Sequels, re-boots, and ‘reimaginings:’ are there no new stories only new twists? What happened to originality?
With every ‘genre-defining’ best seller comes a band-wagon of knock-offs and imitators. Then critics compare it to a dozen other books. Is this the death of originality or evidence of the small number of story ideas? Just read Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots, Robert MacKee’s Story or Joseph Campbell’s the Hero’s Journey.
This is itself nothing new. Mark Twain captured it in the 1800’s:
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. Give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We can keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
Plot, Genre and Archetypes
Consider: all Samurai movies are Westerns. All Westerns are Greek mythology. Or Persian. Or Indian.
The outcast detective is the lone gunslinger, or the Knight Errant, or the Ronin warrior. Jack Reacher is Gary Cooper’s sheriff in High Noon, or Gawain, or Beowolf. Batman is Sherlock Holmes, or Confucius (the literary rather than the historical figure).
There are seven story types, nine genres, eleven basic plots, or… pick a number according to how many you can remember.
According to the experts, there’s a definitive formula to writing an iron-clad best-seller. But none of them agree what it is.
There might be seven, seventeen or twenty-seven chapters. There may be three acts or four. It might follow a ‘W’ shape or a rising line on a graph – with some peaks and troughs.
After 40,000 years of story telling from cave-paintings to iMax screens, there’s very little new under the sun. Lucian of Samosata wrote arguably the first sci-fi novella – in the Second Century AD. And genre-mashed it with satire. And fantastical creatures. Not even the cross-genre, fantasy-adventure-thriller-satire is a new thing.
What’s an aspiring author to do?
Create some compelling characters and give them something interesting to do. You won’t find any new stories, only new twists. That’s where creativity comes in.
IP is more valuable than originality. IP gets cultivated like poppies, it’s an income stream. People bought a s***-load of X, we’ll give ’em another s***-load of X til they stop buying it an move on to summat else.
You old cynic. Of course, you’re right.