On Originality

I just thought this was funny.

Most people seem to agree that “there is nothing new under the sun” and that the quest for an original idea is a fruitless one. (Did you know that quote is from the Bible? All my life I’ve heard that said and never knew its source before.) Another way to think of it is like they say in the Barenaked Ladies song, “It’s all been done before”. There’s no such thing as a unique thought because some part of it will have been conceived of before. J.K. Rowling invented the word “Muggle” for her novels, but after she was published, another author sued her because they, too, had invented the word.

When I was thinking about this topic the other day, I came across a quote from a poet and author named Audre Lorde that I agree with: “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” There are many, many ways to take the same parts and end up with a different whole, at least in regards to story-telling. Bacon and eggs may only make so many different types of breakfast, but a stabbing in an insular small town can end up going in hundreds of different directions. Or look at Juliet Marillier’s WILDWOOD DANCING and ENTWINED by Heather Dixon. Both novels are YA retellings of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, but they’re very different stories.

No author wants to be accused of lifting any idea from another work when they didn’t mean to do it. If you’re purposefully working with the themes from Snow White in your dystopian noir coming-of-age novel, then it’s gratifying for someone to recognize that. But if you put a story out there and someone says that your tough-as-nails former soldier with a wicked sense of humor and a sensual side is a total rip-off of Zoe from Firefly, that can be both frustrating and heart-breaking.

So what’s a writer to do? Waiting for an original idea to come along is no good because it just won’t happen. The best bet is to have a different set of eyes take a look at whatever you’re working on. Ask a critique partner or beta reader to see if anything in your WiP sounds too familiar. If it does, there’s a choice to make — keep it in or take it out.

A direct parallel should always, in my opinion, be removed. If your WiP has a mysterious masked man in black who turns out to be the fearsome pirate Robin, maybe that’s skirting a little too close to the Dread Pirate Roberts. Change his name, his clothes, his gender, all of the above — something.

An archetypal character, like the fresh-faced farm boy or the wise mentor, is one that might show up in any number of places (Star Wars and Eragon, for example). A universal character can be left as is, but it’s usually a better call to try to stretch the character into some with more depth to it. What makes your fresh-faced farm boy stand apart from the legions already out there? Find some way to make your farm boy more than just an archetype and he won’t seem so similar to ones who came before.

If, on the other hand, you want to remind the reader of something else, as with the fairy tale dystopian noir I mentioned earlier, I suggest taking a look at a recent post from Jaclyn Dolamore that covers the subject.

While there may be “nothing new under the sun”, it’s no excuse for sloppy writing. Plagiarism is never OK, and flat characters or plots that don’t stand out are boring. So spice things up a little. Take the best parts of all your favorite things, boil them down until they’re unrecognizable, and create something with a little zest. I found, completely by accident, the perfect quote for this from Austin O’Malley, “Every writer is an iron-monger that melts down old junk into new steel.” So, go — make your steel. I’ll be over here at my own forge, hammering away.