This head-on deliberate attitude towards originality seems so brave to me! I get in my head when I think about it too much. When I do I think about this CS Lewis quote: "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."
I think really though it's all getting at the same thing--being unabashadly yourself, and true to your own vision, without letting what others may or may not think about it color or shape your work.
I think whenever other forces make you cerebrally analyze the own commercial prospects of your work... that pushes you towards being derivative. You have to follow the muse, while also ruthlessly investigating the source of that muse!
"I pointed out to him that the Indian family script was not mine and that I’d written the psycho princess one. The stare he gave still lives inside me.)"
This KILLS me, i laughed so hard. What did he say after???
Yes, I have 100% been afraid of copying others by accident!! I recently started playing the piano and writing my own songs, but sometimes it's hard to write "my" song. I don't do it on purpose, but I just constantly hear my favorite artist's songs in my head. I've learned that I can't force writing lyrics to a song. I've found that the best lyrics and songs come when I least expect it. I'll be doing something and just get a lyric and then I run to my room to write it down and the whole song flows out of me. While as when I sit down to write a song, I'm just unintentionally copying the songs I enjoy listening to. I can definitely relate to this and actually felt a lot of comfort in knowing that an amazing author like you feels the same way sometimes. 😊
Soman in your writing do some of the characters reflect your personality? I was wondering how to do make sure to put your own touch into these books without getting lost in the details?
I am about to graduate as a lawyer in just a couple of months, so as I write I am always worrying about whete¡her what I am writting is truly original or not. With one of my undisclosed stories I went as far as to check it under a plagiarism tool. I am terribly afraid of doing something someone elese has and claim it as mine, but as I have kept writting more and more I do feel similarities to general genres of literature not something that already exists.
It has helped me a lot to keep going with my stories and finding my own creations inside the characters and the world I am building. As of right now I have focused all my efforts in two stories that develop in fictional enviroments, but the characteristics each shows are different from what I read. I have also asked my brother to help me check if the content is eaither familiar or similar to something he has read before, and as he helps me with this part he has somehow become my editor for the parts I lose the sense of the story and have to return to it's core.
I love that you've found someone who can be your check in this area -- because in some ways, it can let you freely invent and you trust someone else to push back if you end up using one of your influences a bit too literally.
Learning about your process is always fascinating! And, I love how subversive your writing is! How exactly do you get past "summoning" to "conjuring" though? Or, how do you give characters dimension that makes them not immediately recognizable as something known/old ghosts? Somehow, by my interpretation, this brought to mind how some claim there's nothing truly original under the sun, a cliche by itself, and it caused me to consider how, oftentimes, I can't even recognize the source of where something from my head came from, but that it definitely has roots in something else I've seen before. Or, otherwise, I do recognize where I've sourced it from, and don't know how to properly deviate from it.
Overtime, I've consumed a lot of novels from the same niche, in the same genre (high fantasy, usually), and sometimes, I feel the need to get out of that channel, as what I think what ends up happening is that I get the feeling I've oversaturated myself with so much exposure, when genre conventions start to feel tired and predictable, not that a lot of consumption hasn't been helpful to me as a learning writer, but that also kind of invokes my question of: is something in my writing too predictable or commonplace, or does it only seem that way because I'm addressing it head-on and know the pivotal points of a plot I'm writing, as the writer, versus a reader who wouldn't immediately know, who may be unaware? I don't entirely trust my own judgment to parse out what's been repackaged or not in my own work since by reading others' work, I've lately been spotting (for instance, in Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Chaucer's The Knight's Tale) the underlying, recurring archetypes and tropes from those OGs, and coincidentally, alongside those, have been observing that a lot of modern fantasy out there might be partly founded in the very same, age-old tradition of courtly love and high, spiritual romances/absolute devotion, plus doppelgänger plots involving wicked women, surprisingly, which I've loved since I read your books(!), but all that's out there causes me to wonder if nothing I've thought up is actually new or original at all because my influences always leak through.
