How to keep certain parts of your fanfic original

Now i know that, by definition, fanfiction stories are not really original. But even so, it seems only right that a little bit of originality is thrown in by the writer. Something i fear that i'm not really doing with two of my current fanfics.

It feels like i'm using too much material from stuff i saw in movies or on Television, which is plagiarism (something that never used to bother me in the past, but, to be fair, i didn't know that it was all that bad back thing). What can be done, I mean, being original is hard

Don't want to sound like an ass but do you realize that you just made five threads for this? Scratch that, make that six as of a few seconds ago.

You might want to stop refreshing the page.

edited 13th Oct '14 1:03:28 PM by amitakartok

Jesus Christ, what the hell?

Don't jump at his throat, I already PM'd a moderator to clear out the duplicates. He probably didn't do it on purpose or he wouldn't have stopped after I asked him.

edited 13th Oct '14 1:09:30 PM by amitakartok

It's true, i didn't know, it was complete accident. Please let us focus on the actual topic

I myself had problems with originality; still do. But it got better after I expanded my knowledge in the genre; by mentally cross-referencing what generally happens, I sometimes notice niches that weren't explored.

HARD WORK AND GUTS.

And also a touch of postmodernism, in my experience. It's what allows me to take a general premise that's been done three or four times by other people (for example, Shinji Ikari as Ghost Rider) and make something totally new and epic out of it, largely unlike the earlier iterations of that premise.

edited 13th Oct '14 1:34:40 PM by EvaUnit01

The "rule" with my stories seems to be that I end up wanting to write the WEIRDEST ideas that I get. If something seems too tame or like it's been done to death in a given fandom, I scrap it in favor of something at least somewhat bizarre.

I think a good example of where I tried to bring originality intentionally is in National Anthem - yeah, I made a page for my own fic for fun a while back. It's a Super Smash Bros. fanfiction with a Hunger Games theme. Now, this premise isn't uncommon in the fandom. They seem to marry well - arena-fighting game with Loads And Loads Of Characters + The Hunger Games is an easy mix. However, when looking through crossovers and starting to read them on fanfiction.net, all I was finding was stuff that was bland - retellings of THG with character-names filed off and replaced with Nintendo characters (Link and Zelda being the most common Katniss-replacements). So, reading this, going "Dammit, I wish there was a crossover between these two I liked because I want to read this!" I... made my own.

And, in making my own, I deliberately set out to make it more of a hybrid than a retelling - to keep the Smash/Nintendo characters' backstories intact, for instance, to respect their various worlds as the worlds they were (They got the District treatment, but no "Hyrule is District 12" or transporting them to Panem). I used some characters as expies of THG characters, but not completely -as they still had the same Nintendo-given backstories. I told it from a unique perspective: Instead of focusing on the "Katniss" of my story, I focused on the "Haymitch" of it - Link from Ocarina of Time and Melee'. In addition to this, I kept the idea of crazy Nintendo-powers the characters wielded, and items, and notable starships... And the "revolution" part of it completely went in its own direction, organic to the story. - In other words, Hunger Games inspired, but not at all a "retelling with the names filed off" like what frustrated me in the fandom.

So, I guess what I'm saying is do that. Don't be afraid to try on your weird-ass ideas, and if you can't get ideas weird enough, find something in the fandom that annoys you and de or re-construct it.

It also helps to write what you want to read. Whether it's a pairing you don't see enough fics for or a setting or a plot point that people don't seem to look into.

Someone once asked for a "Coulson as Dad, Avengers as siblings" fic. There aren't nearly enough kid fics for the Avengers as a whole IMO (it's usually only just one of them being adopted by the others, age regression or high school), so I thought, why not?

Another thing is to play with short fics and drabbles. Use those to play out random fic ideas. Once you start writing, you may find yourself wanting to expand on them. (The above idea was actually inspired (though not really similar/related to one of the stories in my one-shot serial).

Basically, if you've already seen it done (and done well), don't do it unless there's a certain, specific element that you feel the need to expand upon.