A little bit of background for this topic: from my teenage years into my early 20s I was a prolific writer and artist. I wrote dozens of short stories, fanfics, and even a full length novel which I never posted publicly. I drew a lot, too. I would never consider myself ‘good’ at either discipline, but I’d say I reached the lofty heights of ‘passable’.
Unfortunately, you need to make a living in this world, so I put all that aside for about 10 years to become a software developer. I was still consuming a lot of media, though, and still do to this day. Like you guys, I lamented the wokeification of games, films, and books, and frequently discussed it with people in my personal life. I kept coming around to the same conclusion: ‘If we’re not happy with the stories the mainstream are providing, we need to create our own’.
Fast forward to today, I’m at a position in my career where I’ve automated a lot of things so that I have more free time. A few months ago my wandering mind was struck by a bolt of inspiration from the blue, and for the first time in ages I felt the desire to create again. As I sat down and organised my ideas, though, I realised that I was (consciously and sub-consciously) pulling elements from media which I have enjoyed and combining them into my own story. It’s very difficult to put a number on these things, but if I had to estimate I’d say about 60% of my ideas come from media, 40% from my own personal experiences. Of course, I did the same thing as a teenager, but I’m a bit more self-aware now than I was back then.
My question to you guys is, do you care about originality for its own sake, or does it have more to do with how a story is told? When I think about my favourite stories, some of them are extremely trite and tropey, but they are told masterfully well. Is it even possible to be truly original in such a media-saturated world as ours?
For what it’s worth, I don’t intend to shake the foundations of the world with my story, I just want to tell a good one that isn’t full of woke BS.
I would argue that originality only works if you aren't wasting your readers' time.
I'll point to Ecclesiastes 1:9 -- "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (Emphasis mine)
You will get more mileage out of retreading the monomyth, with its familiar cycle, than you will by trying to reinvent the hero's journey. Similarly, if you're telling a fantasy story, using elves, dwarves, and orcs saves the reader time acclimating to your world. Tropes exist to be used as shorthand, so that the elements of the story you wish to emphasize-- what your muse yearns to explore can take center stage. You want to twist the tropes, ideally making at least three changes to make them your own, but you don't want to subvert; you're using the cultural shorthand to tighten your story, not drive the culture.
The more trite and unoriginal the basic elements are, the more they fade into the background. Ideally, this leaves your readers with headspace and bandwidth to appreciate how you tell the story elements that matter, or how you've tweaked elements to suit your tastes and style.
To sum up, originality isn't the most important thing. Execution and concision are. To the extent that you beg, borrow, and steal tropes and familiar literary forms to save your readers time acclimating to your story, you save both your and their time. The rest is entirely up to what you bring to the table-- does your story entertain and spend the readers' time well?
A very wise and well-considered comment. Thank you.
Cultural shorthand is an excellent way to describe tropes. I suppose an author shouldn't feel guilty or shy away from using them if they are part of the supporting architecture of the story. The intimidating part for me is, am I a good enough writer to get across the elements of the story that I actually want to focus on, and have them land with the appropriate gravitas?
While I am a creative person, I still have the mind of an engineer. Character interactions, emotions, and dialogue are hard for me to get right.
I suppose one benefit I have in the current age is that I am trying to tell a story earnestly, and not ironically or deconstructively as so much popular media does today. Because of that I feel like I need to treat my audience's attention with the respect it deserves, as you mentioned.