Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25194
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25194
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

We are in the business of storytelling, and it is the telling, not the story, that sets us apart. Storytellers tell the same basic stories over and over and over again. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Friends go on quest for McGuffin. Friends have setbacks. Friends get McGuffin. There are only so many ways to vary the basic shapes of stories without them ceasing to be satisfying stories.

So what sets Jane Austen apart from Danielle Steele is not the story they tell, but how the tell it. This is not to say that there is not a market for the same story told in the same way. Some readers have endless appetites for the same basic love story told the same basic way, and Harlequin is set up to deliver it.

That formula fiction, though, is not a simply copy of something genuinely original. Formula romance does not sound like Jane Austen, just as formula fantasy does not sound like Tolkien.

You can write pastiche of the the style of good writers, but that tends to stand out as pastiche. Writing pastiche can be a developmental stage for a writer, particularly is you are inspired to write by a particular beloved author. But your need to grow past pastiche if you want to be an author of similar calibre to your hero. To do that, you have to read widely, exposing yourself to very different styles and different approaches to storytelling. Read outside your genre. Read outside you era. Read the greats. All this will enrich your literary pallet and get your imagination out of the rut of your favorite author's style.

In the end, though, it is important to remember that the reader is not looking for originality. (Specifically, they are looking for something familiar, something that will satisfy their existing tastes.) What they are looking for is poignancy. They want to be moved. They want to enjoy a vicarious emotion or experience.

Blatant copying of another author in the field, or pastiche, deliberate or not, will spoil that poignancy if the reader recognizes it. Suddenly it becomes about the book, not the story; about the mechanics, not the experience.

To sum up originality is not a goal. We all tell the same stories. What distinguished us is how we tell those stories. Avoid copyright violations so you don't get sued. (Copyright, not plagiarism, is what you worry about, unless you are submitting a work for a degree.) Avoid pastiche because it distracts the reader. Read broadly, deeply, and attentively to broaden your literary pallet and get your storytelling mind out of the rut of your favorite author or style. Or write formula fiction to the formula requested by the publisher and don't worry about originality -- it is not what you are being paid for.

Original score: 0