Unlocked Secrets: No Tolkien or C.S. Influence!!!

[Heart of Sword]

I've just unlocked the secret to writing fantasy without Tolkien or C.S. Lewis influence!

Either you don't read or watch anything that has to do with them, or if you've already become a Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia fan...


1) Creating Fantasy Creatures

a. Avoid any creature that, in a movie, could be played by a human actor with minimal make-up, such as elves, hobbits, and dwarves.

b. When creating a beastlike creature, base it on several animals instead of one. Add some bizarre markings and possibly horns to make it look more original. If you like, exaggerate certain parts, such as jaws and legs, to make it look less like an Earthly animal.

c. Be careful when using creatures that have already been created, especially dragons. If you would like to have a dragon in your story, create a new species. Avoid the traditional elemental beast with sparkling scales and batlike wings. The dragon Haku in Spirited Away is a great example of an original dragon. It is obviously of the dragon family but looks totally different than anything previously created. If you want a dragon that is more original, give it some fur in strange places and perhaps make it wingless. Dragons are magical--they could easily fly without wings. Again, avoid elemental dragons!


2) Writing an Original Story

a. When writing the plot for a story, never read or watch ANY fiction one week prior to beginning. Instead, focus on books that improve writing skills.

b. The phrase "everything has been done once" is NOT true! There are millions of ideas that have not yet been used. Be original! For an exercise, make a story as opposite to Tolkien and CS as possible.

c. Make your characters more original. A scar here or there, especially on the face, somehow makes a male protagonist gentle in nature seem more heroic and brave. If you've got a macho character, throw in some leather. With girls and women, avoid making their bodies perfect. And don't be afraid to exaggerate their emotions.

d. Base a story on a dream. CAUTION! Only do this if you haven't read or watched anything fictional in at least a week. Your brain will automatically throw a story together for you.



More to come later on! Feel free to post your own writing secrets here, but stick close to the subject of the thread!

[starwarsboy90]

Already did that, Aldean Chronicles, pretty much.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Yeah, I love originality. I try to avoid anything cliche. I create my own creatures for stories and my story is pretty original. There's enough Tolkiensque novels to last a life time! (I've still got humans in my story)

[Arnobius]

Of course if they look too different then people accuse you of ripping off Sci-Fi, so there is no way to win

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Yeah, that's true. But you have to be influenced by something. Its better to receieve inspiration from lots of sources, than one or two. That way its more original and interesting.

[ShiroiHikari]

I disagree...I think pretty much everything has been done. So trying to be original is much too tiring...I just try to write stories someone out there might be able to identify with.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Oh yes, I agree most stuff has been done before but it is still possible to look at something from a different perspective and therefore have something more original. Its definetly not possible to be completly original!

[Ashley]

Archetypes and stereotypes have their uses, you know. It's a very simple, easy way to communicate what kind of character they are, and people feel comfortable with them. Just don't go overboard, be unique in some aspects, and you're fine. ^^

The dragon Haku in Spirited Away is a great example of an original dragon. It is obviously of the dragon family but looks totally different than anything previously created.

I'm going to challenge that. Haku is a lot like the Chinese/oriental dragons. Just look at some asian art and it's clear where the influence came from.

[uc pseudonym]

a. Avoid any creature that, in a movie, could be played by a human actor with minimal make-up, such as elves, hobbits, and dwarves.

What about humans?

a. When writing the plot for a story, never read or watch ANY fiction one week prior to beginning. Instead, focus on books that improve writing skills.

Actually, that contains a very good piece of advice. It is easy to become influenced by other works of fiction. However, provided that you can recognize and put aside this influence, I don't think forgoing other works is necessary.

b. The phrase "everything has been done once" is NOT true!

Only in a way. Almost anything can be reduced to "borrowed" elements from other stories. Originality isn't about fitting the technical definition of "original" but about making something that doesn't rip off another series and is worthwhile.

I'm going to challenge that. Haku is a lot like the Chinese/oriental dragons. Just look at some asian art and it's clear where the influence came from.

Hm, beat me to that.

Now, as to the actual topic, not writing from Tolkein or CS Lewis. Personally, I suggest not actively trying to do something different from them (that can lead to creating things that, while very different, are still so defined by other works that they have little interest). However, once you have your story planned, look over it and remove anything that you realize is cliche or overdone.