It's interesting, because I try *not* to read in the genre I'm writing because it inevitably influences the work, since you're often operating from a modicum of fear when you make your first drafts, so unconsciously it's too easy to grab for that lifeboat of a hit you're currently reading... So it just helps if you go in a different direction with which you consume and put the pressure on your unconscious to impress you with something more novel and truly honest to what *you* want to create. The summoning to conjuring happens when you literally run out of things to summon. Keep calling your elves on the fact they're giving you recycled imagery. Then watch what comes out of the dark...
Which genres would you recommend? Something radically different I'd imagine? Do you find that nonfiction ever helps inform your work? Also, thank you for the response!
This topic alone speaks so much more to me than anything. I have struggled for years with a single idea that I had. I wanted to write it down so many times, and I can even remember my very first ideas when I was still in high school. Every single time I tried writing it down, I was always afraid that it sounded like something that was written before.
My way of dealing with the fears: Don't think about the hits. When I write my stories, that's all I think about, and I tell myself that I'm writing these stories because I want to see them playing out, not because I want it to be like Popular Work #1 or Bestseller #2. I just like the stories because I'm telling them.
It's both a mental process of a bit of (healthy) self-manipulation and a lot of writing and re-writing, but the more I spend time thinking about it, the easier it comes naturally and as originally as it can be.
The less you think about creating a hit, the more likely a hit it will be! Case in point -- BEASTS & BEAUTY really was my little pet project that no one was supposed to read. I wrote it as my pandemic book, 100% for myself, and expected very little reaction. And that allowed me to be free with it and it ended up finding a great audience via word of mouth. I think I just wrote recklessly and with zero regard to commercial interests and that somehow made it... more commercial.
I think its really interesting that publishers want a "this meets that" description of a story. It's not new information but this is the first time I've really thought about it. The world doesn't want to read the same thing again, so it asks writers to be original. But saying there must be a this plus that means it can't be TOO original. It's also difficult when most of the stories we already know were created with this formula. If you go far enough back you'll get "this meets that meets this meets that meets this meets that..." and so on. Truthfully our culture is filled with the same stories altered to be told in new ways that we think are original because of a "unique" twist that came from a different story. This all makes me wonder if our perception of creativity is effected. Sometimes I feel like none of my stories can be original because of the sheer amount of time people have been telling stories, have that all been told already? Or is there a story that no one has told because it can't be defined in one of the ways the world has decided a story must be structured. I think that everything we write comes from our experience with life and the stories we've discovered. Nothing comes just from two other successful examples and nothing is inspired by nothing. I don't know if I've said anything of value in this comment but I think this topic is interesting. Also.... I love Breakfast at Tiffany's.... It's one of my favourite movies ever.
Oh, it's a good point that nothing is ever TRULY original. We have been humans for so long and telling stories for so long that everything's been done before. I truly believe that. But you are also uniquely you, and have never existed before, which is why you have to relentlessly push yourself to make work as unique as you are.
I often use other readers to read over my works. Yesterday, actually, I was on a call with my friend and she was reading and reacting to my story.
I am bad at keeping a diary, haha, but I really should. My fictional writing is sort of a journal to me. I wonder if it's like that for you?
I fear being too much like another story or a trope, but I think originality can come from on your spin on things. Maybe the character's voice or the personality. It's like songs, too. I sing a lot in my free time and I like to put a few spins on other songs so that it sounds a trifle different. The song exists already but I have my own way of doing it. I songwrite lyrics and for the few songs I have a tune to, it's slightly based on another song but then I just run away with my own thing.
I also wonder if your sorcerer/witch characters such as the School Master twins from SGE have any sort of spirituality or religion, like polytheism into it? Those themes are usually where I borrow ideas and make my own story to them.
Will your new novel have spiritual themes, or stuff like awakening, mythology, reincarnation/rebirth?
Oh these are such great questions. I think my writing is where I go to explore my emotions on a daily basis... but this diary is just a bit more transparent about it. In terms of spirituality and religion and those kinds of things, I think I always have a point of view in my novels about life and the world and spirituality that shows up in some form -- maybe not as overtly in this book as in SGE -- but it will certainly be there. And if I ever write a true fantasy again... it will most certainly be there!!!
Thank you for the answer!! I see. I really should try to be more consistent in keeping some sort of diary about my emotions and experiences rather than just sticking with song, poetry and fictional writing, lol.
