Suddenly you notice something that you recognise, you scour your memory and there it is.... An idea that has been used before!

Take the Tear of the Gods for instance; Raymond Feists book. For quite a long time I worked on an idea that turned out to be quite good. Then I happened across the above book whilst checking out writing styles and there it is! Someone else had done something similar, but what a dreadful book it was!

DAMN it, I thought.

As far as plot goes, there will always be similarites. However, it's possible to get new ideas, still!

Perhaps my group members could comment on this: I've submitted stories recently in which I came up with (what I believe to be) new takes on old ideas.

I came up with a scientificly new means of constructing cyborgs; although it was an old-fashioned space-opera, the consequences of my scientific speculation led to NEW plot points (I hope!). My current piece is a new way to break a spaceship and get an Apollo-13 plot.

The plots might be similar, but by getting new and interesting details, you can make it (hopefully!) interesting to read.

I'm working on a story, several shorts actually (well, one short, with others to follow) that will eventually involve the "hunter/savior" to be conceived through a rape, and he'll grow up to hunt evil and save both civilizations (he'll be of both races). Am telling a buddy about it (with a few more details) and he says that it sounds an awful lot like Blade the Vampire Hunter. I say, "Really? Never seen it." He says, "No?" and then explains some of the basic similarities.

Am I frustrated? Gonna chuck the whole ball of wax? Just because someone else has done a story similar to mine? Nope, not in a heartbeat. What I'm going to do is -- first, NOT see Blade until my stories are written, don't want any more similarities popping up than humanly possible; second, I take comfort that a) my 'bad guys' aren't traditional vampires b) my hero isn't some sword wielding half vamp and c) the main tension and the story HAS to be different and will offer readers something different EVEN IF they see the similarities to the movie.

Sure people have used cyborgs before, people are developing SMM's to make "artificial muscles" for use in robots, but I'd like to think I came up with a new and interesting combination.

The point sank home last night when I said to my wife, right here is chapter one of 43 Read it and tell me what you think. She doesnt like fantasy but she replied, "Thats excellent, it feels as if we are back in Yorkshire with all of your relatives!" Which was a compliment because if you live in Yorkshire you tend to speak differently and act differently to the rest of the UK - in lots of ways. Anyway then she said, "Its very like the Lord of the Rings." My Heart sank. Then I passed her another book, one by David Eddings and she said, "Yeah thats like the Lord of the Rings as well." I tried again with Terry Brooks and she said, "Theyre all like the Lord of the Rings arent they?"

The Fantasy genre is general has always been closely tied with mythology. And since Tolkien is the "King" of the genre, everything will always come back to him.

Sci-fi hasn't gotten like that just yet. However that is partly because it advances with normal human advances. Fantasy will always be set in the time and technology level that it is currently set just because of its nature. Sci-fi, however, changes. One year its a nice little sci-fi idea to have these portable devices that Kirk and his crew can use to contact his ship. In a few years that isn't so sci-fi since they are like cell phones. What I am trying to say is that the background of Science fiction is constantly changing so it helps to discourage people from finding similarities between.

There have never been "new" ideas. I have, from time to time, heard someone say that if anyone can write a truely new idea then they would be the next William Shakespear. However even he (if he existed, but lets not go there) stole his ideas from other writers of the time. And they likewise stole their ideas from earlier authors, some hailing back to Greek/Roman plays. Homer's Iliad is even thought to be a composition of various other storytellers.

So for the most part, don't worry too much about ideas being similar to other, already, published books... unless its disturbingly similar, as in so similar that it looks like blayant plagerism. That can be bad.

Anywho

Just a used

The best stories are the old ones, stories about the same old emotions and passions and problems that all humans have in common.

The peculiar genius that each of us strives for is not to tell a new story, but to tell it in such a way as to reach and affect a person that has never heard it before. And that is a field that is wide open. Every day the world people experience changes a little, and over time we need to find new ways to tell our stories so that the reader can fit it into the world we share.

