I think it's a matter of debate and opinion, ML, but I consider a rewrite to be a story which stays reasonably close to the episode, just changing a few things here and there to make it different or 'better'. I think my story That Super Man of Mine would be an example of a rewrite.
I see an adaptation as a story which is set in the same time-frame as an ep and uses a number of elements from that episode, but branches off into different directions, maybe largely ignoring the A-plot or letting it turn out in a very different way, and also changing the B-plot. Examples of that would be Nan's various S1 and S2 series, LabRat's Masques and Are You Lonesome Tonight...? and Meredith's All Stirred Up, and also adaptations of mine such as Carbon Copy, Second Thoughts and When Larry Met Charlie - also your own The Second Stage of Grief.
And actually, I've just realised that there's another way to distinguish them, one which is probably less of an opinion: the difference between a rewrite, which goes from beginning to end of an ep, and an adaptation which may just spin off from a particular scene, or insert a scene into an ep. So Kaylle's lovely All Or Nothing is an adaptation of HoL, inserting a scene into that episode which then changes the outcome. It's not a rewrite because she doesn't set out to
rewrite the entire episode.
Does that help at all?
Wendy
