In Defense of Knockoffs

Shortly after I posted my assessment of the show Elementary, Clair gave it a look and spent the rest of the day seething with righteous anger. Unlike me, she wasn't looking hard for something to like, and, also unlike me, she's a diehard fan of Sherlock. And truly, I admit, Elementary is forgettable even as ordinary crime shows go and bears little relationship to its supposed source material. If I watch the next episode, I'll do so with a tepid eye.

But I just have this weird, writerly fascination with knockoffs.

As an author, I forbid myself to write a knockoff. If I reach for something remotely similar to something else, this little voice inside me goes, "Uh-uh-uh, don't touch that dial." But I love looking at other people's. I wade through the darkest marshes of the fanfiction world. When I like something I take a look at every incarnation available.

Knockoff items, too, I love. I used to own a Winnie the Pooh notepad bearing the legend (all in lowercase, no punctuation), "felicity is possess your friendship i cant forget your lovely smile and beautiful eyes". Fairly certain Disney didn't sanction that one, but it's way superior, with that strange word "felicity", to all those misattributed Pooh quotes you see floating around. 

Maybe it's the word "knockoff" that I like. It's too bad I don't let myself write knockoffs. If I'd been on the writing staff of Elementary, I feel that I would have made magic.