his ten minute morning system, click the link below:
The A Minus B System
Kind regards
John Harrison
PS… As far as effort is concerned, this is one of the easiest systems for making money that I’ve seen.
You don’t need to know a lot of facts, figures or information, you only need to work ten minutes in the morning and for that it will give you between £110 and £350 most weekdays.
Here’s that link again: