Originality is overrated.

I think "fairly original" is the absolute best you can get if originality is what you're aiming for. The reason for this is because all throughout your life you are exposed to a common set of ideas and cultural/media tropes that end up forming the basis of how you perceive stories and how they are structured.

/end thread

To me, the quality of a work, usually one that has a lot of action, depends on how many times it can make the readers go "HELL YEAH!"

edited 13th Dec '11 11:41:23 PM by dRoy

Originality can happen. But it is usually most effective when it captures a new zeitgeist from the real world. Verne, Wells, and Gernsback, fathers of sci-fi as we know it, didn't just come up with the genre in a vacuum — they simply encapsulated the hope in science and technology that the Industrial Revolution created. If you want to be original, your best hope is to look at the zeitgeist of this era and create a genre that captures its facets in its inherent structure. I'm not a good enough author to tell you how to do this, unfortunately — if I was, I'd already be published and rich.

I do feel like originality is overrated. While it can exist - from execution of material, as others have noted — I. Think that a lot of people fail to realize that everything is derivative, to some extent. Too much emphasis is placed on "being original", and that can easily paralyze people. It certainly doesn't help one's self-confidence to worry about it.

I disagree with that quote. Something truly original would inspire.

Perhaps, but to what quote are you referring, Atticus?

The quote Annebeeche posted in the first page.

Ah. I agree with her quote, at least partially. My idealistic side says that there are still original works, but my cynical side says orignality is long dead, if it ever existed.

Originality will always show up. Just as there are a good deal of different people in this world, none of them 100% the same, stories are in a similar matter. The ingredients are the same, but the outcome rarely is.

I just don't get where the "imitation" concept comes from.

edited 14th Dec '11 7:47:34 AM by AtticusFinch

"I invent nothing new, I assembled the discoveries of others, men behind whom were centuries of work, had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed.

So it is with everything. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps for mankind, is the worst kind of non-sense."

— Henry Ford

These days it seems the most one can accomplish is to take unoriginal ideas and put original twists on them, which still can end up pretty damn awesome if it's done well.

How is it even possible to write something unoriginal anyway?

The only time I sit down and start writing is when I feel that the thing I want to hear said is not being said. If somebody is already saying it, then what's the point of me echoing them?

I also have thing strong belief that EVERYONE has something new and unique to say, it's just that they end up preoccupying themselves with convention and with what has already been said by others, and so, don't see what is there right in front of them.

That last paragraph of yours is basically how I try to operate, in spite of my cynicism. I do believe that everyone has something to say, and a right to say it.

Personally I don't want to quest for something completely original, nor something completely known. I want to write my own story, because that is what I want to write.

Obviously debating this topic is a source of Writer's Block for some.

True originality is extremely difficult and not likely to turn out well from the average author.

Being "original" as in, not overly cliche (unless that's your intended effect) and creating as many variations and differences of existing concepts as possible is something that you should attempt to do.

I have an idea I'd call original.

But it's only original because I stole it from somewhere else, and put it in a different context.

Yes.

If you live in this postmodern world, apparently the zeitgeist makes you feel like there is nothing new under the sun.

Every day is a new day. Every person is a new person. Every viewpoint is different from all other viewpoints. How can you feel like there is no originality?

If the goal is to make a billion dollars, by all means, forget originality. You can take a few moldy tropes (farm boy becomes knight, princess in distress), dress them up with moldy props from another genre (spaceships, ray guns), package it all in a moldy format (cliffhanger serials), add a wild card (charismatic pirate/fighter pilot antihero), and with a little luck you too can hit the big time (Star Wars).

I think the problem that many stories run into is that they either try too hard to be original, or they didn't try at all and end up becoming Cliche Storms. I think the trick is getting it just right.

Personally, my writing style is:

• Think up of an appealing/cool concept.
• Apply a cliched formula to the concept.
• Play around with the tropes that make up the formula and throw in a Magnificent Bastard villain or two.
• ???
• Profit!

Don't worry yourself too much about how unoriginal or original your work is. Just don't copy straight up from something else, or think that intentionally playing with tropes for the sake of playing with tropes will make a story better or think that x-verting any neutral trope is inherently better than playing it straight. Don't try to just "deconstruct" something unless you know that something in and out and know how deconstructions properly work.

Each person is unique, each person's experiences and voice are (or at least should be) their own. Anything you write using your own life's experience and your personal views and your voice, even if it resembles something else, will still have it's own tinges of your perspective.

edited 28th Dec '11 3:46:46 PM by culex2

Random Rament*

It's putting ideas down in words that is the hardest...damn it.