How can I be more original?

November 6, 2005 7:04 PM

How can I be more creative and original?

How can I be more creative and original? I write fiction, SF and fantasy, but I have trouble thinking of anything truly original. My mind seems to want to stick to the same old traditional stories and settings. And when I really try to come up with something original, invariably someone will still come along and say "Oh, that's just like (some story I've never heard of before)". Even my wildest ideas seem to have been done before. I can't read every single story in the entire world to make sure I'm not duplicating someone, but I hate the thought that people will think I am stealing from other authors just because we have similar ideas. How can I train my brain to come up with new, unique, never-seen-before ideas?

posted by Rubber Soul to writing & language (34 comments total)

I believe a steady supply of amphetamines is a tried and tested solution over the years.
posted by xmutex at 7:11 PM on November 6, 2005

Everything that can be done has been done. Don't try to worry yourself with what others have done. Just do what you do. It might look like something else, but that doesn't change the fact that you did it. And there's only one you. So that makes it completely original. You're just psyching yourself out saying stuff like, "I can't read every single story in the entire world to make sure I'm not duplicating someone, but I hate the thought that people will think I am stealing from other authors just because we have similar ideas."

Is the reason you are writing because you want to say something new or because you like to write?
posted by panoptican at 7:11 PM on November 6, 2005

I say stop worrying about it. Being a good writer (or any creative type) is about a lot more than coming up with unique, never-seen-before ideas. There are folks who would argue that there are no new ideas for stories, and that there haven't been since the ancient Greeks. Focus on other aspects of your writing. Chances are a lot of your readers won't care or won't realize if you're not being completely original. Of course you shouldn't plagiarize, but I think you should concern yourself with writing well and stop second-guessing yourself with regard to originality.

Also, some people seem to advocate cutting oneself off from all influences in order to be more original, but I'd recommend the opposite. Take in as much as you can from as wide a variety of sources as you can, and you'll gradually filter them through your own experience and personality and synthesize them into something that may well be new. But branch out; don't limit yourself to things you already know or like or things that are similar to what you're trying to do. Find inspiration in unlikely places. Steal ideas, but alter them and blend them with other ideas until they come out in a way that only you could have made them.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:15 PM on November 6, 2005

Eat a handful of mushrooms and take notes.
posted by Rothko at 7:16 PM on November 6, 2005

ludwig_van gives you very good advice.

i would only add that no matter what you write, it will be new to somebody. it will be their first encounter with an idea or plot.

the reason there is so much redundancy in living and cultural systems is because not everybody gets it the first time around!
posted by subatomiczoo at 7:21 PM on November 6, 2005

One way to get over this is to be postmodern about it. Write something intentionally cliched. Then take some angle (character trait, setting, plot point, whatever) and turn it 180 degrees, or at least skew it in some unusual way. Then adjust everything that needs adjusting. Then, if it's still cliched, find something else to twist. Quentin Tarantino has basically made a career of this, and yet the twists he typically uses are only one set of possible twists. Your twists will naturally be different.

And remember, "Dark City" and "The Matrix" are in broad outline very nearly the same movie. Yet they are completely different in detail. Creators cannot help putting their own stamp on what they create, even if it's been done before by others.
posted by kindall at 7:34 PM on November 6, 2005

Rothko has it nailed (plus its fun).

But seriously, who cares. Good writing (imho) shouldn't depend on a plot, it should depend on the reader's connection to the characters and themes, which means constructing everything in a way that you find meaningful. You can reduce most books down to a 5-sentence plot summary, swap some names, and have n number of books over the last 200 years. What makes some of those great and some of those terrible is the view you get into the characters and how that impacts you.
posted by devilsbrigade at 7:39 PM on November 6, 2005

I wouldn't sweat it.
A good story is far more about quality of execution than it is about ideas. A great idea without the capacity to put it into an engaging sequence of words doesn't get you very far.
posted by juv3nal at 7:46 PM on November 6, 2005

"Dark City" and "The Matrix" are in broad outline very nearly the same movie

And they are both roughly a retelling of Plato's allegory of the cave (thought the Matrix more so). In other words, there is nothing new under the sun.

Don't worry about who you might be mimicking, write what you feel is good. The rest will take care of itself. (Frankly if authors refused to write anything that wasn't original, I doubt much would have gotten done after Shakespeare, and even he borrowed liberally.)
posted by oddman at 7:55 PM on November 6, 2005

Someone recently told me that my writing was full of bad cliches and well-covered issues.

Hell yeah. I love the cliche and I'm not particularly concerned if I bring my own view to something that's been done before. Forbidden Planet was based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Clueless was based on Jane Austen's Emma.