[Heart of Sword]

Jah, Haku is like a Chinese dragon, but I meant that he was a lot more elegant and somehow birdlike, in a weird way. *huggles Haku*

There are a lot of ideas that haven't been taken, and not everything is inspired by something else.

Let me give everyone an idea that has never been used before.

Suppose we're all in someone's dream and nothing is real. Suppose that this person abruptly wakes up and we're all...well, no longer existant... [/morbid mood]

[Nate]

Suppose we're all in someone's dream and nothing is real. Suppose that this person abruptly wakes up and we're all...well, no longer existant... [/morbid mood]

Oh, you mean like the Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening?

That's not to say you couldn't put an original spin on the idea and make it a very creative story, just that the idea is in no way original and HAS been used before. ^^

[Maledicte]

I agree with Kae. You could start off with a normal, traditional, possibly cliche idea, but then turn it around and make it that much better--take Giant Robo, for instance. Putting all your effort to make something "original" ends up usually in a very weak, thin story, but since it's "original" apparently it's supposed to be good.

I have dragons that are shiny-scaled and bat-winged, without fur in odd places. Does that make me automatically unoriginal, no matter what else I do to the character? Oh and conglomerate beast creatures have been done to death for ages (chimera, manticore, etc) as well as scarred protagonists. I should say Vash is a kind protagonist whose scars make him seem heroic...

ahem.

Anyway, when it comes to originality, I tend to take stereotypes and reverse them outright. Drunken elves, short archers, the like. Or take a classic stereotype (say, a girly-boy bishie magician) and give it the real-life treatment (have people actually confuse him as being a girl, with comic and/or integrity-threatening results).

[uc pseudonym]

I will point out that the original purpose of this thread was not avoiding cliches in general, but only those of two specific authors.

Oh, you mean like the Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening?

Or one of Neil Gaiman's stories. That which was dreaming didn't actually wake up, but it did essentially create in the world. Actually, dreaming and reality are commonly linked in many of his Sandman stories, though not in precisely that way.

Or take a classic stereotype (say, a girly-boy bishie magician) and give it the real-life treatment (have people actually confuse him as being a girl, with comic and/or integrity-threatening results).

Isn't the gender confusion thing also overdone, though?

[starwarsboy90]

lol, as they say, life is all but a dream. But really, God is in control, so,

"whatever happens, happens" - Spike;Cowboy Bebop

To people who allows God to be in control of their lives, and make only a certain amount of decisions, based on the word of God and what the Lord tell them, to them, life is all but a dream...

UC Pseudonym and Ashley are right, everything has been done, so writers these days get inspiration from other writers and write works which are somewhat similar to those authors.

[Maledicte]

well, if one deliberately tries not to write like one or two specific types of authors, it's a given that one will end up writing like someone else, intentionally or unintentionally.

Isn't the gender confusion thing also overdone, though?

I haven't seen any in popular fantasy lately.

[Maledicte]

Okay I've decided to be helpful.

First off I've never read Chronicles so thiese observations/tips will be based off of Tolkein primarily.

Characters

1. Give your protagonist a true sense of purpose, whether stated or unstated. This is much better than having him simply float along and simply react to situations he's drifted into. One who is stuck with a sinister magical object you inherited from your uncle and then going off on some quest just because some strange wizard told you to is not always the most engaging of protagonists. Note however that whatever purpose your character has, it may change as the story progresses. This is not a bad thing, and in most cases shows the development of the character. Drifters have their place, but as I said earlier they can be somewhat uninteresting. Comic relief, maybe.

2. Likewise, villains MUST have a reason for being evil, instead of just "being evil". Revenge, lust for power and bad childhoods are base concepts for such behaviour but do try to expand upon them. However, if your baddie is flamboyant, weird, engaging, charismatic, and/or psycho, he or she does not need a valid reason to be bad. The character MUST BE SEEN INTERACTING WITH OTHER CHARACTERS in order for this to be valid. Someone simply saying that "he's a monster" will not cut it.

