Here’s the thing about book concepts: originality is (somewhat) overrated.
There have been millions of books written in the course of human history. Before there were books there were plays, and before the were plays there were stories told around the campfire, and before there were stories around the campfire there were aliens who implanted DNA in our cave men ancestors that made us tell the same stories again and again. (It’s true, I read it on Wikipedia).
About once a generation a Mary Shelley or H.G. Wells or Tolkien or S.E. Hinton comes along to invent a new genre basically from scratch. Odds are you’re not that person (although if you are, I want to meet you).
All the rest of the mortals on the planet, even our best writers, are working within fairly established genres and tropes.
There were detective novels before George Pelecanos, there were dragon and boy stories before Christopher Paolini, there were wizard school books before J.K. Rowling, there were mistaken guilt stories before Ian Mcwan’s Atonement. What sets these writers apart is a unique take on an established trope. And ultimately that comes down to execution.
What is a unique take on an established trope? It varies from book to book. Sometimes it’s been done before, but never with such beautiful writing. Or maybe it’s been done before, but never for kids. Or maybe it’s been done before, but never funny. Or maybe it’s been done before, but never in combination with something else.
The shorthand for a unique take is that it’s like this, but also like this. It’s X meets X. It’s different, but not too different.
This isn’t because the publishing industry just wants what’s already popular. (Ok, fine, partly it’s because the publishing industry wants what’s already popular — you can “blame” that on readers who finish a book, love it, and want to read something else like it.)
But it’s also because it’s very nearly impossible to be wholly original. Even when new genres are invented they tend to use classic story arcs that have been around for millennia — the coming of age story, the great man with a fatal flaw, the hubris tragedy, the celebrity memoir. When new genres are invented they just place these stories in a new world.
Unless it is truly out there, pretty much everything is a fresh take on an existing trope. It really does need to feel fresh, but that’s not the same as being completely original. The originality is all about how it’s done, not what it’s about.
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archangelbeth,
That’s still a journey, just a different kind 😉
I didn’t get back here the other night, so I’m probably talking to myself at this point, but I just wanted to make thank Simon and knight_tour for the replies re fantasy.
Simon, you might like Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series. Strong re-imagined historical fantasy and not an elf in sight.
Knight_tour and Anon, I respect your choices in reading and writing, but I would like to recommend Robin Hobb’s Farseer series… and I promise, should you venture to try Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series you will find the dragons fully realised, incredibly realistic and not at all like a story of a dwarf in a high rise. : )
(In fact, I was a little sceptical myself, but I was hooked when I read the sequence of midwingmen and realised she’d established crews of dragons much like crews of ships. Fascinating concept.
Vic K
Hello Nathan,
This was pleasantly informative and has given me a different perspective on originality & concepts wrt (with respect to) writing. Thanks for sharing. Have a lovely week!
Well, no one is going to believe this – who said life is stranger than fiction? – but for what it's worth, I swear that it's true.
Ten years ago, inspired by a friend from Israel who I've never met but only corresponded with, I started writing a vampire romance. I got to the end of it in 2004 and sent the MS out to a few agents and publishers. It was not liked or appreciated. I did some rewrites over the next year or two, but lost confidence in it after that. I felt it was too over-top-top and unbelievable. Plus, I had combined the genre of paranormal romance with inspirational and mystic Christianity, which thrilled no one and upset everyone.
Then this year, I heard of a movie called Twilight and that it was a paranormal romance. Couldn't wait to watch it but was a bit aghast to notice similiarites with the plot of Winter Roses.
Over here in Australia, Twilight is not big. And where I live out in a tiny bush town, none of my neighbours had even heard of the movie when I questioned them. (Me: 'You know that novel, Winter Roses, I asked you to read four years, ago, well it's very much like that movie Twilight!' Neighbour: 'What's Twilight?') Aussies are a very down-to-earth bunch not much into the paranormal or flights of fancy; well, where I live, anyway.
But even though the idea of a good vampire as romantic paramour has now been officially snagged, funnily enough, I feel encouraged. Stephenie Meyer expanded on the idea beautifully in Twilight, which I've still only read part of, that I've been inspired and encouraged to dust off my ms and reword it over the last four months. And now I'm sending it out to unspecting agents all over the country/world
Hello, Nathan.
Funny how life works. 🙂
This raises a significant (and an endlessly recurring) conundrum: is one writing primarily to write well or primarily to be different. Before you leap out of your chair to shout "Both!" let me say that it's hard, and it's rare to produce both. As you yourself saw in searching for examples, you have to dig deep. Mary Shelley, the story goes, only wrote Frankenstein after being challenged to outdo other writers, whom she derided. I've heard this "stand out" advice many times in writing workshops, along with, "no conflict, no story." So it seems we're doomed to be formulaic (conflict scenarios) while attempting to be different. Do you know that much of H. G. Wells and Victor Hugo started out as serialized magazine pieces? In other words, the soap operas of their day? If one is trying harder to be different than to merely be a stunningly brilliant writer, one can easily produce bizarre work — there are many examples. To be both brilliant and different is so hard that we all have trouble counting ten authors who achieved it. I think Nabokov was trying to be different. I think Hemingway was trying to be different. I think Golding was trying to be different. I hope I can, too.
True words.
The horror genre was established long before Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. In fact, the idea behind the book stemmed from Galvanism; scientific experiments done on executed prisoners using electric currents in an attempt to revive the dead. What is used today for cardiac defibrillation or Electroconvulsive therapy. Shelley might have mainstreamed the genre being a woman writer during that era but she didn’t invent it.