Worried your ideas aren't your own?
Oct. 15th, 2008 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ostarellaFrom Manuscript Rx newsletter
www.ManuscriptRx.com
This month's newsletter is inspired by an e-mail conversation I recently had with one of my clients. (Thanks, Jeanne!) Her concern is one that most writers share at one point or another, which makes it a newsletter-worthy topic. (I hope you agree.) Let's kick the discussion off with the relevant parts of her e-mail (shared with Jeanne's permission):
"I'm always worried that I'll subconsciously copy something I've seen or read (and I don't mean to!). My father-in-law does it all the time -- tells us a story that we, in fact, told him. [...] This book writing really makes you put yourself out there (and I am not used to that!). Sometimes when I'm writing a piece I think, Wow, this is a great idea. But then when I see it out there in print (by someone else, and written better) I realize just how un-novel it really is."
There's nothing new under the sun
First of all, cut yourself some slack. You cannot be expected to come up with a wholly original idea, because Very Wise People have postulated that there are truly no such things. Remember the old adage, "There's nothing new under the sun"? There may have been completely new ideas at some point in this planet's early life, but Earth has been around the block by now and fertile minds have churned out millions of books, trillions of words, countless ideas.
However, this shouldn't discourage you; instead, let it inspire you. After all, if you were able to come up with something that had never been done before, people might not recognize it or be able to categorize it (which means they might not even approach it). And categories drive the market. Readers have a good idea of a book's theme before they plunk down money for it; they don't typically splurge on the unrecognizable.
Many of you predominantly write fiction, but let's take a page from the non-fiction writer's book for a minute: in the book proposal package, the non-fiction writer needs to examine the competition; s/he must prove that there are books that share similarities with the proposed project. Publishers actually want to know there is a demand for an idea (it means there's a market for it). Of course, the writer needs to indicate in the proposal how his/her execution will set this book apart from the others (it might be the writer's particular platform, or a unique angle, or even the chosen style/structure), but in essence, the publisher is looking for a precedent in a book idea.
Publishers don't expect or want writers to reinvent the wheel. They just want faster, smoother, more interesting wheels. This holds true for fiction, too. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a novel that I daresay is brilliant to a breathtaking degree. Shockingly and captivatingly brilliant. Pure genius. (Okay, you've tolerated my gushing long enough...) It's a novel about the Holocaust, about books, about family. Keep in mind there have been thousands of novels written on the Holocaust. And thousands of novels about books. Hundreds of thousands of novels about families, about resilient kids in tragic situations, about people coping with grief and loss and fear and war. And even many books/movies where Death is a character within the story and/or serves as narrator. Yet Zusak has created transcendent, shimmering, one-of-a-kind art by taking all of these "already done" ideas (which is all any of us can ever start with...known ideas) and shaping them into something uniquely his own.
So the first and most important step is to acknowledge the fact that there is a finite number of ideas in the universe. No one will arrange words on a page exactly as you will, so there are infinite possibilities when it comes to executing those ideas. But the germ of the idea will necessarily feel familiar at some level to start off with.
We can't write in a vacuum
It's absolutely necessary for us to immerse ourselves in our thoughts and ideas when we write. However, no matter how hard we try to insulate ourselves in this inner mental world, we don't write in a vacuum. Since we were knee-high and first discovered that what other people did/said actually mattered, we have been shaped by others' ideas. Whether or not we keep those externally-acquired ideas in our forebrains, they've registered in our consciousness and have made an impact on our intellects (some make bigger impacts than others, obviously).
Not only is it impossible to shed the pieces of the complex intellectual milieu that helped make you a creative being, you shouldn't want to: you've heard that you need to know your market before you try for publication. You can't study your chosen genre while your eyes are squeezed shut. How can you propose to add something to the ongoing conversation that is the world of letters if you haven't truly immersed yourself in it? That's like saying that doctors-in-training should stay away from surgeries before they're scheduled for their own. "Congratulations, Mrs. Bentley. Your operation will not only be my first procedure, but the first time I've even seen a real gallbladder!" I'm sure you'd flag down the anesthesiologist, wriggle out of your paper johnny and into your street clothes, and hail the first taxi home.
How can you possibly know what readers want if you're not a reader yourself?
Writers often tell me, "Oh, I never read when I'm working on a piece. I'm afraid it will influence me." There are two glaring problems with this common but self-defeating mindset:
1) You should always be working on a piece (even if you can only devote 15 minutes each day, that will get you much further in the long run - via momentum -- than a couple of lumped-together hours per month), and therefore it follows that if you adhere to the belief that you shouldn't crack a book while you write your own, you'll never read (gasp!);
and
2) It implies that influential ideas only stick when you're in the midst of a project (untrue). Writing is a highly complex, nearly magical dance between what we've experienced (intellectually as well as concretely) and our evolving selves. You continue to reshape your creative self as you write. You can't always trace an idea back to its origins, but you do have control of the direction you take your manuscript. We are bombarded with words and images all day, every day. And we automatically use our filters to reject those bits that we can't use and store those that we can.
Use musicians as an example: they are always listening to music (not just when they take a hiatus from composing). Likewise, the most successful writers consistently surround themselves in the written word (and not only their own).
Ironically enough, even if you manage to trick yourself into thinking you can achieve tunnel vision and neatly pluck yourself out of the teeming mass of thoughts and ideas that make up our world, you'll probably be more likely to resort to borrowing (inadvertently or otherwise) because the pool of your own ideas will be smaller. Think of gene pools: the healthiest have a great variety of genetic material; the same holds true for the healthiest writers' brains--they are filled with a lush, varied landscape of notions.
The brilliant borrow...
We're all writers here, and serious writers possess a solid backbone of integrity, so I'm not going to waste your time reiterating Mrs. Dunwoody's sixth-grade lecture on the pitfalls of plagiarism. But let's look at intentional, artistic, appropriately boundaried examples of dipping into the collective creative well.
Gregory Maguire is the brilliantly inspired, stunningly creative author of Wicked (among other novels). For those of you who may be unfamiliar with his work, this novel is the story of the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, L. Frank Baum's villainous witch from The Wizard of Oz. Maguire breathes life into her, making her a fully realized character (versus only a stubborn obstacle and stark juxtaposition to Dorothy). He even properly names her (Elphaba). Maguire's novel is the story of her life before Baum thrust her on the stage. And through this expansive retelling (pretelling, really), she becomes a multi-dimensional, complex, sympathetic character (and completely misunderstood until now). How can he do that? Can he do that?, you might sputter. Absolutely. He starts at Baum's diving board, but soars off with a flourish of his very own moves.
Joyce Carol Oates's new novel, My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike, is totally fiction yet at the same time is "inspired by" (sounds less deliberate than saying, "based on," though I think it's only a semantic difference) the infamous JonBenet Ramsey case. While there are plenty of details that differ (including all names, of course), there are plenty just a shade away. And anyone who owned a TV in the 90s will recognize the real case embedded in the fiction. The long-running TV show Law and Order is known for this "ripped from the headlines" approach. If an idea begins at the "truth is stranger than fiction" locale, does that make the execution of the whole any less creative, any less your own? I think not (as long as the story has enough of your own ingenuity infused into it, and as long as you change personally identifiable details so as not to trod on real people's lives).
(Note how these examples differ from the unintentional [or selectively dismissed/forgotten], scratch-your-head kind, where you know something you're setting to paper doesn't feel like one of your brainchildren, it sounds familiar in a déjà vu sort of way, you can't really remember when you conceived of it, but you cross your fingers and run with it anyway.)
Stephen King (in his book On Writing) says that writers aren't inventors at all--they're archeologists. He posits that writers don't dream up totally new ideas, but instead dig for the ideas that are already buried in the universe. We unearth ideas that precede us, ones that may be covered in clumps of soil or tangled roots, but belonging to all of us just the same.
So, Jeanne, you're certainly not alone in worrying that the things you read/hear are unduly influencing you when you sit down to write. But hopefully this helps assuage your worry.
I think I'd add a caveat to her comments about reading while writing. I don't write stories in the same vein as the one I'm working on (ie, I'm not reading other Vietnam era fics while working on Covenant) - but I do read other things. I don't think you can be a writer (a good one, anyway) if you're not also a reader. It keeps your mind working, and keeps new ideas floating in there as well.
www.ManuscriptRx.com
This month's newsletter is inspired by an e-mail conversation I recently had with one of my clients. (Thanks, Jeanne!) Her concern is one that most writers share at one point or another, which makes it a newsletter-worthy topic. (I hope you agree.) Let's kick the discussion off with the relevant parts of her e-mail (shared with Jeanne's permission):
"I'm always worried that I'll subconsciously copy something I've seen or read (and I don't mean to!). My father-in-law does it all the time -- tells us a story that we, in fact, told him. [...] This book writing really makes you put yourself out there (and I am not used to that!). Sometimes when I'm writing a piece I think, Wow, this is a great idea. But then when I see it out there in print (by someone else, and written better) I realize just how un-novel it really is."
