Post History
One solid advice how to make it fly and make sure readers who don't know the myth aren't confused, and readers who know the myth aren't annoyed: Hang one good, sturdy lampshade on it. Have it expl...
Answer
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9022 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
One solid advice how to make it fly and make sure readers who don't know the myth aren't confused, and readers who know the myth aren't annoyed: Hang one good, sturdy [lampshade](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging) on it. Have it explained, be it through a narrator/sidenote, or by a character within the story: The original myth retold clearly and in sufficient detail (possibly separated into many parts along the chapters if a single information dump would be too much), some fundamental parallels with your story and some of the essential differences. Leave more parallels as a taste for the readers to find, and have the most startling differences to surface in a glaringly obvious way, giving them a firm contrast against the original.