I entered the world of blogging back in 2007, at first with some faithful companions, and then on my own. It was my senior year and I honest to god wanted to become a better writer, express my thoughts more clearly, and put myself out there. It was a rough start to say the least and, honestly, I don't know if it's even gotten that much better for me. I've watched the progress of my friends and, like everything else in my life, they've improved miles while I've gone inches. Or so I think, one thing I've learned over these past few years is that you cannot judge your own writing, at least not so much that it prevents you from doing the thing you're here to do; write. I've had so many difficulties with this idea; in fact I don't believe I've overcome it yet. To date I have never finished a short story or any sort of fiction at all; I've ranted, I've raved, I've peered into my soul at times on this blog, but I still have yet to actually do what I set out to do. I know that very, very few people actually read this blog, and I know that I thrive on those readers, but honestly I'm actually quite terrified of certain kinds of criticism. Sure I don't really give one wit about what others think of me, but when it comes to fiction and short story stuff, I'm terrified. Perhaps it isn't just them I am afraid of; perhaps I'm afraid of what it is I will think. My first and last attempt at any sort of story was Untitled and I came to a very interesting conclusion: I may read too much. I know it sound weird and off—authors need to keep in touch with their genre after all—but I've been thinking about it for the past couple months and I don't know if I have any of my own ideas.
Originality is, after all, an authors best friend, it's what gives him his power, his allure, his greatness, but it's also one of those things that is becoming harder and harder to come by. If you think of great fantasy, Tolkien comes up without a second thought, but really how many other authors are really being as original as they should be? I mean sure a few come to mind, but many of the fantasy authors I can think of have striking similarities to Tolkien, some, like Terry Brooks, blatantly rip him off. Of course many authors are different too, but I find that when I write, or even think of stories playing out in my head, that they are horribly similar to things I've read or seen in the past. Some are completely subconscious to the extent that I don't even realize it isn't even my idea in the first place, others take a mere five minutes of thought for me to realize "shit.. this isn't mine". The easiest example is, of course, Untitled because one of my good friends first pointed it out to me. You see there's this graphic novel called Air Gear that was floating around the net back freshmen maybe sophomore year (it's now available here in the U.S. in hard print), this graphic novel was the inspiration—without my knowing it—of Untitled. From wiki:
"Itsuki "Ikki" Minami, is a student and a delinquent. Also known as the "Unbeatable Babyface", Ikki is the leader of the youth gang by the name of "East Side Gunz". Upon his return home, after being humiliated by a Storm Rider team called the Skull Saders, Ikki discovers a secret hidden from him by his benefactors, the Noyamano sisters. The sisters belong to a group of Storm Riders who go by the team name of Sleeping Forest. In the anime, learning the sisters' secret angers him and he steals a pair of Air Trecks, abbreviated as "AT". (In the manga, the sisters give a pair of ATs to him and invite him to skate with them.) Ikki eventually settles his grudge with the Skull Saders, but in the process he receives more than the simple satisfaction of revenge. Determined to experience the sensation of "flight" for as long as he can, Ikki is quickly engaged in the mysterious, irresistible world of Air Treks."
Yeah, you might not be able to tell too much how similar my story was, but trust me, it was. Sure I had different names, a different setting, and a slightly different premise, but at the heart it was Air Gear written poorly. This may be part of the reason I stopped, subconsciously I knew I was kind of ripping off this story, but who knows. Recently I have had a million ideas running through my head, stories to tell, characters to create, but I am afraid of ripping things off again. This is partly why you have an editor I'm sure, partly why you keep in touch with what others are doing, but honestly, can I really say that I have any of my own ideas? I look over at my bookcase and there are so many stories there, so many characters, plots, and worlds, can I really write something on my own? There are book I read back in middle school that I don't even remember, probably books from my childhood that are gone, but memory never really disappears, we just loose access to it. Already I scoff at professional, excellent writers because I see similarities to others, who am I to even judge? I know that people get inspiration from others, every author interview says as much, but where can you draw the line? Some, like Lev Grossman, make it obvious enough that they're writing satire that it's okay to use such fundamental ideas, but others, like Brooks, seem to not know or not care that their story is the same give or take a character name. I wonder if maybe I just need to write without thinking and get it out of my system. Perhaps I'm over reacting and just need to get my foot in the door because I have not written anything to completion. Maybe writing something, finishing it, even if I don't show anyone, is the way to go, I mean if it is blatantly ripped off from somewhere who cares? Yet I feel as though everyone else out there can write amazing, original, creative works on their first try. So many of my heroes wrote their first book or story, got it published, and were on their way. They had a well of ideas that never seemed to end, and yet the first thing I try and seriously write is plagiarized trash. Now look at me, I read, and then write about books, that is all this blog has turned into. Sure it's interesting, but it is not what I wanted after two years of this. Even if it was, I see no improvement between April 2007 and now. My vocabulary may be somewhat more sophisticated, but not much, and certainly not as a result of me writing about fucking books. I mean I don't even do that "right", I ramble and I jump around, and in the end I just have a big puddle of mush that probably turns people off from the books more than interests them. What do I do? I know I have ideas, but how can I know they're mine?