As members of this generation, sharing these experiences, belonging to their community, we have a unique ability to relate the timeless lessons of human experience to our contemporaries. Don't bother writing for the ages--they might not come anyway, and if they do, they will almost certainly not be what you imagine. Don't bother writing to the past, those generations have their stories already. Write to the people around you, choose the setting, the style, the dialect that they relate to, and then tell them a story that they never understood when it was in Shakespear or the Bible or Homer or any of the thousands of ancient works.

For some, science fiction is the new fantasy, the modern tale of the strange but possible. For many others, epic fantasy is the modern heir of the fairy tale. For most, perhaps, the broad canvas of the modern, cosmopolitan world we live in is wide enough for all the strangeness they are ready to face. And the past, now so estranged from our experience, is new again as a tale of the strange.

(Of course, all this goes does to person taste, as usuall...)

The human mortality mechanism is genetic, and is actually fairly well understood already. In time, there seems little doubt that human genetic engineering, if it is used at all, will be used someday to create immortal, physically perfect, highly intelligent and skilled, beautiful humans.

At the same time, I doubt that they could successfully exterminate the old, flawed, mortal, but prolific humanity (I would hope that they wouldn't even try, but I'm quite cynical about Ubermenschen, even really beautiful ones).

Someday, that may be us, our children, playing out the tale of divided races, human and inhuman, and a quest to destroy an ancient weapon before it can be used to enslave the world.

People have done war stories before; therefore, Black Hawk Down (for example) was a poor book, right?

WRONG!

Bowden interviewed all the people involved, and made them disticnt individuals in the book, which made it one of the best books I've ever read.

Same with Stephen Ambrose's military history (Band of Brothers, etc.): everyone is individualized, even if they get killed on the next page.

In the sequals to _Ringworld_, Niven invents the "Spill montain people" who are mountain dwellers on the ringworld. Niven examined what HIS mountains were like, applied that investigation through the lens of evolution, and invented a new and interesting race of demi-humans.

Bardos, you've got a lot of thoughts flying about that don't all stick to the same point. Fantasy writers who use elves and dwarves aren't "afraid" to create other things, they're writing what interests them and what they want to write about. Hopefully for the readers they're trying new things with them, or creating uniqueness in some way, but the very fact they use them does not necessarily convey any trepidation on the writer's part. You said yourself that for you it's not about the reader, but about you having something "new" to write about. For others it's the same, and what they want to write about is elves. Their elves or your "something new" won't pass the readers if it's not well written, on that I'm sure we agree.

As for creating your own race of mountain dwellers, just take care not to make them short, stocky, bearded, ore mining and smithing beings and simply call them something different. Talk about being worse than using "dwarves". And if they're tall, lanky, albino, smooth-faced, and make medicine out of herbs, then you'd better have a good explanation of how that fits with them living in a mountain. Not saying you can't, merely echoing Chad's point about understanding the implications and ramifications of the world/environment you create on the characters that dwell there.

JK, "tired and reused" is only a function of the writing, not the fact that there are elves in it. Again, my point, if it's written well, and unique in some way, what's the difference if there is elves in it.

But, of course; if someone wants to write about elves, why not? I'm just saying I am bored of the elves. What I'm trying to point out is that some people -perhaps- write about elves b/c it comes "easier" to them, while not really liking them. Now, if you (and I'm not refering to you personaly) like elves so much, then you should write about them, for then you're going to write something good about elves. But, if you use them as an excuse.... You get the point.

No one is going to second guess your 'elves' and 'dwarves'- however they fit or don't fit as stereotypical genre critters in respect to traits and actions - as long as they are engrossing characters.

This is the challenge of all writing originality.

Regarding new ideas, I do think there are probably some new ideas out there somewhere; they're just extremely hard to find. In SF, especially, there should be new ideas, because new discoveries are being made every day in science.

For instance, in the last couple of years, it was observed that the expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating. Just yesterday I wrote a silly little 500 word short story based on this idea. (If anyone wants to read it, just send email. )

Later, Erk

Also, I have to second what JK said about everyone using the same concept of what Elves would be like (though not what he says about Tolkien's Elves being ridiculous, if you've read the Simarillion, then you find out that there has been a eons long selection process at work, weeding out the bad apples [and since Elves live forever, the accumulation of selection really tells] and that the "good" elves are only a small, select, chosen fraction of their races).

