[Baco Xpuch]

I've been writing, or at least world building and plotting for about eight years, and it seems like every time I pick up a new book, an idea I thought was completely original and mine is taken. I know I'm influenced by what I've read but how is it that I come up with stuff that is damn near the same as stuff I've never read. I almost want to quit reading, have it witnessed and notarized and then write. I feel like I need to publish as soon as possible to keep from being outdone (my original idea taken), but I'm years away and getting frustrated.

Anyone else feel like this? Furthermore, when I read someone like Erikson, it's like, how do I even compete?

[Bent]

I cant say that I ever felt this way, but I like the South Park reference, so have rep.

[Aptorian]

Considering that there's published thousands upon thousands of books every year and books have been written for well over a hundred years plus there's thousands of great comic books, and videogames and television series, it is safe to assume that it is almost impossible to come up with a story that doesn't remind you of some other story. The trick is to not think about what other people may have done. Write your own story, make it original by giving it your own touches.

EDIT: I notice I wrote that books have been written for a hundred years, that's not what I meant, writing fiction is thousands of years old. What I meant was that book production and the publicity of stories has become a major business in the past hundred years.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 30 May 2010 - 06:44 PM

[Tsundoku]

Well, as we all know there are after all only 7 basic plots in all of literature:

http://answers.googl...dview?id=210539

Here are some dramatic situations:

http://www.sff.net/p...OO/ideagen2.htm
this one has references to thousands of other plots, if you are stuck. I doubt anyone ever again will come up with a 100% original story, so like Apt says, just put your own spin on some older themes.
Characterisation + logic/reason + continuity + background + conflict + editing = win.

This post has been edited by Sombra: 29 May 2010 - 10:40 AM

[Johnny Phoenix]

"Art is the history of theft and revision" - Mr. Kraft (my high school film teacher)

Everything has been done.

[hmqb]

Pshhhh, not everything.
has a book been written about a blind panda bear who speaks only spanish who is dropped off by a helicopter in Philidalphea robbing a bank with a plastic spoon then disappearing with a homeless man, only to be found in the middle east having created a chinese fast food empire, which is really only a cover for an illegal snake fighting tournements, when the bind panda meets a frog who spontaniously combusts every 30 minutes but recreates itself every 15. Then the frog wins the snake ring sending the panda into homelessness.

Then While the panda is homeless on the streets of New York an albanian farmer coming in from san Francisco to sell crack, shoots him. Then in the hospital he meets the love of his life a crazy women who just got out of an insane asylum and they move to Iraq together, but on the way the crazy women dies of Spontenous Combustion and he must now go on a quest to find the frog to figure out how to recreate yourself after spontanous combustion.

The quest leads him onto the bustling streets of venice where he gets caught in shoot out betwee the ops and other cops, leading him to wonder how corrupted Italy is. So he now must break into the president of council ministers office to ask him. He hires a speed boat to bring him to where ever that office is. Then while there he pulls out an AK47 killing the 30 guards then throws a grappling hook up the the office proppeling himself up, and jumps through the window. The they have a conersation something like this "Hi" "Hi" "Whats up" "Nothing much you" "Im fine, I just got a new bike!" "Great wanna go try it out" "Hell yes" and after that deep emotional conversation the panda knows what the corruption is and heads off to find the frog.

Luckily the President had given him the exact where abouts of this frog, and the panda easily tracked him to the foothills of India. When he arrived he found out it was a trap! The frog was holding a gun pointed at the panda and had the magic lion person from Narnia beside him. They then had a conversation "Hello!" "Shut up panda! I know why your here, you figured out I rigged the snake fight" "You bastard, bt thats not why i'm here"' "Why are you he-" The frog spontaniously combusted. "Rarrr we have to wait 15 minutes Rarr" "Alright magic lion, do by any chanse happen to have a bike" "No" "Interesting" Then the frog suddenly appeared. "So why are you here?" "I was wondering how do you come back after the spontanious combustion?" "What spontanious combustion?" "You know what i'm talking about" "Get him magic lion" The lion then pulled out a gun "RARR NOT SO TOUGH NOW LITTLE PANDA RARR" The panda decided there was ony one thing to do. He raised his hands menacingly and called upon the magic powers of the blue blood moon granting him the power to do anything. Using his new found powers he created a stereo and played disco music very loud. Then started to sing, then the frog cumbusts and the panda goes to France and forgets all about Helga the love of his life. He also enters the national spelling bee and loses in the first round because the place is stormed by the FBI looking for a suspect in the murder of The president of something or rather.
The End.

Yes, I just wanted to write a random story, and I see what you guys mean. I agree that almost everything is written but as long as you include your own personal touch and try not to copy the whole plot of something, its all good

[Sinisdar Toste]

original and nonsensical should not be synonyms

[Fist Gamet]

I want to know what happened next...