3. Scars are overdone. Likewise interesting-looking scars that have some mysterious backstory to them. Basing one's character on such a trait is a mistake often made, however if done properly can make good impact. Low-key scars are very good, though, say the scratches on Inigo Montoya's face...as well as mean-looking scars received in an accident in which the character was not using any common sense.
Corrolary: missing toes and fingers. Nearly every fantasy story has a character with a missing ear, eye, arm, hand, leg. Yet phalanges remain intact.(except in the case of Frodo, where Gollum bit off his finger...but that was at the END of the story and most of you probably wouldn't have remembered it until I mentioned it. ;P) People who do manual labor DO lose these...if your character is say a carpenter, he could be missing a finger or two. This happens to actual carpenters, and thus would make your character realistic.

4. Tattoos. Again, overdone, mostly when a character had a bad past working for a syndicate of some type and this was the mark they had to wear blah blah blah. As said before, if done properly this can enhance the story. Tattoos I like more than scars as tattoos are for the most part a personal choice of the character who wears them. (although not a tattoo, Sanosuke's "bad" symbol is a good example.)

5. Go to eviloverlord.com for some good tips on completely stripping your characters of any and all cliche's...or just for a good laugh.

and that's all I have for now.

[Myoti]

Darn you, ST2M! And I thought I did good with my "Solar Cycle" story...

Oh well, maybe the other stuff can make up for it. I've seen the Evil Overlord site. Very useful, as is RPG Cliches.

[uc pseudonym]

I haven't seen any in popular fantasy lately.

I'll give you that. However, it has been done in anime and manga, which is basically where it originates (unless you're thinking of Orlando Bloom, but those are separate in my mind).

1. Give your protagonist a true sense of purpose, whether stated or unstated. This is much better than having him simply float along and simply react to situations he's drifted into. One who is stuck with a sinister magical object you inherited from your uncle and then going off on some quest just because some strange wizard told you to is not always the most engaging of protagonists. Note however that whatever purpose your character has, it may change as the story progresses. This is not a bad thing, and in most cases shows the development of the character. Drifters have their place, but as I said earlier they can be somewhat uninteresting. Comic relief, maybe.

A similar aspect: while your characters should have simplistic personalities, they should have identifiable ones. I was reading a published novel lately in which the characters just did things and they didn't seem to have any substance; they only reacted to the events instead of interacting and changing them.

[ShiroiHikari]

Also, just because your story doesn't follow all the "rules" or forumlas, that doesn't mean it's bad or wrong.

[Maledicte]

True, true, ShiHi and UC.

and now, continuing my dissertation...

Characters: Part Two

6. Teh Randomness. Making up an interesting, original and intriguing character solely for the purpose of aiding the main character(s) on a completely pointless sidequest that neither hampers nor adds anything to the story, and then utterly dismissing the character for the rest of the book, is NOT cool and is very much bad form. Not only is it a waste of your reader's time, yours, and pages, but should your work ever be filmed the director/producer/studio will find it in their best interest to cut the scene, thus making your fans not only rabid but very, very, angry indeed.

7. For the common good. People most often do not want to work for a vague concept such as "good" and therefore if presented with the fact that the world is coming to an end and they're the only ones who can prevent it, they will refuse because people are in general lazy and selfish. Therefore, something immediately important to the character should be in jeopardy, such as family, love interest, chance at fame and fortune, or in the case of our very own Impact Alberto, tuna.

8. Know-it-alls. Please don't let all of your characters, or even just one of your characters, know EVERYTHING. This is unsporting and unrealistic. Being stuck in the dark, and learning as the story progresses works much better. And single wizards that know every thing that happened 5,000 some odd years ago and then drain it all out in overly long paragraphs are to say the least, annoying.

9. It builds character. Goes along with no. 8: if a character DOES know a significant amount, please don't have him or her withhold critical information when needed most, wanting the other character to find it out for themselves. I mean, has anyone done this to you in real life? (unless you have a dad like mine..."Look it up") These characters probably get off by seeing other people in distress. (if your character genuinely acts this way, though, go ahead.) Oh, and if you MUST have your character withhold information, please have him or her make it not so obvious. (Example: character kills evil monster by finding weak spot and stabbing it. Know-it-all cheers a little too happily. character knows something's up and says "why didn't you tell me where to hit it?" Know-it-all says "um....I didn't know...")<----note that this came out more poorly than I had intended.

[Magekind]

Then again, if you could put an interesting spin on an already over-worked ideals, *coughDragonlance/Forgotten Realmscough* it might not be harmful.

Hello again, Sir, ma'am.