See, part of what makes it ridiculous is that everyone else just has the Elves be good by nature, whereas Tolkien never had anything like that sort of idea...he just had already divided the good from the bad earlier in his history. Most elves are actually enemies of humans (and everyone else) and just want to exterminate them (this is where Orcs and goblins come from in Tolkien's book, by the way). Even many of the "good" elves are less than "jolly fine chaps" when it comes to being nice to "non-Elvish" people (and sometimes other Elves that happen to live in the next forest over).

My Elves are less "ancient" than Tolkien's, and that helps me get a more easily apparent diversity of morals, attitudes, and nationalities within what is still recognizably a single species. I fully intend to have "good" elves, but I also make it clear that they choose to be that way (they are members of a sect that serves the "good" goddess, and membership is both voluntary and typically involves celibacy, so no one is "born" that way). And of course, there is always the possibility of apostacy, rebellion, and moral failure (although the probability of a person that has held fast to the faith for a thousand years apostacizing is pretty small, I think, still, it can happen).

My point? I'm not going for originality of concept, I'm taking the concept and making it my own...rather than take Tolkien's ideas about where Elves come from, I use my own thoughts on the subject. So what if Elves aren't original? They're mine.

Now. If the writer's goal is more along the lines of drawing the reader into a world, connecting with them in a significant way, and using that connection to open their mind about our world and its problems and possibilities, then that's a whole different kettle of fish.

I think that when it comes right down to it, the most important factor in the success or failure of a story is the Telling. Somebody earlier mentioned Shakespeare. Shakespeare owes NONE of his success to original ideas. All of his plays were either ripped directly off from previous incarnations, taken from the news of the day, or in some other way 'lifted' from existing sources. Does that make him a bad writer? Well, it could very well have. But it didn't, and doesn't. The reason his works are in print and on stage so many years later is because he told the SAME stories BETTER. It was his presentation, not his content.

A successful story stems from its ability to connect with the reader. To do this, it must be full of things which are TRUE and REAL. But the trick is that dwarves, elves, dragons, magical rings and every other enduring piece of fantastic chattel CAN BE REAL, whether or not they actually exist. The difference between a story in which the dwarves are successful, and one in which they are hackneyed and unnecessary, lies in the truth and reality of what they are doing.

Most stories deal with the triumph of a person or society over adversity. Why? Because whether it's hobbits against a magic ring, knights against dragons, Battle School children agains buggers, or whatever else, all these stories are really about us. Us, as individuals and societies. They are about the strength it takes to live in the world today, about the wonderful and the horrible realities of our existence, the defeat that comes from weakness and complacency, and the hope which can always be rekindled if each little one of us can commit to do our best.

ALL stories are about humans. They tell us things about ourselves or they tell us nothing at all. Good stories are assembled from interconnecting webs of 'truths', or they don't work. "Ender's Game" is not an original idea. It is merely storytelling at its best. It takes the fundamental 'triumph over adversity' motif and colours, twists, and contorts our impression of it through the addition of a great many 'truths' and fragments of our enduring cultural mythology. In the end, it is successful for its ability to connect with us, open our minds and hearts to the layers of good and bad in the human experience.

So yeah :-)

Just a few of my little thoughts... Basically, bad writing is bad writing, and good writing is good writing.... :-)

Hi JK
Well, I admit that it's a pretty strong statement, to say that 'all stories are about humans'. But I do say it. The misunderstanding almost always comes from my wording of the idea -- people assume that I mean thematically, or that I mean all stories must have humans in them. I certainly don't mean that.

What I do mean is that all stories are about us. Humans. Stories are written by us, for us, about us, regardless of whether we feature in them. Stories about aliens are about us. Stories about animals are about us. They are not designed to be read by anybody other than humans, they reflect our values, our concepts, our society...

So that's what I mean. Not very well explained at all, I'm afraid. If you still disagree, I'd be happy to try and jot down something a bit more eloquent and convincing :-)