Pressure of Originality

Everyone needs to stress about being original and avoiding cliches. That being said, there is also no story that hasn't been told.

A straightforward story can be original - through memorable characters, unexpected plot, fantastic locations, or even through hundred of little details that make your story rich and vibrant.

Always worry about being fresh. Even the most experienced writer has to come up with something new, or folks will stop buying their books.

Here's what you need to do, though.

Read voraciously. Not just genre, but make sure there's a huge chunk of genre there. The more you've read, the more you'll know what's already been done.

I have a friend on another messageboard who writes 2-3 science fiction scripts a year. The problem is, every single idea he comes up with has been done before, and usually done much better. He doesn't realize, going into these scripts what history the devices he's trying to use already have. It would be akin to trying to write a vampire novel having never read Rice, Braum, or any other vampire novelist.

Brainstorm mercilessly. Every single scene. Every single character. Every prop, plot point, twist, turn and surprise. Why this one? Have you ever seen it used this way before? Is there a better way to do this? A better location to put it in?

I like to watch Jackie Chan movies. Not for the plot, good heavens no. Not for the lousy acting, that's for sure. I watch them for the amazing ways Jackie takes any prop and turns it into a martial arts mayhem accessory. Have you ever seen a steering wheel used as a weapon? A set of moose-antlers? A refrigerator? If you said yes to all of the above, you've been watching Jackie Chan.

Write masterfully. In the final analysis, people are going to remember you for one of a few things. A fantastic story, fantastic characters, or fantastic storytelling.

I'll give you an example of what I mean. The Elric series by moorcock is horribly written. Moorcock's writing style is atrocious (imo). But Elric and Stormbringer are such fantastic characters, and the premise is so strong, you can forgive him it. On the other hand, other stories have less unique qualities, but are told so convincingly, you're still turning the page to see what comes next. McCaffrey's Pern series is like this. While Pern itself is an amazingly unique place, we are drawn not only to it, but to her wonderful written style.


Now, having said that, there's only one way on earth to become a better writer (and thus work on item 3 here). And that's to write. So go ahead and write your first novel, even if it is derivative. Just understand that it's going to be, and do your best with items 1 and 2 as you go to try and instill as much of your own originality as you can.

When you've finished this novel, shelve it, and start another one. Watch how much less derivative it becomes. It's a never-ending road from there.

Good luck!

Pick up a copy of Diana Wynne Jones' book The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

I read this when I was working on Goblin Quest, and it was a tremendous help in hunting down and eradicating all of the fantasy cliches that had crept into my writing.

read voraciously? i guess you could. ...or spend twenty minutes at the bookstore looking at books currently on the shelves and getting an overall gist of what's going on. as if it were possible not to easily locate a tolkein rip-off merely by the cover (and what more do you really need to know about those?), a quick purusal of the back matter, a short excerpt up front (i'm sure there's a name for those), the first page or two and a little random skipping should give the potential reader a fairly good clue what that book's about, no? this is assuming you already know how to write yourself out of a paper sack, of course.

if you don't find any LOTR-ish books on the shelves (as if...), well, i guess that means one of two things: 1) the idea is tired and taking a break or 2) there just aren't any quality rip-offs worthy to print and the market is drooling for a good one. if, on the other hand, the market is over-saturated with the same kind of book, hey, what's one more? seems people are buying them enough for the publishers to keep cranking 'em out. that's my reasoning at least, lol.

i'm fortunate in that my books are unprintable. too much sex and violence, blasphemy and foul language. and those are the redeeming qualities.

yeah, originality ain't going to hurt. i mean, duh. there's a line between original and bizarre, though. i do think it's worth checking out lists of genre cliches just to be sure you're not committing literary crime. and flipping every single thing on its ear usually doesn't pan out that great, either. i think there are a lot of balances to make when writing, especially assuming your writing a tale that makes sense to the western culture.

it's ironic that you mention 'star wars' and 'originality' in the same breath. 'the hidden fortress' in space supposedly underpinned with joseph campbell's archetypes is pretty much it. 'originality' is far too broad a term to grapple with and comprehend. it's a fool's quest, anyway. i think the best us regular mortals can do is arrive at semi-original premises, which are often just cobbling together bits and pieces of this and that.

do i worry about originality? to a certain extent. i worry about not retelling someone else's story verbatim, that's about it. what i care about more than anything is being entertaining.

right now i'm pulling ideas out of my arse to fill in a story worthy of the sci-fi channel. is it original? no, probably not. i mean, i can't point to any one story and say that there are a lot of ties to it, but there're a lot of little ideas i've taken from here and there, added a few things, whatever. in the end, as long as it's entertaining, i'm good with that. and if anyone calls it 'original,' i'll be the first to point to every single influence and little rip-off and share where they come from.

is it possible to break any new ground with the intention of actually breaking new ground? lol.

