Originality 101 · 1:14pm Dec 2nd, 2014
So you want to write a fic. A not-bad fic. Maybe even, dare you say, a good fic. So you take your idea to your trusted super bestest prereader ever, and what do they say? Bleh. Seen it! Next!
You go back to your post-it board of solitude and lurk with your juice box and turtleneck until the odd hours of the morning, at which time sparks jump in your addled brain in ways sparks were not meant to jump. Presto! An idea that no one has had before! So you bounce back to your prereader waggling your idea all willy nilly only to be met with a deadpan:
Give me something new! No, less new! No! More new! No! Not crazy! And on and on drones the reading public while the author cuddles his Twist plushie under the bed. Originality is hard, but it does not have to be. If we can just pin down some concept of what the reader wants, the world will stop spinning and we can get to writing.
What signifies "seen it before"?
The most common charge leveled against stories that "lack originality" is that the reader feels like they have read it before. Now why should that matter? People read books over and over. The thing is: when we reread a book, we are already familiar with it. We acknowledge that we have read it, so when it dangles its cliffhangers and prods us: "wonder what will happen next", we cut it some slack. Of course we knew what would happen. We have read it already. Not the book's fault.
However, if we pick up something that we have not read before but have the same thought, then we no longer have that nagging notion of fairness hushing us up. Combine that with the fact that the author ostensibly had access to the first fics of its kind as we have, and we end up feeling that not only do we know what will happen, but the author is mooching off of other (better) stories. Feels unjust if you think about it.
And yet, this still is not a satisfying answer because if you have read any amount of stories, you get a sense of where they are going. Why is calling the ending here different from calling the ending there? If we are calling the ending in both places, the answer must lie somewhere else. We drop one fic for unoriginality not because we can call the ending, but because the surprise of the ending was more or less the only reason we were sticking around in the first place. Clearly, if something else in the setting, style, or characters had caught our attention, we might stay for those.
The same holds true if you have seen "that character" before, or the story asks us to go to (totally not I swear)Middle Earth #83647163. We end up feeling like it is asking our attention primarily to give us things we already had, and by virtue of our already having them, probably did not come up with on its own. It is thus repetitive, thin, AND lazy. Triple offensive. How can we possibly feel good about giving this story any more of our time? Good riddance.
"Original ideas" are a red herring
This poses issues for the go-to advice for originality: get more original ideas. Authors are obsessed with these one to two sentence blurbs and "personal spins." If only we could find the perfect idea, then we could put it right there in the description, and everyone would know that at last they have found something original!
But now readers have read the description. They know the gist of the idea, and if they can see the appeal, they can probably already guess what you are going to do with it.
We call stories unorginal not when they are well-worn, but when they are thin. Doubly so when they are thin and expecting the "novelty" of well-worn ideas to carry them. If you wrote it in one line, then it is still one line of content. Hanging a whole story on an idea results in headcanonfic: usually a 2k word oneshot consisting of a mad rush to a single worldbuilding idea or character moment bookended with filler without proper setup, context, or sometimes even payoff. We get so caught up in that one single idea that we forget to do anything with it. Our readers roll their eyes: "Great, another gimmick oneshot."
Ideas with milage
At the end of the day, we must accept that with the advent of the internet, readers are more savvy than ever. They are not those innocent souls from the 20s and 30s who could enjoy pulp unironically. What does this mean for us? It means we have to redefine originality for an audience that is increasingly difficult to surprise. Accept that the reader will see all of your clever ideas coming a mile away, and has heard all the Asops before. Now how can we write a story that still holds their interest? The answer lies in focusing on the journey, not the destination.
First, we must start with how we pick and approach our premise. The more that premise relies on shock, the less likely it will age well. This is why "X is a changeling" is so often dismissed (sheer volume aside). We have seen it many times before, so we are not going to be jolted along with the rest of the cast, and we have likely seen the sensible conclusion already: if the changeling still wants to get along, then if everyone chills out, we can all get along and act like adults about it. If it does not want to get along, then put it down and move on. Any additional drama results in waiting around for the characters to get on the same page as the reader. Then it ends. Whoopee...
This brings up another expectation: if the audience has seen a concept done before, then we can safely expect that everyone has had time to give the situation some thought. Thus, when we see that X is a changeling and now Ponyville has turned into a one-dimensional villain mob, we toss the story. Season 2 was years ago. If you are going to "me too," at least copy someone who put some effort into the premise in the first place. Better yet, since you saved all that brainpower by recycling a plot, why not put it into some other aspect of your story: setting, detail, characters, and so on?
And this is where everything starts falling into place. Readers do not necessarily need a shiny new premise. They just want a story based on a premise that is still effective after the shock wears off and to be able to trust that the author has put some of their own effort into their retelling. Instead of busting our brains concocting hare-brained schemes of questionable logic, it is more than enough to take a premise we have seen before and put our heart into telling it.
True originality lies in execution
High-level ideas are meant to sum up a multitude of stories in one sentence. If you can come up with a new one, then the old ones were not doing their job very well. What is far harder to summarize away is the intangible moment to moment atmosphere of a well thought-out and executed story. Every new arrangement of details is something we have not seen before. We may be able to come up with a summary for them, but if we are enjoying ourselves enough, we will not want to. Our job is to do craft a journey out of those details that is worth going on even if we know where we are going.
So Rainbow Dash is a changeling, and we want to tell her story in a way current readers will at least tolerate. Given we have a tough sell on our hands, we should first read the "X is a changeling" fics that that nebulous "everybody" has read already. When we read, we are looking not for things to avoid, but rather for where the reader has already trod and what that means for our story. What commonly happens when somepony is a changeling? Why? What parts rely on their novelty for maximum impact? Can we get that novelty in another way, and if not, is there another idea that we can focus on during those parts? Can we cut those bits out entirely?
