Original Idea VS Competition?

[Cli-Fi]

Is it possible to have a completely original idea in this day and age when it comes to literature? I have always looked for the basic competition that my WIP could have, but honestly I can't find much.

I cannot even find something remotely similar. It's a good mixture of science fiction and fantasy and as the niche is time travel that is even less competition to choose from. It's also part space opera. I honestly feel like I am in uncharted waters here, since the idea is pretty bold and ambitious. Which could be GREAT, or NOT.

Did you guys ever go for the original idea or did you always pull elements out of other competition? Did you ever think you had a great original idea, but then figure out everybody was doing it? Which would be easier to sell?

 

[psikeyhackr]

Is it possible to have a completely original idea in this day and age when it comes to literature?

I am not sure what you mean by COMPLETELY original.

I thought Old Man't War was pretty original with giving old people new bodies but the whole war against aliens concept was not new. Of course every time someone does do something truly original that is one less thing available, so I guess it must become more and more difficult. But just becaue it is original that still does not necessarily make it a great story. I say, give it a go and don't worry about how original it is.

psik

 

[HareBrain]

Did you ever think you had a great original idea, but then figure out everybody was doing it?

I wrote a novel once in which a central plot element was a star that didn't move across the sky, and which turned out to be a long-forgotten colony ship in geostationary orbit. Oh, and there were dragons. As I was nearing the end of writing it, I told a friend about it. He regarded me quizzically and said, "Have you read Pern?"

I think whether a plot or idea is truly original is probably low down on the list of factors that make it saleable or not. Some highly derivative works get published, some very original ones too. Most are somewhere between the two. Most readers seem to like something that's rooted in familiar territory, but with some neat original touches.

 

[VinceK]

If you come up with a truly original idea in a popular genre, then I'm sure it would be of interest to readers. While many readers enjoy reading stories played out in a recognisable format and niche genre, there are just as many looking for original concepts.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

I do think being original is important. I just view books like any other product (coming from my marketing/product development knowledge). What is your unique selling point? What does your product have that others do no provide? When they stand at a shelf and see your product next to another, what draws them to yours over the other?

Joe Abercrombie's stories are quite straight forward and nothing mindblowing. But his characters and the way he resolves situations is what makes him different to the others (atleast that is what I think).

I can't remember where I read it, but someone said: It is not important what you write, but how you write it.

(I think its important what you write too, but less so )

 

[Dulahan]

Original works and concepts tend to stick out I think. Old Mans War as mentioned above is a good point. Forever War is another. That one saw thousands of years of conflict, damn near eternal human soldiers POV, and an ever evolving Earth culture which change in abstract ways. That story was original on a couple levels.

If you have something original I would consider that very fortunate. Showing someone they something they never saw before is a great feeling.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Agents found my first book considerably more original than I did. I actually think the basic brat of a prince becomes a great king has been done many times before.

 

[Phyrebrat]

It's probably a fools errand to chase a dream of originality unless your brain works differently to the mainstream when it comes to plot.

But to my mind, you're coming at this from the wrong direction; Develop an original voice - not worry about an original plot - a highly original plot with a shabby tone or poor voice will get missed, whereas a highly original voice probably has a higher chance of standing out.

pH

 

[Toby Frost]

I agree with Phyrebrat. I've always liked Raymond Chandler's crime novels, and a few years ago I tried to find more writers like him. I read a few other writers writing about 1950's private eyes, but I found out very quickly that none of them wrote like Chandler, and that was the aspect that I was missing. I wish I could remember who said it (maybe Stephen King) but someone once said that the trick was not to write what had never been done before, but to do it exactly the way you would want to do it.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

"An original spin on an old idea…"

 

[Dulahan]

Everyone's voice and style is incredibly important in story telling, this is true. I have to say, however, that I have been very forgiving with those things if I am consuming a interesting or original idea.

I mean, it's not all about pretty words. Creation is sort of the point.

 

[Susan Boulton]

"An original spin on an old idea…"

Agree. How you tell your story is as important, if not more so than a so called original idea, because if you look hard enough you will find something similar. You just need to make the story yours.

 

[Toby Frost]

I definitely forgave Philip K Dick and William Gibson a lot because of their originality. I'm not even sure that I knew exactly what was going on in Neuromancer but I still enjoyed it because it seemed so strange and original (back then!). I'm not certain you can separate the author and the originality, supposing that you wanted to. The Forever War is a really original book, but I've read that it was partly based on the author's sense of coming home to a changed world after Vietnam. Would it be so distinctive without the author's own experiences colouring it so much?