Depends on your market. Younger markets are looking for more cliche' stuff whereas older markets generally are looking for originality. Younger readers seem to be digesting fantasy whole now, creating a demand for similar things, whereas older readers seem to be looking for some originality in the mix.

If you story needs cliche's, use them. But don't be afraid to personalize your story. LEave your imprint in everything you do. Don't just use dragons and goblins like every tolkien rippoff out there. Make things up; play around with things. Trying doesn't hurt anyone.

In all seriousness, I think that striving for originality is one of the hardest hurdles for new writers to the SF and fantasy fields to surmount. There are so many conventions in the field that it's hard to come to terms with them. I would really suggest reading all of the "classic" writers that you can find, just so you understand what has been written and what the giants of the field have done with different themes.

The downside of this is that you may get a bad case of "analysis paralysis" and think that everything you try to write is Just Like some other writer's book or story. You'll find your own voice and your own approach, so try not to worry about that.

Some degree of originality is necessary, but that doesn't mean you can't have a good v. evil plot - just bring in an original execution of it, or originality in other areas of the story.

I recommend you peruse Rachel Vater's blog to get a sense of what she gets pitched in queries about fantasy projects as well as ideas she throws out there as to what she likes. It's only one agent, but it's still an agent's insight on what some editors are looking for.

I'm currently shopping around a good vs. evil fantasy romance and I used lots of cliches, heh heh! On purpose! (I'm lazy). (Got a full and a partial request to boot). But I strove to come up with really good characters and conflict. You'll probably have to rely on some of the tried and true approaches to an extent, but if you have a fresh twist that will help it stand out from the crowd.

Good luck!

Interesting responses. My first reaction was to say the opposite - that n00bs are usually over-obsessed with originality. I'm of the opinion that there's nothing truly new under the sun, instead the important thing is to approach your story with thoroughness and care: make sure the characters' psychology makes sense, and the plot flows naturally, and with sf it's extremely important to make sure that the worldbuilding embodies and expresses the issues you want to deal with and is integral to the plot. Not that I'm saying originality is bad, but usually one truly original worldbuilding idea is enough to grow a good sf novel from.

Look at Anne McCaffrey's Pern series for example. That whole series is built on only two ideas: dragons which psychically bond to riders, and infectious alien plants which fall from a passing-by asteroid. Neither of those is a super-original idea, in fact on their own they both look kinda cheesy. Yet a whole great series of books came from exploring how these two factors affect the lives of humans.

preyer said:

too much sex and violence, blasphemy and foul language.

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Sounds good to me. Oh, wait! Too much? How does that work?

Write what you're attracted to. If you write what you don't want to write in the effort of being original then your work will suffer for it. The good part is that stories can be remarkably similar while at the same time being incredibly different. Don't sweat it and do your best.

I know that many fantasy fans would snarl at me for this with this, but I think many of the fantasy creatures in Lord of the Rings are overdone (like, thay might have been fresh ideas back then, but so many people are using them now). Try to avoid using Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs, Goblins, etc, in your story. Also, it's fine to have a dark lord, just don't call him 'The Dark Lord' or 'The Lord of Darkness' or 'Lord of all things totally dark'. Make him an original character, and give him an original name.

Try to think of something totally cool, that couldn't have been in any other story. Invent new things and be creative. The whole story world is yours to create! And while I believe that it might be true what some people say - that all stories have been written before - this is true only in a very broad generic sense. You might write yet another traditional fantasy, but one that's completely different from any other traditional fantasy.

Spirit_Fire said:

Also, it's fine to have a dark lord, just don't call him 'The Dark Lord' or 'The Lord of Darkness' or 'Lord of all things totally dark'.

