Are we able to write anything original?

Maybe it’s a sweeping generalisation but I imagine that every author out there wants to write some original content. If all you are doing is essentially re-writing or rehashing the same stuff that people have seen a million times before then you would start to wonder what kind of writer you were. After all, creative writing is supposed to be… creative, not unimaginative, repetitive drivel. Unfortunately it’s fairly likely that everything you’ve ever written has already been thought of and is out there, somewhere, just waiting to jump out at you and knock your confidence down a few notches. Is there anything we can do about it? I’d argue that there probably isn’t.

Coming up with a new idea is rather like imagining what emptiness is like. Imagine what existed before the universe, or after everything has long since gone, maybe you’re imagining a big, blank, white slate or an empty black void. This is not emptiness; these are colours, it’s a horrible thing to put yourself through because we simply lack the capability to imagine what nothing looks like. We’ve never experienced it before and our mental capacities are severely limited if we try to think outside the human-body box. I’d argue that completely new, original, literally never thought of before ideas are also beyond our mental capacities; we need to build up ideas with pre-existing building blocks. Unicorns are made out of horses and horns, dragons are from pre-existing lizards and then there are several creatures inspired by twisted and unnatural versions of humans. 

Now, there is no rule out there which states that original bits of work by people; novels, poems, film scripts and so on, need to be, well, entirely original. Plagiarism has always been a big problem but it doesn’t have any actual legal grounding other than a vague sense of stealing. Copyright infringement is a whole different bag, plagiarism tends to be limited to somebody claiming that what they are saying is theirs is something that they themselves authored. Problem is, it’s rather difficult to prove as actual ‘never seen before’ ideas are hard to come by. 

Is 'creative plagiarism' common?

Here’s some examples of what I mean. I’ll do a quick summary of a book and you see if you know where it is from:

“A young boy discovers he is a wizard and heads off to a magical school to learn more about the craft. Under the guidance of an elderly and wise tutor he trains and improves his powers, his best friend is from a modest background and his enemy at the school is a complete snob.”

Harry Potter? Surely, Ron and Draco are in there, also Dumbledore and I mean, he discovers he’s a wizard and he goes to a wizard school for Christ’s sake. But, actually no, it’s not Harry Potter. It’s instead describing “A Wizard of Earthsea” published in 1968. Sorry, maybe I tricked you a little there, here you can have another try: 

“A young boy discovers he is a wizard. He must engage in a long and dangerous wizarding competition where he must solve clues also, at one point, rescue hostages which are imprisoned by half human, half animal creatures in order to become the winner of the competition. The wizarding world thankfully has its own wizarding hospital but, when not participating in the competition, he can kill time with wizarding chess or reading the wizarding newspaper.”

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! Surely, the tri-wizard tournament with the weird mermaids who kidnapped the contestants buddies… nnnoo.. this one is describing “The Adventures of Willy the Wizard” from 1987. This one actually had a lawsuit attached, serious business.

Harry Potter aside there are plenty of books and films out there which build upon long accepted groundwork ideas. Modern day vampires are not a patch on what they used to be but, even in Bram Stoker’s era they weren’t new concept. John Polidori put those fanged guys down a long time before Stoker did but, even Polidori could also have easily read the short German poem written by Heinrich Ossenfelder and nicked the idea from him too.

There are, of course, modern examples of creative plagiarism but it never stopped them from making any money. The Hunger Games has a very similar idea to Battle Royale and the 2009 film Avatar has been noted by critics as being extraordinarily similar to Dances with Wolves, or Pocahontas, or Princess Mononoke… or some other stuff. It’s a fairly cruel business to go around accusing directors and authors to be taking ideas as they please and rehashing them into something that has become popular as, chances are, that ‘original’ idea wasn’t ever original. After all, none of us live inside a vacuum of space whereby we are totally unaffected by the surrounding world. Most of us, I hope, read as well as write and as we read we’re going to be consciously and unconsciously picking up bits of ideas. It’s a natural process and it’s also fairly likely that you’ll end up writing down combined bits of stories that you had previously read without even realising what you’re doing.

Totally different films. Honest.

Does it matter?

So, if there is no such thing as new and original ideas then then what hope is there? Is this the end of creativity and imagination as we know it? Does this explain why every single film that comes out at the cinema seems more and more familiar as the years go by? Actually, maybe that last one is correct, but as long as it’s an enjoyable film who gives a damn. What makes a good idea, even if it’s not an original idea, is that it adds a different perspective to a pre-existing story. As long as you’re bringing something new to the table then your idea is worth writing down as contained within something old is a kernel of originality that is provided for by, you; a unique person. 

Creativity doesn’t have to be about coming up with completely new, miraculously created you’re your little writer’s vacuum. Instead, simply looking at something in a different way and getting that down on paper is, in itself, worthwhile. Perhaps you hold a perspective on something that nobody else has held. Perhaps you can put things together in a unique manner by combining components into something that is, if not completely innovative then at least a bit novel. 

We’re often tempted to discard bits of work because we realise how similar they are to pre-existing pieces of work, either by ourselves or somebody else, have you ever done this? Do you think you can have entirely new ideas, not formed from pre-existing concepts? Let me know!