I am excited to see your takes on life, spirituality, etc in your new novel, or at least digging it up if it's not as overt. Actually, one of the things I could get from your books is some spiritual or soul-deep vibes and experience, and I enjoy that as much as world-building, magic, and literary technique. Sometimes I doubt if it was your intention or not, but I can definitely sense the otherworldliness there!
and i appreciate the admonition to keep a diary. i did during the pandemic (because emotions), but i should do it more as i don't have enough penpals to write so many letters to these days.
also-- praise be for NO COMPS. i recently listened to a talk with rick kot (formerly at viking) who echoed our sentiment: comps need to die. [i'm paraphrasing.] they're just for the accounting and the p&ls and risk-adverse business [gross] side of publishing... there is NO data to say that the comp titles an editor brings to an acquisitions meeting actually reflect the sales of the new book. editors acquire years ahead of publication... the readers and buyers shall have moved on by then anyway. show us the proof if you insist upon them. good art should exist for art's sake. let the reader decide if they tell their friends about it...
a hook? sure.
a comp? no.
that's asking for the COMP to wave its plagarism flag (in court or otherwise)-- the unconscious riffing that may have snuck in during writing sprints in the zone.
we are each an amalgamation of ourselves and all the art we've inputted before we sit down with pen to page.
less of the same. more of the unique voices that ought to be seen, please.
i'm struggling with the need for "comps" with the book i'm querying now AND the one i'm writing. they don't exist.
but i'm pretty sure readers would read the tales anyway.
more of the same is not what we story-lovers want.
good on ya for reinventing the wheel, soman.
and golly, i'd LOVE to see footage of that professor office chat. bwahahaha. i hope it's a GOOD, empowering, unhinged look that lives rent-free in your head. :)
He just was such a chauvinist in so many ways, so him immediately dismissing the idea a man could write a story about female empowerment... He never quite got over it. I think he liked me less after that. As if I'd violated some strange world view of his. And I love your point about the unique voice needing to be represented on the page. That's the trick. Getting YOU out there and not some commercial-hit "version" of yourself that's palatable.
This head-on deliberate attitude towards originality seems so brave to me! I get in my head when I think about it too much. When I do I think about this CS Lewis quote: "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."
I think really though it's all getting at the same thing--being unabashadly yourself, and true to your own vision, without letting what others may or may not think about it color or shape your work.
I think whenever other forces make you cerebrally analyze the own commercial prospects of your work... that pushes you towards being derivative. You have to follow the muse, while also ruthlessly investigating the source of that muse!
"I pointed out to him that the Indian family script was not mine and that I’d written the psycho princess one. The stare he gave still lives inside me.)"
This KILLS me, i laughed so hard. What did he say after???
Yes, I have 100% been afraid of copying others by accident!! I recently started playing the piano and writing my own songs, but sometimes it's hard to write "my" song. I don't do it on purpose, but I just constantly hear my favorite artist's songs in my head. I've learned that I can't force writing lyrics to a song. I've found that the best lyrics and songs come when I least expect it. I'll be doing something and just get a lyric and then I run to my room to write it down and the whole song flows out of me. While as when I sit down to write a song, I'm just unintentionally copying the songs I enjoy listening to. I can definitely relate to this and actually felt a lot of comfort in knowing that an amazing author like you feels the same way sometimes. 😊
Soman in your writing do some of the characters reflect your personality? I was wondering how to do make sure to put your own touch into these books without getting lost in the details?
Funny... wait until you see this week's topic!!!
Can’t wait!!!
I am about to graduate as a lawyer in just a couple of months, so as I write I am always worrying about whete¡her what I am writting is truly original or not. With one of my undisclosed stories I went as far as to check it under a plagiarism tool. I am terribly afraid of doing something someone elese has and claim it as mine, but as I have kept writting more and more I do feel similarities to general genres of literature not something that already exists.
It has helped me a lot to keep going with my stories and finding my own creations inside the characters and the world I am building. As of right now I have focused all my efforts in two stories that develop in fictional enviroments, but the characteristics each shows are different from what I read. I have also asked my brother to help me check if the content is eaither familiar or similar to something he has read before, and as he helps me with this part he has somehow become my editor for the parts I lose the sense of the story and have to return to it's core.