My elder brother and I were working on a fantasy parody, where "Elves" and "Gnomes" and "Dwarves" were just idealistic humans who have adapted to their lifestyles. Each of them with their own serious psychological disorders. Of course, the occasional "Fairy", whose only claim to being not your average human was that she was a little short and her hair changed color with her emotions. The whole idea, of course, was something we could support with theory or fact. Just a thought.

[Heart of Sword]

UC Pseudonym and Ashley are right, everything has been done, so writers these days get inspiration from other writers and write works which are somewhat similar to those authors.

What about the originality of Wolf's Rain? And Inuyasha? And Tokyo Mew Mew? None of those had been done before and they're relatively new.

[starwarsboy90]

Ok, except for those two, most things have already been done in one form or another. Ghost in the Shell for instance, is based off of the Matrix, and then there is the Animatrix,lol.

[Heart of Sword]

Let us see. There's...

Wolf's Rain
Trigun
Tokyo Mew Mew
Inuyasha
Pokemon
Lord of the Rings
Chronicles of Narnia
Screwtape Letters
Danny Phantom
Spongebob Squarepants

List goes on and on. If these recent titles are totally original, there are definitely stories that haven't been done yet.

[uc pseudonym]

List goes on and on. If these recent titles are totally original, there are definitely stories that haven't been done yet.

Did anyone say those are totally original? I wouldn't call any of those such, but that doesn't mean that I don't think many of those are high quality. Even the examples we've cited as times such concepts have been done before are predated by other works. In the end, you can reduce anything down to elements that are found elsewhere.

I'm going to cover the titles you mentioned, not with the intent of thoroughly refuting your point, but to make a slightly different one.

Wolf's Rain: Werewolves are old, as are semi-metaphorical stories. I don't know this series well so that is all I can say.

Trigun: The Sci-Fi Western is practically a genre in its own right, and both parts of it are much older than Trigun. I can't say that "Plants" are really anything other than forms of aliens (and that concept has been done before).

Tokyo Mew Mew: What is original about this again? I apologize if you are a fan of this series, but I am quite the opposite. We've seen magical girls, powers that are essentially unformed and humans with animal-linked abilities many times before.

Inuyasha: "Original" is not a word that comes to mind when I think of this series.

Pokemon: Other than the fact that it is an rpg in which you can have numerous characters (Final Fantasy Tactics, anyone?), it is fairly standard. While I'll credit the game with that, the anime has nothing to recommend it. Digimon predated it regardless.

Lord of the Rings: He borrowed numerous mythical creatures and put slightly different spins on them, in addition to ripping off about every creation story in existence. Masterful worldbuilding, certainly, but not truly "original."

Chronicles of Narnia: It's a metaphor, so a certain Jesus of Nazareth has this one covered. Otherwise, nearly everything is taken from commonplace fantasy.

Screwtape Letters: Wonderful book, but people have written from the perspective of demons in the past.

Danny Phantom: (I am unfamiliar with this title)

Spongebob Squarepants: ...I refuse to comment on this.

I think that you, and many others, are thinking about this in the wrong way. You used the phrase "stories that haven't been done yet." This implies that there are a limited number of stories, and that these have all been written. In actuality, there are an infinite number of stories that all have things in common with one another, some more than others. It isn't important to write something that "hasn't been done before," but to find one of those infinite stories by yourself, not take another story and change it slightly.

[K. Ayato]

I couldn't have said it better myself, UC-sama.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I haven't seen Ghost in the Shell but it came out in 1995, so I'm pretty sure The Matrix borrowed from it (1999), not vice versa. Also the Wachowski brothers cite it as a major influence for their movie.

[Maledicte]

You've got your facts correct, W4J.

As for being totally original, one will borrow off of some stories, whether one realizes it or not. I myself have made an immortal character, a good guy, who acts goofy and clumsy to cover up his powers--imagine my surprise while watching Trigun.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

For instance when my novel is released people will read it and possibly cite influences from books, music, movies I've never seen/heard but some ideas are universal and that's what happens. Doesn't make it less original.

[starwarsboy90]

Yes! Someone finally agrees with me about Ghost In The Shell prdating the Matrix~ ( hugs WFJ)~. I totally agree on you there " For instance when my novel is released people will read it and possibly cite influences from books, music, movies I've never seen/heard but some ideas are universal and that's what happens. Doesn't make it less original." - C.O.G