There's nothing new under the sun
First of all, cut yourself some slack. You cannot be expected to come up with a wholly original idea, because Very Wise People have postulated that there are truly no such things. Remember the old adage, "There's nothing new under the sun"? There may have been completely new ideas at some point in this planet's early life, but Earth has been around the block by now and fertile minds have churned out millions of books, trillions of words, countless ideas.
However, this shouldn't discourage you; instead, let it inspire you. After all, if you were able to come up with something that had never been done before, people might not recognize it or be able to categorize it (which means they might not even approach it). And categories drive the market. Readers have a good idea of a book's theme before they plunk down money for it; they don't typically splurge on the unrecognizable.
Many of you predominantly write fiction, but let's take a page from the non-fiction writer's book for a minute: in the book proposal package, the non-fiction writer needs to examine the competition; s/he must prove that there are books that share similarities with the proposed project. Publishers actually want to know there is a demand for an idea (it means there's a market for it). Of course, the writer needs to indicate in the proposal how his/her execution will set this book apart from the others (it might be the writer's particular platform, or a unique angle, or even the chosen style/structure), but in essence, the publisher is looking for a precedent in a book idea.
Publishers don't expect or want writers to reinvent the wheel. They just want faster, smoother, more interesting wheels. This holds true for fiction, too. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a novel that I daresay is brilliant to a breathtaking degree. Shockingly and captivatingly brilliant. Pure genius. (Okay, you've tolerated my gushing long enough...) It's a novel about the Holocaust, about books, about family. Keep in mind there have been thousands of novels written on the Holocaust. And thousands of novels about books. Hundreds of thousands of novels about families, about resilient kids in tragic situations, about people coping with grief and loss and fear and war. And even many books/movies where Death is a character within the story and/or serves as narrator. Yet Zusak has created transcendent, shimmering, one-of-a-kind art by taking all of these "already done" ideas (which is all any of us can ever start with...known ideas) and shaping them into something uniquely his own.
So the first and most important step is to acknowledge the fact that there is a finite number of ideas in the universe. No one will arrange words on a page exactly as you will, so there are infinite possibilities when it comes to executing those ideas. But the germ of the idea will necessarily feel familiar at some level to start off with.
We can't write in a vacuum
It's absolutely necessary for us to immerse ourselves in our thoughts and ideas when we write. However, no matter how hard we try to insulate ourselves in this inner mental world, we don't write in a vacuum. Since we were knee-high and first discovered that what other people did/said actually mattered, we have been shaped by others' ideas. Whether or not we keep those externally-acquired ideas in our forebrains, they've registered in our consciousness and have made an impact on our intellects (some make bigger impacts than others, obviously).
Not only is it impossible to shed the pieces of the complex intellectual milieu that helped make you a creative being, you shouldn't want to: you've heard that you need to know your market before you try for publication. You can't study your chosen genre while your eyes are squeezed shut. How can you propose to add something to the ongoing conversation that is the world of letters if you haven't truly immersed yourself in it? That's like saying that doctors-in-training should stay away from surgeries before they're scheduled for their own. "Congratulations, Mrs. Bentley. Your operation will not only be my first procedure, but the first time I've even seen a real gallbladder!" I'm sure you'd flag down the anesthesiologist, wriggle out of your paper johnny and into your street clothes, and hail the first taxi home.
How can you possibly know what readers want if you're not a reader yourself?
Writers often tell me, "Oh, I never read when I'm working on a piece. I'm afraid it will influence me." There are two glaring problems with this common but self-defeating mindset:
1) You should always be working on a piece (even if you can only devote 15 minutes each day, that will get you much further in the long run - via momentum -- than a couple of lumped-together hours per month), and therefore it follows that if you adhere to the belief that you shouldn't crack a book while you write your own, you'll never read (gasp!);
and
2) It implies that influential ideas only stick when you're in the midst of a project (untrue). Writing is a highly complex, nearly magical dance between what we've experienced (intellectually as well as concretely) and our evolving selves. You continue to reshape your creative self as you write. You can't always trace an idea back to its origins, but you do have control of the direction you take your manuscript. We are bombarded with words and images all day, every day. And we automatically use our filters to reject those bits that we can't use and store those that we can.