Forget doing something completely brand new...just do what makes you interested and happy. Your take on it will be different from others' take on it. As long as you don't write a story about a boy wizard with round glasses and a scar on his forehead, you're likely perfectly fine.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:08 PM on November 6, 2005

Absinthe.

The Green Fairy...La Fee Verte....no other drink has the same romantic history - the French Impressionists....Toulouse Lautrec, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh....Paris in the Belle Epoque....the cafes of Montmartre....the muse of writers from Verlaine and Rimbaud to Joyce and Hemingway. ...

But be wary of elixirs, tinctures, the flaming Czech fire ritual and absinthe sold on eBay. ...
posted by Seabird at 8:14 PM on November 6, 2005

Chartreuse mangos, man. Chartreuse mangos with platypus cheese.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:14 PM on November 6, 2005

Trying to be original is like trying to fall in love. It doesn't work. You only fall in love when you're not trying to.

I agree with everyone here who says stop trying. Even Shakespeare stole all his plots.

Your stories WILL be original because they will be told by you -- as long as you are honest. You can thwart this by trying to hard. Just strive for honesty. Just pump your own personality into your stories -- no one has your personality except you.

A storyteller's job is To Tell His Story -- not To Be Original. That's vanity. That's about you and your reputation -- not the story. TELL THE STORY. If it's not an original story, tell it anyway. It's your job to serve the story that you have; it's not the story's job to serve you and make you seem original in front of your friends.

I've made an ethical claim in that last paragraph. I can't support it other to say that's how I work when I create. When I was younger, I too wanted to be original. Then I realized that this, more than anything else, was hurting my creations. I was more focused on my ego than I was on telling the story, so naturally I wasn't pouring 100% of my energy into the story.

Some might say this is going too far, but now I've flipped into the opposite. Now, if I get a really cool, original idea, I am suspicious. If I get a feeling of, "Wow! That's really clever. People are going to be impressed," I take it as a danger sign and I often cut that idea and replace it with something simpler.

Having said all that, if you still want to strive for originality, impose arbitrary rules on yourself. You're writing a sci-fi story? Okay, it MUST have two men and three women in it. You're writing a love story? Okay, it must involve a hardware store. You're writing a fantasy? Okay, magic is only allowed on pages 35, 108 and 273 -- and you MUST include magic on those pages.
posted by grumblebee at 8:29 PM on November 6, 2005

Hacking your creative process.

All known idea generation methods. (Maybe.)

Both via 43folders.

One of the classics (found above) is Oblique Strategies, a deck of "dilemma cards".
posted by dhartung at 8:30 PM on November 6, 2005 [1 favorite]

Make your characters really interesting. You can tell the same story that's been told a million times but it will be compelling if the reader is seeing it through the eyes of complex, believable characters who aren't cliches.
posted by fshgrl at 8:45 PM on November 6, 2005

I've written, and continue to write, stories about a future time where humanity has spread through the stars, adopted an anarcho-communist democracy - mostly happily functional due to the complete lack of any need for rationing (energy is plentiful, allowing high-technology to provide the means of production), and where AIs form an important part of society.

So, because Iain M Banks is a few years older than me, and hence got a bit of a head-start, I should stop?

Tell you what, how about no?

My stories might share aspects in common with Asimov, Harrison, and Niven, but my style is mine alone. The best thing I can do, is keep writing, continue developing my style, eventually, with luck and talent, people will stop being critics, and start being fans.

4. Profit.
posted by The Monkey at 8:46 PM on November 6, 2005

I've known a lot of creative people who've tried desperately to become more creative off drugs. If you want to do mushrooms/acid/ecstasy for the fun of it go ahead -- but it will not spark creativity. Must hallucigenic compounds are so internal they rarely lead to moments of "a-ha" or breakthroughs.

Amphetamines on the other hand...
posted by geoff. at 9:43 PM on November 6, 2005

If you have a Mac with OSx Tiger there is also an Oblique Strategies Dashboard Widget which I have found helpful from time to time.

Also, why don't you try switching your medium? For example, if you are writing on a word processor then try a pen and notebook... or a vintage typewriter. Sometimes I cannot form a good story outline unless I chart it out on a large dry-erase board. Something about the medium just opens up my mind in different ways.

Along this line of thought, you could also try switching the place you write. Write outside, or in a crowded place, or in a locked room with no windows. You'll be surprised how much your environment has to do with your writing process.

Another technique you could employ is letting the characters control the story more. No matter how cliched your plot is, unique characters will add a whole other dimension to it. Look at your characters you are writing; what are their idiosyncrasies? Maybe you should give a character an eyepatch and a russian accent and let him develop from there. Maybe your main character should be a woman, or 10 years old. This will at least give you some creative energy to work with and maybe some fresh ideas, even if the character change doesn't work.

