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In my opinion, what defines great fantasy is when the author comes up with a completely new explanation for perfectly normal mysteries.

Consider cars that backfire, and yet when you look outside, there’s no vehicle on the street? I believe that I have solved this mystery.

It’s the Knight Bus from Harry Potter’s wizarding world. Remember how it goes crack and jumps to another area of Britain altogether? Well, I’ve decided that the Knight Bus doesn’t just deliver silly wizards to various places in Britain, but all over the world. And those non-existant cars that backfire? Well, that’s just the Knight Bus apparating and disapparating.

Ta-da! Mystery solved.

I have been a Clueless geek since I made a bargain with my not-boyfriend that I’d watch his horror flick if he watched Clueless with me. How was I to know that I was actually displaying culture and taste instead of insipid stupidity every time I watched Cher make a fool of herself in front of the hot gay guy?

You see, Sunday afternoon I watched the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma, based on the Jane Austen novel, and BOOM, it hit me. Clueless is a remake of Emma of the same awesome caliber as 10 Things I Hate About you being a remake of Taming of the Shrew.

OK, I’ll grant you that a simple movie can never be as good as a classic novel such as any of Jane Austen’s. And I know that A&E and the BBC have their own versions which are probably much better. However, Gwyneth was available on the free movies on On Demand, so there. Free trumps good any old day.

And I’ll be honest with you. I’ve never been a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow, often choosing to skip movies entirely just because she headlined in them. But the woman held her own! Usually American actors and actresses show up as the gaudy, incapable things that they really are when held up against the acting of the British. Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing, anyone? The man nearly ruined the whole flick despite the awesome acting by the others. But Gwyneth Paltrow? I may have to rethink my opinion of her. She really performed well. Plus, I think she should always wear her hair up from now on. It looks good on her.

The thing is, I’ve always known that 10 Things I Hate About You. I mean, they kept the same names and attended Padua High. The cheesiness is part of what I loved! But in Clueless, yes, SOME of the names were the same, but Cher vs Emma? Not obvious (I’ll have to watch it again to see if Emma is her middle name or a silent first name or something). But still, as I watched Emma (obviously I haven’t read the book yet, though it is in my TBR pile), I kept noting the similarities and at times was able to predict what would happen next based on my knowledge of Clueless.

But while I loved the cheesy obviousness of 10 Things, Clueless shows me something different. How you can take a classic story, boil it down, and turn it into something different. While the best parts of Emma were modernized, I saw where the cast was narrowed down to make individual characters stronger. While Emma’s governess became Cher’s best friend, certain personality traits were greatly exaggerated or removed. Where Mr. Knightly was like a brother to Emma, he actually became a brother to Cher through several remarriages.

It all began sliding into place how these people had done it. Me? If I were to try to remake something, I would have immediately gotten stuck trying to find the modern equivalent. But that’s now how it was done. It was taking the basic parts of the original, and re-spinning it.

For example: Harriet got sick before the party and couldn’t go. So Mr. Elton felt free to press his affections on Emma on the drive home. Later, Emma gets stuck while crossing a stream and is rescued by Frank Churchill.

Ty gets hit on the head at the party. Later, Elton drives Cher home and tries to press his affections on her. He drops her off in the middle of nowhere, and is rescued by her “brother”.

In fact, there was even a mugging in both, but totally different circumstances and results.

But I see now how it’s done. It’s like making an outline of a story, and then writing a story based on THAT outline.  And if you get stuck, you can always go back for more details! I’ve always wanted to write my own 10 Things, and now I think I know how.

Also, I have a new review of Wild at Heart up at the site I review for.

Anyone who’s known me for 5 seconds can guess that I’m not a sports fan.  Seriously? I could give a rat’s…. tail.

But my husband asked if I wanted to go to the Hershey Bears VS Wilkesbarre-Scranton Penguins game, and thinking of research for my novel, I agreed. And to be honest, I really didn’t get into it, but mostly because my brain kept wandering off into what my MC would be thinking as she watched the game.

But there were some amusing moments during the game.

I’m not sure what it is with sports having stupid things during the intermissions, but they had some people come out wearing sumo wrestler outfits to hit some pucks into the net. I don’t know what they won, but the other sumo ended up flat on his back on the ice and couldn’t get up without help. Which I thought was funny.

The cool thing is, there was a fist fight in the first 2 minutes of the game. I thought that was awesome, but I was so busy taking pix of the fight, that I forgot to pull out my Flip and video it. I spent the rest of the game clutching my digital camera in one hand, and my Flip in the other waiting for another fight. It never came. This made me sad. Which annoyed my companions because I spent the rest of the game and the 45 minute ride home complaining about the lack of fights.

And for you sports nuts- that’s Cocoa posing with the Stanley Cup. I’m assuming that’s something important or special? My husband made me take the picture.

The Hershey Bears seem to be a pretty decent team, and won 3-2. On the other hand, they managed to not only miss a penalty shot, but took two shots at an unguarded net- and missed both.

The Penguins, however, seem to prefer slamming people into walls and sliding across the ice on their stomachs instead of their skates to actually making shots. Does this make them a bad team? Not necessarily. They may just have different goals than every other hockey team in the known world. I’m just sayin’.