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Shadows are dark, and so is shade. And if he's evil, then he's going to be thin. Hey, you doubt this, show me a book with a chubby evil overlord. Go on, I'll wait. . .

So. He's shady. And he's thin.

You could call him Slim Shady. That'd be original. Well, kinda.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention - please don't write a story about wizards who use magic wands.

Wizards don't use magic wands, they use staves (durr).

Fairies use magic wands (or fairie godmothers, etc).

This may come a little late but I agree that reading what is currently out should help not only show what is being published, but what might be getting overdone.
Preyer, looking at the books on the shelves isn't enough. Titles and summaries on covers won't show enough about why some stories do well. Why are Eragon and Eldest better than other books with warriors riding dragons?

I agree with the general ideas mentioned that originality lies mainly in the approach to the story and the characters you develop. I am writing a story where the villains want to take over their society. One thing I've done (attempting some originality) is not to give their group a name. Their leader (a dark, hominous figure, of course) told his followers that names are only used to identify you and he did not want their movement identified. Everything else I read gives the villains' group some specific name.

rfmgil said:

This may come a little late but I agree that reading what is currently out should help not only show what is being published, but what might be getting overdone.

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Adding to this: Researching bookstore shelves is good, but make sure that you're checking the publication dates. You could find six shelves of epic fantasy novels, but if they were all published five years ago, that doesn't mean it's a hopping market today. Make sure you hit the New Release tables, too.

oh, i thought we were talking about plot originality. no need to read the whole thing to get a sense of the plot, no? sure, if you need to read for style and specific content, then you've got to read it, but just to understand what the plot it, nah. here's a hint: the good guys win in the end. we're also not talking about plot turns and twists, characterization, etc., are we?

why does eragon do well? probably not from the writing. nor the plot. could it be, gasp, the author was a child when he wrote it? why do half the books 'do well'? i've a theory: people are suckers. slap a label saying 'mynock spit' on a jar of vaseline and you'll move a million units. same thing with authors: names sell. pretty simple on that front.

as far as originality residing within the approach and characters, hm... that reminds me to pick up that book listing the forty characters every story has. not sure about its validity, but, i mean c'mon, let's be realistic, characters have to be about the least original thing about a typical story. i can agree with it's the approach, at least it's the approach more than anything else. want 'original' characters? fine. decide which of your characters fit what zodiac sign the best then buy one of those zodiac/horoscope/whatever new age crap-fest that's on sale and read how those personality types are 'supposed' to act towards on another. original? hardly. about as original as laying out tarot cards for your characters. it might *seem* original, but that depends on your approach.

slap whatever plot templates you've got and the characters act accordingly for the most part, no? that is, you've got character A which you've got to get to plot point B so that prophecy C can come to fruition (or, as an act of true unoriginality, it doesn't, which is basically a backlash effect against the cliche).

barring any comprehension problems, five minutes alone with a book should be adequate time to garner the plot and the main characters, not to mention some of the style. ten minutes with a book and, well, unless it's truly original, a great portion of it should be fairly apparent. i'm not suggesting you'll catch all the themes, figure out the romantic subplot, or be able to reliably predict which character will die/betray the group/or be there for comedic relief.

originality? fugetaboutit. bear in mind the cliches and just write the damn thing. it can't possibly be worse than some of the crap that's out there right now.

You may want to check out this little test. http://rinkworks.com/fnovel/ It's all in good fun of course, but it is based in some serious truth. Every genre is riddled with cliches. The key is to pay hommage, but not be derivative. Yeah, that's simple to do!

There is a link on about question 68 to a fantastic article about the weights of medieval weapons. thank you *very much* for the prelink to that, pasty.

Or Baron Harkonnen?

clara bow said:

I'm currently shopping around a good vs. evil fantasy romance and I used lots of cliches, heh heh! On purpose! (I'm lazy). (Got a full and a partial request to boot). But I strove to come up with really good characters and conflict. You'll probably have to rely on some of the tried and true approaches to an extent, but if you have a fresh twist that will help it stand out from the crowd.

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After writing seven books, I've decided that fresh twists are deadly. Tried and true plots, conflicts that come from the Bible, characters that you're sure you've met before (because you have, in a zillion novels), that's what readers want. And a good title. Reserve all your creativity for the title.