Seriously, though, it's been said. Truly original ideas and concepts are few and far between but I don't believe that's a bad thing. New and wildly original does not necessarily mean it will be good or worthwhile, and there is a reason that most stories, at their most fundamental, are remakes of something or other that has gone before - because that's what we like to read.
Put your own characters (now the scope here is almost endless) into your version of a story that will certainly have elements of what's gone before, and it will be fine. If your story is character based (which, imho, it should be) then all you are doing is creating a canvas upon which to tell their story, and that's what people want to read about - characters. You will make something original if you create original characters, perhaps in an original world setting, and make them real and multi-dimensional to the reader. It would be interesting to see if anyone can find a published story that does not have the elements from the list on the link from Sombra.

[hmqb]

Fist Gamet, on 30 May 2010 - 06:37 PM, said:

I want to know what happened next...

Seriously, though, it's been said. Truly original ideas and concepts are few and far between but I don't believe that's a bad thing. New and wildly original does not necessarily mean it will be good or worthwhile, and there is a reason that most stories, at their most fundamental, are remakes of something or other that has gone before - because that's what we like to read.
Put your own characters (now the scope here is almost endless) into your version of a story that will certainly have elements of what's gone before, and it will be fine. If your story is character based (which, imho, it should be) then all you are doing is creating a canvas upon which to tell their story, and that's what people want to read about - characters. You will make something original if you create original characters, perhaps in an original world setting, and make them real and multi-dimensional to the reader. It would be interesting to see if anyone can find a published story that does not have the elements from the list on the link from Sombra.

Fine fine

"He also enters the national spelling bee and loses in the first round because the place is stormed by the FBI looking for a suspect in the murder of The president of something or rather."
Next they took him into custody in a isolated area, some where of the coast of puerto rico. He was gaured by 18 gaurds and a bald man who was almost 8 feet tall, and skinny as a stick. He punched the panda in the eye screaming "I know you did it you salty son of a bitch" "Did what," "I will blow up this island! I will kill everybody including me! I will rip out your liver and feast on your insides you fool! I swear I rigged this island 4 times over with explosives now talk or will all going down!" "Fine, i'm double agent" The panda broke the straps holding him doing mad karate disarming the man and snapping his neck. Next he jumped out the window doing more mad karate killing the 18 guards and escaping the island on moter boat.

Next in china he bought an untracable cell phone and called the leader of the russian mafia. "There on to me" "So, you want t dance pretty boy" "No, but what should I do the italians are on to me" "I would like to see you in a bikini panda bear" "No god no!" "So why don't you stop by my mansion" The bear hangs up. He needed to do what wasn't needed at all but what he should have done a long time ago. Now that he wasn't in the Russian mafia any more things were all right and he could pursue his dreams as a book binder.

At the book binding headquarters in Dubai he carefully binded another book. His boss walked over "Yes, you very good" "I know" "Well I see, but I can not have competition" He pulled out a knife a slahed at the panda. He dodged using matrix abbilitys and calling upong his friend Al a blind half deaf ogre with no hair. Al charged into the fray killing his boss with a leg of a chair. "Hey Al, that was a close one" "I'm not Al, Im a double agent bitch" Al pulled out a gun and fired. The panda caught the bullet and threw it back twice as fast killing Al intantly. "Oh shit whoose after me now"

The panda having sensed the approach of the talking garbage can readied his waxer. Bam! a lighting bolt stuck a wash cloth 300 paces from the nearest orange soda, it all wet so fast as the couger lunged, and the Panda turned, and the waxer spun, and the man punched, and the apple fell, and the rooser crowed. And just as suddenly, it was all over The panda had killed the magic watermelon and the forces of evil, saving the world from really evil, evil. He had slayed the ghost horde of China and conquored the natives of Panema, he was in truth a dictator.

Then one day he realized terrorizing people had lost all its zing and in one of act of self determination focuses all of his energies and blew a hole through the roof, and then just flew away. Maybe some day the earth would need him agian, but then agian maybe they wouldn't
This ends the First tale of Malazan Book of the Panda


hmmm, ? MBoTP, lol.

This post has been edited by High Mage Quick Ben: 31 May 2010 - 01:44 AM

[Fist Gamet]

It truly is a fine line between genius and madness. I am somewhat in awe...

[Use Of Weapons]

Ideas may be similar (hell, even identical). What distinguishes them, then, is execution. How you treat an idea, the themes you explore, and the problems you encounter and the methods you use to solve those problems, will all be different from how another author treats those issues.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

Baco Xpuch, on 29 May 2010 - 02:08 AM, said:

I've been writing, or at least world building and plotting for about eight years, and it seems like every time I pick up a new book, an idea I thought was completely original and mine is taken. I know I'm influenced by what I've read but how is it that I come up with stuff that is damn near the same as stuff I've never read. I almost want to quit reading, have it witnessed and notarized and then write. I feel like I need to publish as soon as possible to keep from being outdone (my original idea taken), but I'm years away and getting frustrated.

Anyone else feel like this? Furthermore, when I read someone like Erikson, it's like, how do I even compete?

Charles Darwin felt like that... He had to publish his On the Origin of Species long before he had planned, because some other dude published an article with similar ideas and conclusions...But he edited the book and published it another five times after that



And yeah, I feel like that all the time. But not reading is not the solution, To be a good writer you have to read a lot, and write a lot.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

I think to be a writer, you have to write. To be an author, you've got to get other people to read. If you DO publish, at least you'll have some segment of the population that will claim you did it first, whether or not you did.