creative doubts

White · Dec 11, 2016

Not sure if this belongs in this sub-forum and if it doesn't I apologise but I'm not exactly sure where else to put it. It could qualify as a sort of writers block since its stopping me from writing.

I've been having doubts about my creativity for about the last year or so and I thought I had gotten over it but apparently not. It always rears its head when ever I read something I really like and then I just get frustrated that I couldn't think of the idea myself. And now never can because I've seen someone else do it, so even if I have an idea like it, I can't help this doubt that it's not going to be from my creativity but just because I've seen somebody else do it first. Which feels like a failing on my part.

I know all about reading what others do and write to help you grow as an author and learning from that. And that all authors take inspiration from others ideas just as I'm sure these writers did before writing the pieces I like. I can talk over rational ideas and logic till I'm blue in the face. It still doesn't help shake this doubt.

Am I just being too hard on myself? Is this just a worry that has become lodged in my head? I'm really not sure anymore and could do with an outside perspective on it I guess. Thanks for listening,

White.

field19 · Dec 11, 2016

White,

Welcome to the club, but do not let this get to you. Ideas are free game in the marketplace and can be utilized by anyone. It's the window dressing around the ideas that makes your writing distinctive. Always remember that.

Never shy away from "borrowing" ideas so long as that idea is appropriate for whatever you are writing about at the time. Just make sure you add your own idea(s) to it. It doesn't matter if someone says, "Oh, that's just like what X bestselling author did in Y book. What matters is what new element or twist you bring to it.

The same tropic cliches are utilized by many authors every day. Just consider, utilizing cliches are not in and of them selves a bad thing. After all, cliches are cliches because they have worked time and time again. You've heard that old literary agent mantra: "Just give me something that's the same--but different!"

pamrobi · Dec 11, 2016

You are definitely not alone in this. But like field19 says, the same tropes are used ever and over by many different writers all the time. Ever heard that wisdom about the seven basic plots in fiction? It's true, partly because all humans have certain common experiences--birth, death, conflict, heartbreak, desire, success, failure--but it's the details that make our narratives compelling.

I picked up an exercise in a writing class years ago that has helped me get past my periodic moments of feeling the way you do: deliberately lift a plot from some well-known source, e.g. Shakespeare, or an opera, and rewrite it according to your own reality. See how different your story turns out from the original. It's pretty liberating, and you might come up with some very good stuff.

White · Dec 11, 2016

field19 said:
White,

Welcome to the club, but do not let this get to you. Ideas are free game in the marketplace and can be utilized by anyone. It's the window dressing around the ideas that makes your writing distinctive. Always remember that.

Never shy away from "borrowing" ideas so long as that idea is appropriate for whatever you are writing about at the time. Just make sure you add your own idea(s) to it. It doesn't matter if someone says, "Oh, that's just like what X bestselling author did in Y book. What matters is what new element or twist you bring to it.

The same tropic cliches are utilized by many authors every day. Just consider, utilizing cliches are not in and of them selves a bad thing. After all, cliches are cliches because they have worked time and time again. You've heard that old literary agent mantra: "Just give me something that's the same--but different!"

borrowing isn't so much the issue. I can look at any idea and put my own spin on it. That's easy enough. It's this doubt that I couldn't think of the idea in the first place. Sure, I can think of it after having seen it. But not before. And that's what bothers me.

It's not like it's not a genre I hadn't heard off and it just seems so easy and simple an idea now. Yet I couldn't think of it. And it bugs me. I'm trying to change the way I think and look at this differently, but these doubts just keep slipping into my mind and it's suddenly all I can think about.

White · Dec 11, 2016

pamrobi said:
You are definitely not alone in this. But like field19 says, the same tropes are used ever and over by many different writers all the time. Ever heard that wisdom about the seven basic plots in fiction? It's true, partly because all humans have certain common experiences--birth, death, conflict, heartbreak, desire, success, failure--but it's the details that make our narratives compelling.

I picked up an exercise in a writing class years ago that has helped me get past my periodic moments of feeling the way you do: deliberately lift a plot from some well-known source, e.g. Shakespeare, or an opera, and rewrite it according to your own reality. See how different your story turns out from the original. It's pretty liberating, and you might come up with some very good stuff.

Im glad to hear that I'm not the only one to go through this. I hope that means there is a way to move beyond it as well. I've tried something like the exercise you described. And yes, I have been able to produce a story outline from it based on something that inspires me. But at the same time I can't help feeling the ideas I created came more from what I had seen this other author write than my own ideas and creativity. Like I could never have thought of them myself.