That said, there do definitely seem to be types of SFF that are popular because they are so familiar. I've got a book called Death's Head by David Gunn which pretty much literally says on the cover "This is Sven Hassel in space". It didn't break much new ground, but yeah, it did what it said it would.

 

[Phyrebrat]

...it's not all about pretty words. Creation is sort of the point.

But there is a dynamic in voice that plot or story-arc can't cover. Pretty words aren't really 'voice' - the author's dynamic is (to my 'ears' ) isn't it?

Raymond Chandler doesn't use pretty words but his voice was very strong and inimitable. Stephen King, too.

pH

 

[Venusian Broon]

I'd try not to get hooked up on 'Originality' as a writer. Do what you think is right and if your work is strikingly new then it will come out as others read it.

For every person that will think, 'Oh, this is the most original book I've ever read' you'll find another that says, 'Ach, this is just a rip-off of XXX by so-and-so'. And no matter what you do I am sure this will happen! I think it's best not to hae too big heid, in case hype falls flat on its face. (although of course a degree of brash confidence always helps...)

 

[Cli-Fi]

Agents found my first book considerably more original than I did. I actually think the basic brat of a prince becomes a great king has been done many times before.

huh interesting. That's one of the topics I didn't touch upon. If you think your novel idea was so common and agents thought otherwise. I mean technically my novel also boils down to that as well, but it's buried under a lot of mythology. That's just a thing that ends up happening.

 

[The Big Peat]

My kneejerk response to these questions usually runs like this:

"Originality is overrated, copying is inevitable and a trait found in our greatest authors, get over these worries and concentrate on writing as well as you can."

And I believe that to be a truth, but on reflection, not the only truth.

On some level, yes, there are no new ideas. Even the most startlingly original concept will probably have a plot that reminds us of something else, characters will belong to the same great family of archetypes, cultures that echo our own.

Yet there is an awful lot of ground in between The Sword of Shannara and, uh, most startlingly innovative book you can think of. I don't think there's any such thing as a book that's 100pc original or 99pc homage*, but rather books are made up of blends of the two. Like, take Sword of Shannara and The Eye of the World. Both have a clear and obvious Tolkien influence. But The Eye of the World has Moiraine rather than a Gandalf tribute act and just on that alone, it feels more original. Is Moiraine original? Well, it depends what you mean by original. You can see scraps of several myths in her and of course there's the whole Aes Sedai/Bene Gesserit thing. I suppose you could call her an original expression of previous influences.

That form of originality - blending old stories together to get new results - is still open. Always will be, even as the field gets more and more crowded. Just have to find a different blend.

I think in a lot of ways, there's actually a surprising amount of manoeuvre in the fantasy genre at the moment. Has anyone wrote a story entirely from the perspective of a sentient sword or an aware spellbook? How about telling the tale of the elves transformed into hamsters and placed into classrooms all around the world to spy for Santa so he knows who's naughty and who's nice? Or the tale of the Dwarves bade to build a great temple on an old Orcish burial ground (albeit one for great sensitivity). Or maybe a group of kids discover Bran the Blessed's head and have to take it back to London to bury it.

I'm not sure anyone's ever drawn heavily from the crusades of the Teutonic knights for inspiration, or the Vietnamese wars against the Mongols. Or based their religions on that of ancient Etrusca, or Basque paganism. I'm pretty sure no one's combined the two things in each of those sentences.

And so on. Is this originality? Of a sort at least.


... Not that this really answers the OP's question at all.

I think the answer to the OP's question is that while readers like novelty and originality, publishers don't always do so, particularly as readers also like more of the same.

 

[Dan Jones]

Whether or not my ideas are original or not is not a question I ever dare ask myself, as it would involve far too much risk of disappearing down omphaloskeptic rabbitholes.

If I have an idea that feels good enough to me, then that's good enough for me. It's my job to make that idea as shiny and as good as possible. No doubt someone else got there before with respect to plot, theme, or setting or whatever, but so long as you're not intentionally lifting from other authors (which is obviously unforgivable) and fleshing that idea out with thine own voice, then it's all butter.

 

[The Big Peat]

Depending on how you define intentionally lifting from other authors, I think there's a number of authors who do just that.

 

[Dan Jones]

Depending on how you define intentionally lifting from other authors, I think there's a number of authors who do just that.

Ok, Ok, I meant flat out plagiarism. But I agree with you that anything is only ever recycling, and it's really not worth getting hung up on that. As all the schools say: recycling is cool!