For instance, most every "x is a changeling" story will begin with the reveal. We know for certain that the reader will not be shocked by it. Now we have a problem: we cannot easily bypass the scene or the inevitable disconnect between the characters' shock and the audience's ho-hum. If the mane 6 did not see it coming, it would be odd if they were not shocked to find Dash is a changeling. At the same time, we must package the scene for an audience that will have read the description and know what is coming. We have a few options here. We could simply skip the reveal altogether and start in media res, but then we are stuck with the problem of filling in the reader without going too heavy on the exposition. The shock is side-stepped, but without shock, that bit has an emotional void and risks ending up dry. The other option is to use that particular scene not as a crucial element of the plot, but as a trope that will save us brainpower that we can then use to tell the story we actually want to tell. It is the coloring book, and we must apply crayons.
Do not accept that the basics of a scene must happen for no other reason than that it always happens that way. Why specifically is it such a shock that Rainbow Dash is a changeling? Is her actual changeling self a bookworm who only came off as a prick because that was the stereotype she thought to play? Can the rest of the mane 6 just not believe how blind they were? Does Rarity suddenly have to contend with the fact that the date Dash took her on could have been a ruse to feed? Scenes do not happen as platonic ideals. They happen for a specific reason and establish a specific context that we will have to make use of throughout the rest of the story.
We could also take the view that the shock is obligatory, but we are going to focus the bulk of our creative power on some other aspect of the scene. What other strong emotions might we work out of being revealed to be a changeling, and under what circumstances might they be found? Maybe Rainbow Dash is going to be Scootaloo's Family Appreciation Day surrogate guest and gets outed in front of the class. The reader may not be shocked that Dash is a changeling, but we can squirm knowing that Scoots is going to be in for a rough time. Alternatively, Dash could be outed having the time of her life at a Pinkie party. We can let her burst into rage over her perfect life getting taken away before the rest of the 6 have time to react. Maybe they could even have a hug or two ready for when she inevitably runs out of steam and breaks down in tears.
In short, using a well-worn idea is not bad. We just have to treat it as an invitation to spend the brainpower we save to understand what makes the idea effective, how we have to adapt the idea for the current audience, and how it fits into the story we want to tell. It is the framework, not the substance. The more specific we get with our execution, the more effort we show and the fresher the story will be.
The marketing problem
Of course, the other problem with using a well-worn idea is that when we pitch it to our readers, it is by necessity in a condensed form. How are we going to convince people to read a story that we have put real time into when the cliffnotes of the plot is going to sound like any other story of that type?
The first thing to do is relax. Pulp is a thing, and it is here to stay. People gripe about having seen everything in the feature box before, but if things get put there because they get read, clearly someone out there is willing to read the same HiE over and over and over until the end of time. You will not necessarily start with critic cred, but if all you want to do is write something you feel you did your best with, get a few hundred views and make some people happy, no sweat. Put up your description and let word of mouth take care of the rest.
But say we really want that delicious, delicious critic cred. What can we do to convince people from the outset that our well-worn ideas are executed freshly enough to be worth a look? We must start by writing like it. If we know "x is a changeling" has been done to death, then we cannot write as though this is an "x is a changeling" fic. This is a different story that employs the "x is a changeling" trope to tell the story we actually want to tell. So what if Rainbow Dash is a changeling? Hook the reader on her struggle to convince Rarity that she meant it when she said "I love you" last night. Sell us on the personal drama of Scootaloo coming to terms with the fact that sometimes our idols are not all we thought they were.
Think of it like fanfiction. The main draw of fanfiction for an author is that now we have a whole cast of characters, settings, and canon that the reader already knows. Who they are is a solved problem, so we do not have to mess with establishing any of that. We can get right to the story we want to tell quickly and efficiently. Likewise, if we know how "x is a changeling" goes, then the overarching plot is a solved problem, and we can use it as a base. You do not need to spend valuable description time teasing who this "pink party pony" is, or playing "x might be a changeling." I know that part. You know that part. So let us skip to what you actually wanted to say with these tropes we already know so well. Sell us the story behind the trope. The trope itself can hang out in the background and hold the rest up, but there is no need to draw attention to it.
The audience is not expecting every author to start an entirely new genre of literature. We just want to see the author tell a story in their own way and feel that they put as much effort into their writing as we are going to have to put into our reading of it. Some might not even expect that much. Do not worry too much about the originality of your premise. Do be aware of when you are trading on novelty or shock to sell a scene. If the scene in question reminds you of too many other scenes, it is not the end of the world. It just means you will need to make up the difference through a thorough thinking through of your circumstances and taking the time to be specific. Tropes are not the enemy. It is thin stories that send the audience away.
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You have managed to put in words far more elegant than any I could come up with exactly what I have felt for years - that originality is what you do with a concept rather than the concept itself. Thank you for a thoughtful and interesting blog post.
Unfortunately, I fear my sole published story falls squarely in the category of "headcanon fic".
However, I hope that I can do better in the future, and your 101 blog posts have been a huge help to me in that regard.
Another wonderful blog post.
Did you know that your blogs are longer and better than a lot of stories on here? This one alone was just over 2.6k words. And it its a very unfortunate fact that a lot of stories don't even get to 2k. Hell, I have read some where the update chapters don't even make it to 1k, and weeks between updates.
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Awww. Thanks guys, and thanks for reading.