JulianneQJohnson · Dec 11, 2016

In many ways there are no new ideas under the sun. However, no other writer will have the same perspective or write it in the same way as you. It's not really for you to decide whether it's better, or worse, or different from someone else's writing. Leave that up to the reader.

pamrobi · Dec 11, 2016

That author you're admiring probably came up with the idea after being inspired by something/someone else. Most of our ideas don't come out of nowhere. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants.

Simpson17866 · Dec 11, 2016

White said:
Not sure if this belongs in this sub-forum and if it doesn't I apologise but I'm not exactly sure where else to put it. It could qualify as a sort of writers block since its stopping me from writing.

I've been having doubts about my creativity for about the last year or so and I thought I had gotten over it but apparently not. It always rears its head when ever I read something I really like and then I just get frustrated that I couldn't think of the idea myself. And now never can because I've seen someone else do it, so even if I have an idea like it, I can't help this doubt that it's not going to be from my creativity but just because I've seen somebody else do it first. Which feels like a failing on my part.

I know all about reading what others do and write to help you grow as an author and learning from that. And that all authors take inspiration from others ideas just as I'm sure these writers did before writing the pieces I like. I can talk over rational ideas and logic till I'm blue in the face. It still doesn't help shake this doubt.

Am I just being too hard on myself? Is this just a worry that has become lodged in my head? I'm really not sure anymore and could do with an outside perspective on it I guess. Thanks for listening,

White.

Here's something I've had a lot of luck with: looking for problems with a popular work (or body of works).

When I can't come up with anything myself, I go to the internet to see if other people have noticed anything about the same work that I might not like. When a work turns out to be completely flawless :tongue

I move on to a different one.

When I finally find a problem, I lecture to myself – in as much detail as possible – about why I don't like it, and I commit to showing my readers something better.

TLDR: When you find yourself running out of good ideas, try coming up with the opposite of a bad idea instead.

White · Dec 12, 2016

JulianneQJohnson said:
In many ways there are no new ideas under the sun. However, no other writer will have the same perspective or write it in the same way as you. It's not really for you to decide whether it's better, or worse, or different from someone else's writing. Leave that up to the reader.

yes, there is all of that. And I'm trying to think that way. That it's not a problem and I would have thought of this idea in time. It was just bad timing of reading it maybe. This doubt is just hard to beat.

White · Dec 12, 2016

pamrobi said:
That author you're admiring probably came up with the idea after being inspired by something/someone else. Most of our ideas don't come out of nowhere. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants.

Something im trying to tell myself. And it helps...a little bit. This doubt is just hard to shake is all.

frimble3 · Dec 12, 2016

Not a writing example: Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius. He drew up plans for an ornithopter (a man-sized device that flies by flapping wings, like a bird).
He was not the first person who thought of this, it goes back at least as far as the Greek myth of Icarus. It wasn't like his worked any better than all the previous attempts - a low bar, as successful attempts came centuries later.I don't think he even got as far as a working model.
But, his sketches are cool, so he's the guy we remember. (Yeah, he was already famous, but not for flying machines.)

As everyone else says, grab an idea and make it your own.

White · Dec 14, 2016

frimble3 said:
Not a writing example: Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius. He drew up plans for an ornithopter (a man-sized device that flies by flapping wings, like a bird).
He was not the first person who thought of this, it goes back at least as far as the Greek myth of Icarus. It wasn't like his worked any better than all the previous attempts - a low bar, as successful attempts came centuries later.I don't think he even got as far as a working model.
But, his sketches are cool, so he's the guy we remember. (Yeah, he was already famous, but not for flying machines.)

As everyone else says, grab an idea and make it your own.

I like that way of thinking. That actually helps. Thanks.

Simone.Garick · Dec 14, 2016

Welcome to the club. The secret I have found. Is not to think about storytelling as means of displaying creativity, but rather as tthat which your creativity is in service of.

To put it this way: DOn't worry about being creative, just concern yourself with creating. Write the story, you want to read. There's a good chance you will write something that does not exist. (since if it existed you'd have found it alread). Don't try to be fancy, don't try to be clever. Just tell the story. Just the act of putting a familiar story in your own words, changes the story into something new.

creative doubts

White

friendly white tiger

field19

DreamSeeker

pamrobi

White

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White

friendly white tiger

JulianneQJohnson

Ferret Herder

pamrobi

Simpson17866

White

friendly white tiger

White

friendly white tiger

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

White

friendly white tiger

Simone.Garick