The Lorax Rewritten/Full Novelization

New chapter is up!

Preview:

The first place Once-ler tried his luck was the city of North Nitch where the biggest businesses were. It was a city of rainbow, sleek buildings twisted into swirly shapes and blinking lights, filled with the latest technology, including traffic lights with seven colors instead of three. He lost track of how many times he almost got run over in traffic trying to understand what they were supposed to mean.

O'Hare's Business and Innovation Center was the biggest, sleekest, twistiest building where he made an appointment to pitch his product. He rode an elevator up to the hundredth floor at the top of the building where helicopters flew so close to the window it looked like he could touch them. The O'Hares were a famous line of CEOs who ran all the major companies in every country.

Once-ler pulled his guitar from his back, mentally going over the pitch he'd carefully prepared for the team of salesmen. He took a deep breath, and began:

"The great is Thneed… I mean, the Thneed is good," he missed a note, completely forgetting how to sing in anapestic tetrameter.

READ THE REST ON AO3!

Join me as I post an actually finished rewrite of this entire movie! Extra plot twists, foreshadowing, and embellishments, since I did multiple drafts! Nobody ever finished a full rewrite before, so I did it myself.

The Great Lorax Rewrite (beginning)

Hey guys, here's the beginning of the fanfiction I'm writing on Ao3. The aim is to tell Once-ler's whole story from beginning to end without Ted interrupting. There are four chapters up so far, and a lot more to come:

"Where is it? Where did you put my guitar?"

Once-ler smacked his head as he looked under the triple bunk bed he was forced to share with his brothers in their small house.

"Reckon if ya don't get out there n' chop some trees, I'll let Brett n' Chet smash that dang guitar for good!" his Ma's voice called from the kitchen.

His younger twin brothers and sister laughed from the dinner table.

"Hurry up n' get more money from yer wood," Brett complained. "We only got three potatoes in our stew today, n' they're smaller n' ping pong balls."

"Yeah, an' none for you, Oncie," said Gizette. "I get the last one!"

"Why can't I ever have any of the stew if I'm always the one earnin' the money?" Once-ler tripped out of their closet-like bedroom, and squeezed around the table through the equally cramped dining area. This was made even harder by his abnormal height; he always had bruises on his knees and elbows from being such a tall person in such a small house.

Before him sat his shorter, but equally ungainly family, squished around the table: his mother with her teased up hair balanced by a bow, in her patched polka-dot sweater while serving brown stew water, the twins Brett and Chet with ripped up overalls and squashed hats who were staring eagerly at two tiny potatoes on their plates, and the youngest "baby" Gizette with ratty hair, buck teeth, and the biggest serving of stew of all (which was still not very big).

In the corner Once-ler's father was asleep in the rocking chair by the fire, using his old gray coat as a blanket. His gray hat was pulled over his stubbled face, and his ax laid on the floor beside him after his long day of woodcutting. Once-ler had to avoid the blade as he tiptoed to the only corner of the room with enough space.

"Because, sweetie," said his Ma, "You're the oldest child, and we have to think of the youngins. It's time for you to be an adult. Anyway, we've all got to make sacrifices when times are hard." The fancy unidentifiable dead animal she always wore around her neck bobbed its nose as she scooped the last tiny part of the stew into her own bowl.

This was always the excuse whenever Once-ler said he needed anything: "We have to think of the youngins." He understood the sentiment, really. It just seemed like he couldn't recall anyone ever using that argument during the short time he'd gotten to be the youngest. The youngest kids were also older than he'd been when they'd first started using this excuse. In fact, it seemed his family had decided Once-ler was an adult the second he'd been born, and that the others could never grow up.

I'm thinking of officially calling our series of movie rewrites "Untwisted Tales" as a play on Disney's "Twisted Tale" novels. It's because we untwist bad storytelling and fix all the plot holes! (And often make the villains the good guys if they should have been, like King Magnifico).

Chapter 8 is up!

