Writing 101: It's All Greek to Me

Star-crossed lovers, destined to never be together. Revenge that becomes twisted and ugly, turning back around to go the other way. The mother who kills out of jealousy and rage when her husband takes a younger woman. If you think you've come up with a plot so twisted, so dark, so gory and tragic that no one can top it, guess again. Whatever you write, the Greeks probably wrote it first.

 

Been There, Done That

 
Incest. Debauchery. Infidelity. Murder. Self-mutilation. Patricide. Matricide. Whatever it's called when you kill your own son. It's not a new show on HBO. It's your basic Greek tragedy.

Most modern storytelling was shaped by those early Greeks, who went on to inspire Shakespeare, James Joyce and countless others. The Greeks took their characters into Hell, sometimes literally, and saw them ripped apart by plot twists, sudden reveals and betrayals of all kinds.
 
If you're looking for new story inspiration, try turning to some of the oldest stories ever written down. All the plots have already been covered, all the twists already sprung and lots of the good ideas have already been explored. But you can still put a new twist and a modern take on all these old stories and make something completely your own. Many, many writers have turned to the old stories to create new ones. 

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