I love that you've found someone who can be your check in this area -- because in some ways, it can let you freely invent and you trust someone else to push back if you end up using one of your influences a bit too literally.
Thank you so much for your reply!!!
Learning about your process is always fascinating! And, I love how subversive your writing is! How exactly do you get past "summoning" to "conjuring" though? Or, how do you give characters dimension that makes them not immediately recognizable as something known/old ghosts? Somehow, by my interpretation, this brought to mind how some claim there's nothing truly original under the sun, a cliche by itself, and it caused me to consider how, oftentimes, I can't even recognize the source of where something from my head came from, but that it definitely has roots in something else I've seen before. Or, otherwise, I do recognize where I've sourced it from, and don't know how to properly deviate from it.
Overtime, I've consumed a lot of novels from the same niche, in the same genre (high fantasy, usually), and sometimes, I feel the need to get out of that channel, as what I think what ends up happening is that I get the feeling I've oversaturated myself with so much exposure, when genre conventions start to feel tired and predictable, not that a lot of consumption hasn't been helpful to me as a learning writer, but that also kind of invokes my question of: is something in my writing too predictable or commonplace, or does it only seem that way because I'm addressing it head-on and know the pivotal points of a plot I'm writing, as the writer, versus a reader who wouldn't immediately know, who may be unaware? I don't entirely trust my own judgment to parse out what's been repackaged or not in my own work since by reading others' work, I've lately been spotting (for instance, in Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Chaucer's The Knight's Tale) the underlying, recurring archetypes and tropes from those OGs, and coincidentally, alongside those, have been observing that a lot of modern fantasy out there might be partly founded in the very same, age-old tradition of courtly love and high, spiritual romances/absolute devotion, plus doppelgänger plots involving wicked women, surprisingly, which I've loved since I read your books(!), but all that's out there causes me to wonder if nothing I've thought up is actually new or original at all because my influences always leak through.
It's interesting, because I try *not* to read in the genre I'm writing because it inevitably influences the work, since you're often operating from a modicum of fear when you make your first drafts, so unconsciously it's too easy to grab for that lifeboat of a hit you're currently reading... So it just helps if you go in a different direction with which you consume and put the pressure on your unconscious to impress you with something more novel and truly honest to what *you* want to create. The summoning to conjuring happens when you literally run out of things to summon. Keep calling your elves on the fact they're giving you recycled imagery. Then watch what comes out of the dark...
Which genres would you recommend? Something radically different I'd imagine? Do you find that nonfiction ever helps inform your work? Also, thank you for the response!
This topic alone speaks so much more to me than anything. I have struggled for years with a single idea that I had. I wanted to write it down so many times, and I can even remember my very first ideas when I was still in high school. Every single time I tried writing it down, I was always afraid that it sounded like something that was written before.
My way of dealing with the fears: Don't think about the hits. When I write my stories, that's all I think about, and I tell myself that I'm writing these stories because I want to see them playing out, not because I want it to be like Popular Work #1 or Bestseller #2. I just like the stories because I'm telling them.
It's both a mental process of a bit of (healthy) self-manipulation and a lot of writing and re-writing, but the more I spend time thinking about it, the easier it comes naturally and as originally as it can be.
The less you think about creating a hit, the more likely a hit it will be! Case in point -- BEASTS & BEAUTY really was my little pet project that no one was supposed to read. I wrote it as my pandemic book, 100% for myself, and expected very little reaction. And that allowed me to be free with it and it ended up finding a great audience via word of mouth. I think I just wrote recklessly and with zero regard to commercial interests and that somehow made it... more commercial.
I think its really interesting that publishers want a "this meets that" description of a story. It's not new information but this is the first time I've really thought about it. The world doesn't want to read the same thing again, so it asks writers to be original. But saying there must be a this plus that means it can't be TOO original. It's also difficult when most of the stories we already know were created with this formula. If you go far enough back you'll get "this meets that meets this meets that meets this meets that..." and so on. Truthfully our culture is filled with the same stories altered to be told in new ways that we think are original because of a "unique" twist that came from a different story. This all makes me wonder if our perception of creativity is effected. Sometimes I feel like none of my stories can be original because of the sheer amount of time people have been telling stories, have that all been told already? Or is there a story that no one has told because it can't be defined in one of the ways the world has decided a story must be structured. I think that everything we write comes from our experience with life and the stories we've discovered. Nothing comes just from two other successful examples and nothing is inspired by nothing. I don't know if I've said anything of value in this comment but I think this topic is interesting. Also.... I love Breakfast at Tiffany's.... It's one of my favourite movies ever.