Most importantly, don't worry about the "big picture" too much. If you set out to create a story a certain way then you are already limiting yourself. Sometimes I'll read a great novel or watch a great film and think: "I need to write a story/screenplay like that." But if I tried to replicate them I'd find myself getting very frustrated. Instead, absorb those great novels, films, songs into your subconscience and they will affect your work in all sorts of ways, trust me.

I could get into semantics about techniques on how to solve specific problems in plot or dialog, but i think the advice given in the comments so far is more than enough to go on.

Good luck.
posted by deafweatherman at 9:46 PM on November 6, 2005

I just saw that fshgrl beat me to the characters comment.
posted by deafweatherman at 9:48 PM on November 6, 2005

I don't know of anything that will like change your whole level of creative operation, but when I just need a periodic kick I like to page through a few random image searches (likely to be NSFW) for tangential inspiration. A lot of interesting stuff turns up, since people don't usually go through the trouble of digitizing the extremely banal. As a writer I'm sure you have tons of innate creativity, esp. with the fantasy, what with all the fantastic stuff. It's just difficult to coax out sometimes. This is like the brute force method to creativity. Enough refreshes and something will catch you.
posted by moift at 10:27 PM on November 6, 2005

arbitrary limitation breeds creativity.
posted by Satapher at 11:53 PM on November 6, 2005

also, creativity is learning to effectively hide your sources; originality is an illusion.
posted by Satapher at 11:55 PM on November 6, 2005

sorry, but also : Language is a Virus
posted by Satapher at 11:57 PM on November 6, 2005

You can't read every story to be sure yours is original, but it certainly pays to be extremely familiar with the genre so you're not rehashing old cliches, e.g. clones of famous people (esp. Jesus), "it's all a dream," "it's all an experiment," "it's all a game," etc.

Altered states will make you think you're more creative and original, but trust me, you won't be.

Draw your inspiration from life. The best stories are about people anyway (even genre fiction). Look at a particular human dynamic and think of what sort of technological (or magical) twist would amplify it, e.g. boy can't get girl because 1) boy used to be girl (via time travel and sex change, "All You Zombies") 2) boy and girl are separated by a magical gulf of time ("Brigadoon"), 3) girl is a robot ("Helen O'Loy" for one, "Blade Runner" for another), etc.

Also, if you're into "hard" science fiction, you should be reading science magazines and journals, talking to physicists and chemists and biologists and so on. You can't possibly read about prions and hydrinos and brane theory and giant squid with out dozens of wild ideas leaping into your mind.
posted by zanni at 12:25 AM on November 7, 2005

Why are you writing?

If you're writing just as a hobby to entertain yourself, then all the advice about "Don't worry about being original" is 100% right-on.

However, if you are (or hope to be) a professional writer, then that sort of advice is only about 70% right on.

Think about cities. If you look at a satellite view of any block in any modern industrialized city anywhere in the world, it will look pretty much the same as the satellite view of any other block. But as you zoom in, you'll start noticing unique buildings... and then unique people... and then unique speech patterns and accents and family histories...

Similarly, if you think about any story in its most abstract sense, it will sound like thousands of other stories. Dark City and The Matrix are both stories about (SPOILERS) people who find out that their worlds are just illusions created by a non-human race. But as you zoom in to a finer level of detail, they become much more distinct. They are about different protagonists in different worlds who must perform different actions in response to the different reasons that different non-humans have created their different worlds. And those two different stories are told in two different cinematic styles.

All those different details add up to a unique and individual artistic voice. And it's just such a distinctive voice that you need to develop if you want to be a professional writer. After all, there has to be a reason why somebody will buy one of your books, instead of the millions of other books out there.

So let's get back to your question. How can you develop that voice? First, I echo everything Zanni said. That's great advice.

The only thing I'd argue about is that altered states can make you more creative or original. Think about Jimmi Hendrix, or alcoholic writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway. The problem is that artists who come to rely on mind-altering substances end up burning out really, really quickly. Think about... well, Jimmy Hendrix, or F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Ernest Hemingway.

By contrast, artists who understand that their brains are valuable instruments which must be treated with respect tend to have long and productive creative lives. Think about Bach, for example--he seems to have been an enthusiastic-but-moderate beer drinker who was still writing major works into his old age. So, basically, I agree with Zanni that you shouldn't rely on drugs or excessive alcohol use; I just slightly disagree about the reason.

