Artistic License By June

(Warning, this blog contains a slight Wicked spoiler alert)

Last week I took my middle daughter to see Wicked. It was totally fabulous and my daughter was so excited that she couldn’t stop talking about it. When we got home she told my eldest daughter all about it and she hated the idea.

You see, my oldest daughter doesn’t like change AT ALL. The whole idea of the Wicked Witch not really being wicked and that maybe things in Oz weren’t exactly how we thought they were, did not go over really big with her. She said it changed the whole way she would view The Wizard of Oz.

“It’s just not right!” she cried.
“It’s artistic license,” I said.
“Um, what?” she asked.
“Artistic License... the freedom to create an artwork, musical work, or piece of writing based on the artist's interpretation and mainly for effect (Ok, that was from Dictionary.com, which I do not recite verbatim, but hey, it works.)
“Um, what?” she said.
“It means the artist can change things to make it better. In this case, they didn’t change the Wizard of Oz, just gave you a different way of looking at things.”
“Oh. Well I still don’t like it.”
Hey, I tried.

Regardless, artistic (or also poetic) license is something we as authors of fiction use all the time. Just because we see things a little differently or create things a bit unrealistic for the average person, doesn’t mean they are not good.

And just as a side note, I went on YouTube and showed my eldest daughter some scenes from Wicked, and low and behold, she now wants to go see it!

Ah, teenagers, you just can’t win.

Have a great week and Happy New Year!

Best,
June

www.junesproat.com