Use musicians as an example: they are always listening to music (not just when they take a hiatus from composing). Likewise, the most successful writers consistently surround themselves in the written word (and not only their own).
Ironically enough, even if you manage to trick yourself into thinking you can achieve tunnel vision and neatly pluck yourself out of the teeming mass of thoughts and ideas that make up our world, you'll probably be more likely to resort to borrowing (inadvertently or otherwise) because the pool of your own ideas will be smaller. Think of gene pools: the healthiest have a great variety of genetic material; the same holds true for the healthiest writers' brains--they are filled with a lush, varied landscape of notions.
The brilliant borrow...
We're all writers here, and serious writers possess a solid backbone of integrity, so I'm not going to waste your time reiterating Mrs. Dunwoody's sixth-grade lecture on the pitfalls of plagiarism. But let's look at intentional, artistic, appropriately boundaried examples of dipping into the collective creative well.
Gregory Maguire is the brilliantly inspired, stunningly creative author of Wicked (among other novels). For those of you who may be unfamiliar with his work, this novel is the story of the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, L. Frank Baum's villainous witch from The Wizard of Oz. Maguire breathes life into her, making her a fully realized character (versus only a stubborn obstacle and stark juxtaposition to Dorothy). He even properly names her (Elphaba). Maguire's novel is the story of her life before Baum thrust her on the stage. And through this expansive retelling (pretelling, really), she becomes a multi-dimensional, complex, sympathetic character (and completely misunderstood until now). How can he do that? Can he do that?, you might sputter. Absolutely. He starts at Baum's diving board, but soars off with a flourish of his very own moves.
Joyce Carol Oates's new novel, My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike, is totally fiction yet at the same time is "inspired by" (sounds less deliberate than saying, "based on," though I think it's only a semantic difference) the infamous JonBenet Ramsey case. While there are plenty of details that differ (including all names, of course), there are plenty just a shade away. And anyone who owned a TV in the 90s will recognize the real case embedded in the fiction. The long-running TV show Law and Order is known for this "ripped from the headlines" approach. If an idea begins at the "truth is stranger than fiction" locale, does that make the execution of the whole any less creative, any less your own? I think not (as long as the story has enough of your own ingenuity infused into it, and as long as you change personally identifiable details so as not to trod on real people's lives).
(Note how these examples differ from the unintentional [or selectively dismissed/forgotten], scratch-your-head kind, where you know something you're setting to paper doesn't feel like one of your brainchildren, it sounds familiar in a déjà vu sort of way, you can't really remember when you conceived of it, but you cross your fingers and run with it anyway.)
Stephen King (in his book On Writing) says that writers aren't inventors at all--they're archeologists. He posits that writers don't dream up totally new ideas, but instead dig for the ideas that are already buried in the universe. We unearth ideas that precede us, ones that may be covered in clumps of soil or tangled roots, but belonging to all of us just the same.
So, Jeanne, you're certainly not alone in worrying that the things you read/hear are unduly influencing you when you sit down to write. But hopefully this helps assuage your worry.
I think I'd add a caveat to her comments about reading while writing. I don't write stories in the same vein as the one I'm working on (ie, I'm not reading other Vietnam era fics while working on Covenant) - but I do read other things. I don't think you can be a writer (a good one, anyway) if you're not also a reader. It keeps your mind working, and keeps new ideas floating in there as well.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-16 05:58 pm (UTC)You could take something that's essentially formulaic, like romance, and even the same basic "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again" and write a hundred very different stories from that, set in different places, different time periods, with very different characters, set in made up places and times, in hugely different styles. But readers would always be able to understand the basic storyline, not because it's cliche, but because it's universal.
I do try to keep reading - it's getting the time! And don't worry too much about things influencing me. It's a good idea like you're doing to keep away from things that are too similar to what you're writing right now, maybe, though of course there'll be common elements. I'm reading another Sharpe book right now, so not in the same time period as any of my current projects, but there's the military milieu, so he has that in common with other characters I write, and despite the different time period there are still universals there.
You've mentioned before about how other fanfics influenced your characterisation until you got to see the series again, which is obviously an example of where reading can influence a writer. Fan fic is probably a bit of a tricky subject here. How original can you get before it isn't about those characters any more. Are there some areas like setting and plot you can be more original about and still keep your reader on board, where characterisation you're more constrained, without setting up a lot of reasons why someone is different - like you have in Covenant of course.
Wow, lots of wittering on! Enough for now!