Anyway. As a working writer, I wrestle with the issue of creativity all the time. Here's what I've found works for me:

1. Regular exercise and enough sleep.

2. Always zoom in far enough. Like I said, on an abstract level, all stories and characters are alike on an abstract level, and only become different when you zoom in and look at the details. Ergo, if there are no details to zoom in on, the story will be clichéd. If you (and, therefore, your readers) know nothing about your main character other than that he is a shirtless muscle-bound warrior who slays dragons, he will be a cliché. If, however, you know that he is a shirtless muscle-bound warrior who works as a telephone repairman because modern-day dragons disguise themselves as cordless phones in order to breath fire straight into people's ears, well, then, you're beginning to tell this common, archetypal story in your own original and distinct voice.

3. Look to reality for inspiration. Often, reality itself will come up with ideas far more original than you can. For a sci-fi writer, this means (as wise Zanni said) keeping up with the latest scientific knowledge. And don't just read the science stories in Newsweek and Discover; thousands of other writers will be reading them, too. Make your reading as wide-ranging as possible.

In fact, look for ideas well beyond the pages of research magazines. Look for them in your daily life, and in history and economics and other areas far afield from traditional sci-fi territory. As a writer, the words "What if" will be one of your most useful tools. That one particular misunderstanding that happened to you at work today probably isn't much of a sci-fi story. But what if your office was the cockpit of a spaceship? And what if that misunderstanding happened just as you were about to blast off?

4. Always be willing to throw ideas in the garbage. When I was a staff writer on a TV talk show, the writing staff used to write something like 500 possible jokes for the opening monologue, of which about 10 would actually make it to the air. The other 490 we'd throw out. After a few years of this, I learned that, often, the very first idea I would have is the same thing as the very first idea somebody else would have. It was only after I exhausted all the obvious possibilities that the non-obvious ones would start to flow.

For that reason, when I am stuck on an idea for a plot development or a joke, I will sometimes force myself to sit down and write 100 possible solutions, without stopping to think about any of them. I've found that the first solutions to come out will be decent but obvious ones. Next will come the crappy but non-obvious ones. And if I stick with it long enough, the good-and-not-obvious ones will emerge (albeit often hidden amongst the crap.)

4a. The getting-rid-of-the-obvious stuff works as well on a macro basis as it does on a micro basis. That is, many writers find that their first few books (or scripts, or whatever) are pretty much the same as everybody else's first few books. If you keep on writing (and striving to improve your writing), developing your own voice will happen naturally.
posted by yankeefog at 4:14 AM on November 7, 2005 [2 favorites]

"En esta vida, todo lo que no es tradición, es plagio" -Eugenio D'Ors

That translates to, "In this life, everything that isn't tradition is plagiarism." Saw that today and thought it was pretty smart.
posted by BigBrownBear at 4:57 AM on November 7, 2005

Stop watching television. Start reading more. Stop watching movies. Start reading more. Stop gaming. Start reading more. Stop eating fast food. Start reading more. Stop masturbating. Start reading more. Stop surfing the web. Start reading more.

Start reading more.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:47 AM on November 7, 2005

Write. Read some. Write. Creativity will follow.

This advice may appear to be unhelpful, but I give it to you with utmost sincerity. It is all you need to know.
posted by jdroth at 7:49 AM on November 7, 2005

Throw your television out the window. Describe its arc, and the terminus thereof. Look! You're more creative already!

(Okay, maybe just tone down on media consumption of all stripes, and get more experience in writing.)
posted by jenovus at 9:58 AM on November 7, 2005

It also sounds as though you're pitching ideas to your friends rather than having them actually read the stories. You'll probably get more constructive feedback if people are reading what you've written. Then, if they say, "Well, the plot was the same as this story Xxxxx, but it was different because of xxxxxx," you'll be able to revise (if you want) without scrapping the whole thing. Otherwise, these comments may prevent you from writing (and thus arriving at a place of relative originality) at all.
posted by xo at 10:59 AM on November 7, 2005

Not a writer myself, but I thought this quote might provide some inspiration/insight:

"There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." -- Harry Truman
posted by Sagres at 12:57 PM on November 7, 2005

Try http://www.ideagenerationmethods.com/index.html

Several of these come from an old but excellent book, Lateral Thinking, which is the best resource I've found.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060903252/104-4616885-6136742?v=glance
posted by KRS at 5:40 PM on November 7, 2005

See also "Every possible storyline" thread.
posted by b. at 6:21 PM on November 7, 2005

Thank you all very much for all the help! I know I shouldn't let it worry me so much, but until I overcome that, having some things to try is helpful. All the advice has been very useful and informative (although I'll pass on the drugs...) Thanks!
posted by Rubber Soul at 6:37 PM on November 7, 2005