EXCERPT:

He'd finally become such a joke to the townsfolk, it seemed they'd entirely forgotten he was human.

Instead of just tomatoes, the grocer volunteered wheelbarrows of spoiled produce that some teenagers mixed with glass and rocks. A particularly well aimed stone knocked out a tooth as he was belting out his favorite jingle:

"The Thneed is good, the Thneed is grea—YOW!"

Once-ler usually didn't stop for anything, but the taste of blood made him drop his guitar on his foot. This hurt even worse, so he sprang up and down. The guitar bounced onto the concrete while the crowd laughed and cheered.

Once-ler didn't get a chance to see if the instrument had broken, because, in a fit of enthusiasm, the mean little girl with red hair ensured this was the case. She smashed it on the ground with the second worst noise Once-ler had ever heard.

A tomato landed in his stunned face, but he didn't even feel it. He just watched open-mouthed as fruits and vegetables pelted him and the girl stomped on the pieces, giggling with her parents who stood back and watched.

"Alright, sweetie, that's enough, we have to get to Grandma's house," the mother finally told her. She smiled and pulled out a big bag of chocolate-coated pretzels for her daughter as they walked away.

Once-ler's last shred of optimism finally evaporated. After his father had passed away, the guitar had been the only good memory he'd had from home.

"THAT'S IT!" he roared. "I've had enough!" He stormed from the gazebo with tears in his eyes.

Only the baker looked slightly sympathetic. She twisted a strand of curly brown hair around her finger as he strode past.

"Is this really the way to treat a stranger?!" he heard her yell at the grocer.

"Oh, come on, Norma, he's just a self-centered out-of-towner." The grocer sounded slightly abashed.

Once-ler turned to see Norma stomp her foot. "I know he is, and I know that piece of junk he's selling looks like a wadded up piece of bubblegum with hairs stuck in it, but you just gotta understand! Homeless mentally ill folks need to be shown charity..."

Her words just infuriated Once-ler more. "My family was right. I quit!" He ripped the Thneed from his neck, and accidentally whipped the baker in the face as he threw it away. It knocked off her glasses, which fell to the ground and shattered. Oops.

He walked away faster. Luckily his long legs took him back to the forest before anyone could call the police.

The Lorax Novelization

Do you ever kinda wish something would exist, so you just decide to make it yourself?

Read here. I release new chapters every week.

Hello, hello

Welcome to our fanfiction blog. We write high quality, wholesome, canon compliant (or canon objectively improved) fanfiction with as few OCs or annoying tropes as possible.

We also like to do interesting writing experiments and make quality novelizations of things. We aim to make everything like a professional book with a lot of depth, no cringe, and an actual full completed story. (Since that can be very rare).

Super quick Lorax concept, if he was a fae creature

original description:

"He was shortish. And oldish. And brownish. And mossy. And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and bossy."

I'm gonna make him more mysterious than the movie in my fanfiction.

"Your presence here has run its course. Now heed my words, depart this place perforce. Ere sunset paints the valley's hue, begone, or nature's wrath you'll rue. Forces unleashed, a primal might, will curse you through eternal night. Beware, the warning's clear and grim. Your fate awaits if you stay within!"

THANK YOU

Thank you for 40 kudos on the Lorax Rewrite!!!!!!!!!!!

Lorax Rewrite (one chapter left!)

Please leave a comment if you can and let me know how you feel about this rewrite now that it's about to end. It's one of the first fanfictions I worked really hard on finishing, so I'd really appreciate knowing what people think! Thank you so much if you've made it this far. I'm so happy I finally finished it (and am posting the last chapter next week), because for longest time I'd see people say they were going to rewrite this movie and never doing it. But now it exists! And it fixes and includes all the main things people always talked about for over a decade. I hope I've done some service to the world by getting it out.

I just realized I'm two thirds done posting the whole Lorax Rewrite. What do you guys think of it so far?

There are still a few twists to come. This has been super fun to work on all summer.