Unoriginality · 1:05am Feb 11th, 2014
In the latter half of 2013, I discovered the FimFiction website. I might have found it sooner if I hadn't been so engrossed in other non-pony projects. However I was quickly inspired to write a story of my own after reading a handful of other stories, and that turned out to be "Change of Life". As I mentioned in the author's notes, I credited another author's story as inspiration for the background in which I wrote. That was one of but two changeling related stories that I had read up until that time, so I quite naively wrote my own original story. In retrospect I should have realised that due to the length of time since the episode was aired from which my story follows, the concept of a changeling not wanting to be a bad guy and falling in love with a pony would not only have been done several times, but also enough to have become a cliché. I can't deny that this is a disappointment to me, but I hope that I have contributed sufficiently new material to make that a worthy story anyway. I don't really know because I still haven't been able to find the time to read many more stories, nor probably ever will be able to read a large proportion of the changeling-related ones at least. I've grown very fond of Cogs and his family though, so I won't be giving up on them anytime soon.
Hay, for a 'common cliché' your version is the only one I actually could read!
1820901 Thanks for that!
Quality is never un-original!
I dunno, what can I say? Yes, almost everything has been done before, but really, most of us don't mind. All we really care about is how well you write. Are the characters and action clearly described? Are the canon characters and events reasonably portrayed? Can we empathize with your characters? You do well on all those counts, so we love your story!
The rule of thumb that has served me reliably so far is that if a story's likes are at least ten percent of its views, then it's going to be a good story. You are at 14% likes, so be happy: you are well in the green.
If you are worried about unoriginality (again, not that you should be!), be glad you didn't start out with HiE.
My first ponyfic was a self-insert human-in-Equestria.
Originality doesn't matter near as much as execution.
Yes, well... "Scootaloo learns to fly" and "Scootaloo does a Sonic Rainboom" weren't exactly original and never-before-tried ideas when I wrote Light the Sky on Fire, either... but judging by the number of views and the up/down ratio, that lack of "originality" doesn't seem to have held it back.
It's not how original the idea is, so much as how well it's executed. I've seen plenty of "original ideas" that were completely ruined by sloppy and incompetent writing from authors who had no grasp of consistent characterization, plot structure, or story logic, and who had failed to follow those ideas to their logical conclusion.
You can take any idea, even a unique and interesting one, and butch the idea with the quality. You can also take a cliche and make it amazing. I love Cogs and his family as well.
I am a fan of changing fics. Especially redemption or stuck away from the hive ones. From this perspective i can say your is well done, intriguing and has lots of unique things.
Novel tale (which you borrowed from) had a lot of unique things too so even some of that stuff that you borrowed wasn't heavily used.
Also your heavy use of pictures (around once per chapter) is unusual (but not unheard of). They make a nice touch
Its only really overused if its Fluttershy
and even then i find myself enjoying a lot of them
Write what you want, write what you love, worry about how it's like something else later. It's no different than saying Willow is just a retelling of Star Wars in a purely high-fantasy setting. In the end, both movies are still awesome, for different reasons, so worrying that someone else had the same concept/framework doesn't make it any less original.
Plus, Cogs is awesome.
Less worrying what others have written, more worrying about how everyone's looking forward to the continuing story of Cogs and his family. We're all so very nervicited!
I'm with the crowd on this one. Originality is over-rated. Some of the best stories on this site are ones that deliberately took inspiration from others here.
Just one example that pops to mind: Misunderstandings is an excellent HiE fic that admittedly borrowed much from the also-excellent A Voice Among the Strangers, which in turn appears to have taken some elements from the classic book, The Last Unicorn. And it's not like FiMFiction was in desperate need of another HiE fic, but darn if it hasn't turned out to be a good read anyhow.
Then there are stories like Project: Sunflower (IMO one of the best fics we've got) which was something of a retort to the Conversion Bureau sub-genre, but put a completely different spin on it. I'm sure a lot of great fics began with somebody saying, "Man, these stories are teh sux. I'd better show them how to do it right!"
And yes... We did get a FLOOD of changeling stories after they appeared in the show. Changelings were an enormous gift to fanfic writers. Their possibilities are endless, especially since so much about them is left to the interpretations of the author.
1823155
That's good advice too. Like most of us, I love getting mine in the featured box, and I love getting up-votes and faves and comments, and all that. However... I know some things I write just never are going to bring out that kind of response. My CB story is never going to get that because it's CB and many people will never look at it, or they will even downvote it reflexively. And I've come to terms with that. I'm going to continue it anyhow, because I'm doing something with it that I want to do.
If you look at what it takes to get featured, mainly it's a lurid title and description that does the trick. That's not what makes a story worth reading, though.
You call yourself unoriginal?
If you recall, Mr. Goldfur, I personally asked you if I could use some of your characters in my story. If anything I'm the one who should be unoriginal here.
On a side note, whether it is original or not, you should write a story 'cause you want to, and 'cause you love to, no matter if people like it or not. It just so happened that you got yourself a pile of fans from Change of Life, many of which are (myself included) begging for a sequel!
Keep calm and write on!
'Cause no one can make you stop besides yourself.
I'm loving these stories.