Oh, it's a good point that nothing is ever TRULY original. We have been humans for so long and telling stories for so long that everything's been done before. I truly believe that. But you are also uniquely you, and have never existed before, which is why you have to relentlessly push yourself to make work as unique as you are.
I often use other readers to read over my works. Yesterday, actually, I was on a call with my friend and she was reading and reacting to my story.
I am bad at keeping a diary, haha, but I really should. My fictional writing is sort of a journal to me. I wonder if it's like that for you?
I fear being too much like another story or a trope, but I think originality can come from on your spin on things. Maybe the character's voice or the personality. It's like songs, too. I sing a lot in my free time and I like to put a few spins on other songs so that it sounds a trifle different. The song exists already but I have my own way of doing it. I songwrite lyrics and for the few songs I have a tune to, it's slightly based on another song but then I just run away with my own thing.
I also wonder if your sorcerer/witch characters such as the School Master twins from SGE have any sort of spirituality or religion, like polytheism into it? Those themes are usually where I borrow ideas and make my own story to them.
Will your new novel have spiritual themes, or stuff like awakening, mythology, reincarnation/rebirth?
Oh these are such great questions. I think my writing is where I go to explore my emotions on a daily basis... but this diary is just a bit more transparent about it. In terms of spirituality and religion and those kinds of things, I think I always have a point of view in my novels about life and the world and spirituality that shows up in some form -- maybe not as overtly in this book as in SGE -- but it will certainly be there. And if I ever write a true fantasy again... it will most certainly be there!!!
Thank you for the answer!! I see. I really should try to be more consistent in keeping some sort of diary about my emotions and experiences rather than just sticking with song, poetry and fictional writing, lol.
I am excited to see your takes on life, spirituality, etc in your new novel, or at least digging it up if it's not as overt. Actually, one of the things I could get from your books is some spiritual or soul-deep vibes and experience, and I enjoy that as much as world-building, magic, and literary technique. Sometimes I doubt if it was your intention or not, but I can definitely sense the otherworldliness there!
i love your phrase here: "ruthlessly original."
and i appreciate the admonition to keep a diary. i did during the pandemic (because emotions), but i should do it more as i don't have enough penpals to write so many letters to these days.
also-- praise be for NO COMPS. i recently listened to a talk with rick kot (formerly at viking) who echoed our sentiment: comps need to die. [i'm paraphrasing.] they're just for the accounting and the p&ls and risk-adverse business [gross] side of publishing... there is NO data to say that the comp titles an editor brings to an acquisitions meeting actually reflect the sales of the new book. editors acquire years ahead of publication... the readers and buyers shall have moved on by then anyway. show us the proof if you insist upon them. good art should exist for art's sake. let the reader decide if they tell their friends about it...
a hook? sure.
a comp? no.
that's asking for the COMP to wave its plagarism flag (in court or otherwise)-- the unconscious riffing that may have snuck in during writing sprints in the zone.
we are each an amalgamation of ourselves and all the art we've inputted before we sit down with pen to page.
less of the same. more of the unique voices that ought to be seen, please.
i'm struggling with the need for "comps" with the book i'm querying now AND the one i'm writing. they don't exist.
but i'm pretty sure readers would read the tales anyway.
more of the same is not what we story-lovers want.
good on ya for reinventing the wheel, soman.
and golly, i'd LOVE to see footage of that professor office chat. bwahahaha. i hope it's a GOOD, empowering, unhinged look that lives rent-free in your head. :)
He just was such a chauvinist in so many ways, so him immediately dismissing the idea a man could write a story about female empowerment... He never quite got over it. I think he liked me less after that. As if I'd violated some strange world view of his. And I love your point about the unique voice needing to be represented on the page. That's the trick. Getting YOU out there and not some commercial-hit "version" of yourself that's palatable.