Inspired by books

[sequincardi]

Do you remember Sebastian foulks wrote a James bond book?
I have just seen on social media that Jacqueline Wilson has written a new faraway tree adventure based on stories written by Enid Blyton

How does one go about writing a book inspired by a character from another series?
(The author died over 20 years ago)

Well, in a lot of ways that's what fan fiction is!

From what I saw of the JW one (flicked through rather than read it) it is one of those that has taken someone else's concept and some of the characters but not tried to write it in the same style. That makes me wonder why she didn't just try her own fantasy novel, rather than piggy-backing. I'm sure she could write a great fantasy that people would buy because it's JW, so why take someone else's concept?
They'd also changed some of the original details in ways I found a little bit odd - such as the original parents knowing about the Faraway tree and the children going there, she's changed it to it being a time shift, so the parents didn't know they had gone. Which to me is the opposite to what I'd expect-don't we tell children to let us know where they're going nowadays?
To me it felt very bland compared with EB's original. But EB had such an imagination when she wrote about those lands. Anyone remember the land of goodies? Jelly in the middle of flowers, taps that poured out the ice cream flavour you wanted etc. Wonderful. Land of Unicorns in comparison just doesn't cut it!

It's quite hard to write in the style though. I tried writing another EB adventure series, and trying to keep both in the era and EB's style is tricky without finding you're just copying.

Don't the authors' estates often commission these works shortly before their author's copyright expires (I can't remember exactly - is it 50 years after their death?)? Brings in a bit more income and revives the brand.