Mesenterium
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There are 7 trillion people on the earth and weve been making things for 10,000 years. Originality is gonna be difficult if not impossible.I do believe that some of the things I love are overdone, and therefore when exploring them it is inevitable that I fall into such themes. Still, I try always to give them my personal touch, but still, that feeling of "this is not original enough" is always there. Maybe that's because I have seen people online criticising extensively different works, works that sometimes are seen in high regards, and then my confidence when it comes to it is just lost. But, in the end, that's internet in a nutshell.
The problem is definitely rooted in me though.
Have you been running around in such loop of originality when creating? How do you deal with it?
Original =/= better. Content is not original as soon as you take inspiration from something else. This is equivalent to chasing happiness in my opinion. You’ll never reach pure happiness if you spend your whole life chasing it. Don’t waste energy trying to be 100% original.
Honestly, this is something I have been trying to fight against. I have this mentality of "if it falls under a trope, then it is not original" when it comes to my characters, and that sucks. I love to play the Machiavellian type of characters, but let's face it: how many times has that been made already? But adding my own touch to that character and moulding them makes them different, right? I guess I can do this consistently, but when it comes to the point of asking myself "What makes this character different from other ones similar" the only possible answer I can think of has to do with tastes and a bit of their background, and that, to me, isn't a valid answer.
This is something I also do so when creating a character. Each personality trait is there for a reason and I always try to foresee how that also has an implication on that character's life. This is very important because it brings cohesion to their story and to who they are. Still, I feel like I am falling into clichés. I feel like everything I am exploring is just so overdone that there is no possible approach to make it different.
Yeah. I often point out people don't really have contradictions, we are just beings so complex that even minute changes of circumstances can make the domino pieces fall in an entirely different way.Precisely, that's why I like to think about how certain character's quirks could influence the story itself, but I also like to add a twist to their personalities. Certain things that might seem inconsistencies, but that in fact are simply the result of internal conflict, if it makes sense. As humans, we have very diverse internal conflicts, or maybe not, in a bigger picture.
Yep. With one exception, humans only combine or derive, we don't create something entirely from scratch.That definitely puts things in perspective. I think it kind of depends. Most part of the characters I am most drawn to and that I take inspiration from are themselves characters that inspired many others out there, so I believe it is simply normal to take inspiration from them.
I truly believe the best way to get out of that loop of thought is to - if being convinced that originality is either there on the finer details/depths, or that it doesn't matter doesn't work for you- is to put the work out there and see people's reactions. Even if they don't really find it that original, they might appreciate your work and effort and positive feedback like that can help one's confidence hold up better.Indeed, I guess that this problem is deeply rooted in my own personal insecurities and on how people might perceive my writing and/or characters. It is foolish to think in such way, and I believe that if I am worried about this, maybe I shouldn't even roleplay. It is something I must overcome, not sure how, and not overthinking about things is a hard thing to do.
True indeed, and I am a firm believer of this. I think that my problem is that I want to "invent ingredients" if it makes sense. And I guess that you can't do that. My idea of originality is stuck to that though. Making something that no one has ever done before, with things that someone has never used before. Whereas I don't think that it is completely unachievable, at least the first part, the second one is, in my opinion, impossible. New ideas sparkle from different combination of different concepts and about how we explore them, I believe.
Your point of view is valid, and I can totally see where you're coming from, but I respectfully disagree, at least partially. The concept of originality as something that has never been done implies that ideas are innate concepts. It implies that ideas are theoretical and abstract perceptions. And whilst this is not wrong (as described by Descartes), if we analyse through an empirical point of view, for example, assuming a Lockean perspective, we can also define ideas as the result of building blocks of simpler ideas, as if we are arranging and combining simpler ideas in order to form a more complex one. So, in a way, an idea might result of the combination of other ones, and those other ones might have been already explored as well.
The Descartian approach does not explain all possible sources of ideas, just the most introspective abstract ones. And those ones are often not used in literature, as literature deals with tangible concepts. Abstraction helps a lot when it comes to science though, especially when dealing with purely theoretical fields, such as Maths and Physics. Biological sciences are often influenced by what the eyes can see, the empirical. And I dare to say that the ground theories (ideas) oof Biological sciences are rooted in our real world and not on some purely theoretical concept. As well as literary concepts. There are often certain exceptions, but when dealing with an abstract concept in literature, you need to make it tangible, and that implicates a representational approach to the topic (ex.: the personification of death).
Taking the series Dark as an example, we know it is about time travelling and nuclear energy. And those two concepts are things that have been done to exhaustion. They have been explored so many times in the past, still, I consider the series to be original because it explores those two concepts in ways that have never been done before.
I understand your take on originality though. It is interesting when someone creates and explores concepts that have not been explored, at least not to a relevant extent before. It is great to have a bit of fresh air and actually enjoy newer things. It is great when people create something that others have never seen before. And what really blocks me from actually dwelling into it is that feeling of "I think this has already been done, people will judge it" because there are people who just go through interest checks and are like "this has already been done to death, pass".
Personally, I don't think I would ever be able to write something professional. I am not an artist, I am not a writer. But I believe that I take roleplaying or any other creative hobby of mine a bit too seriously. Maybe that's the problem. Perfectionism is also that is very present when it comes to things I enjoy, therefore, worrying about being original is always a problem when roleplaying and/or writing personally. Because I don't know if the ideas I am exploring have already been explored. It is also impossible to read every single book, to watch every single series, to see every single piece of art that has already been created, so, in a way, we can be using ideas that have already been used before, and that also scares me.
Plus, what about stories that are based on true life events? Realism is a literary school that was based on real-life. Does that mean that works produced by such writers are unoriginal? Also, what about classics? Even though most part of them were written a long time ago they are still used today as an inspiration to many other works.
Honestly, I guess that my idea of originality is located between your idea of originality and a more empirical one, for instance. It is not purely abstract and different, still, I think you can create combinations of ideas that have never been created before. That is what I want to achieve, but that is also I have not been able to do so successfully.
Apparently we are on the same note here then, because honestly, I don't think that the concept of originality you presented on this message differs from the one users have have been presenting before. I guess what we all wanted to say is that new ideas are originated from different concepts that can be arranged together in ways that were never explored before. I believe that it is what you are trying to convey, correct?
I supposed that you meant that you needed to come up with a concept that was entirely independent of other base concepts in order to create a story, and when it comes to literature that level of abstraction is impossible. Sorry for interpreting in the wrong way.
Using such ideas is not what scares me. In fact, I guess that "scare" isn't really the term that I am searching for, but rather "to discourage", if it makes more sense. It is just hard to come up with stuff if you're not particularly inspired. And it is even worse when you've passed years feeling this creative exhaustion, so to speak.
Once again, my opinion aligns with yours after all. I don't really think that taking inspiration from other sources makes something unoriginal, or that using concepts that were explored before, but in a different way and alongside other ones either. If even, it creates a denser layered setting, where a whole multitude of mathematics can be explored in multiple directions.
My first original character I seriously made. I didn't want her to be marysue. I ended up with the most bland pos trash character. My least fav character by far I've ever made.