Maybe that's the thing; maybe everything really is just a copy of a copy of a copy. Is there even such thing as true originality? Or are things only original because we have yet to have encountered them before? Tolkien could have knicked some of his ideas off someone before him, and that person from someone before. Back in the early 1900's Carl Jung—one of Freud's disciples—was examining patients in a mental hospital when he encountered a severely schizophrenic man gazing out the window in a peculiar way. When he asked the man what he saw the patient told him that if he squinted his eyes and looked at the sun, he could then see the "sun's penis", and that if you moved your head to and fro you could see the penis moving and this, he said, was the origin of the wind. Pretty fucking weird eh? Well, it wasn't the first time that had been said. It turned out that when Jung was studying mythology he came across a recently translated Greek text that said nearly the same thing: a tube hanging from the sun, when moving, caused the winds. Penis aside, there was no possible way for this schizophrenic man to have even heard of the text since it wasn't even translated until after he had been committed, from that encounter Jung developed his idea of the collective unconscious. As the name implies, Jung believed that every human being had access to this vast store of knowledge and could not be explained by personal unconscious from ones memories. Things like God, the spirit, truth, justice, these things aren't learned even over an entire person's lifetime, yet even a young child knows when something is just "wrong", he may not know what that thing is, why it feels that way, or be able to explain it, but he just knows it. Certainly we learn things, from our parents, society, and many other things, but there's something else going on. This is one of the topics that was addressed in The Witch in the Waiting Room by Robert Bobrow M.D., and one of the things that I feel we have yet to truly unlock. Even Plato believed in this with his Forms which "asserts that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality". Essentially anyone can look at a chair, any chair, and know that it is a chair. I'm not a philosopher so I probably botched the metaphor a bit, but the idea is the same. Why is it that in fiction there is always a hero and always a villain? Even the oldest written human stories contain these ideas: in Homer's works and even in the ancient, ancient Epic of Gilgamesh contain these very same themes. Certainly there isn't The Lord of the Rings just floating up around, but the idea of it is there, Good over Evil, Light vs. Dark, Friendship and Loyalty, it's hard for me to believe that these things, which are all so prevalent in every culture, are just things we learn. They're too profound, they're too intense. Even just the idea of "friends" is too much for anyone to come up with on their own, and yet at the youngest of ages we group together, we are loyal to one another, we make these connections with other people that just cannot be explained. And then there's love. Countless songs, ballads, poems, and every other kind of expressive form have described this. Across generations, throughout the world, love is another one of those forces that every human just knows deep down.
Perhaps originality is merely taking these ideals and putting your own face on them, certainly we enjoy authors like Tolkien and Herbert not only for their ideas, but for their characterizations, their subtle twists and turns. It's a cliché by now, but it really isn't the destination that really counts, it's the journey to get there! That's kind of where I hit a rut, I'm so paranoid about ripping ideas off, that I can't appreciate my own unique ride. I do truly feel that reading is almost detrimental to my writing, but at the same time imitation is the highest form of flattery—unless you're a lawyer. I said back in the day that the only way to improve one's writing was to write, I think the same is true for fiction, your first few stories might be horribly familiar, but it might only be because you're most familiar with other peoples writing and haven't yet learned what your own style is. Write now I really do not know what my style is, at least not in a fictional sense. I know I ramble when I write, but that is because of my lack of proofreading or editing. It's horrible, but I have never proofread my stuff before, I generally write, and post (or turn in as the case may be). As such I've realized that proofreading is a skill, a skill that is hard, frustrating, and makes me want to shoot myself, but a skill none the less. As all skills go it's another one of those things that you just have to do over, and over, and over again before you can really do it decently. For someone such as myself it is also one of those skills that is absolutely essential, my grammar sucks, I ramble, my sentences are awkward, and I generally take forever to make a single point, so bear with me. This is one of those things that I am going to try and do from now on, on all of my posts. Except this one, it's 12:30, I'm tired, and I really don't want to look at this post ever again!
4 comments:
"There are no new stories." It's true. They've all been told. The trick lies in how one adds their own touch and twist to the old story.
Tolkien wasn't original, everything in his stories come from Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and a handful of other mythologies. All he did was mash them together and make them his. Frank Herbert wasn't original. Half the words he chose to use are based off similar Arabic words with similar meanings. Paul Atreides bears a very striking similarity to the real word T E Lawrence.
Nor did they just write something and get published. Again picking on Tolkien, he approached a few publishing houses before one took him on. And despite the great success of his works, to this very day many publishers will say they would not have published his work as is, he broke too many rules in his writing.
The first line of your last paragraph is what it is all about. As you said "how you get there is the worthier part."
Originality is not what you should be concerned with at this point. It's not really your problem but something that is causing you so much anxiety that you're preventing yourself from getting to the point where there are identifiable problems--originality included. First, as you've said yourself, what you need to do is write. Even if you feel that what you're writing is borrowing too heavily from something else, at this point just keep writing. Writing is the process of discovering the story and if you keep writing you're likely to find what you're story is really about. Later in the process of revision, you go back you make changes, you can distance yourself from your departure point that may have been straight up theft, because in the process of writing, you found what you really wanted you're story to be about and what distances it from wherever you started.
As for your reading being detrimental to your writing, I don't think there's a direct connection. Though, I think that you're fixation on reading may be in some ways unhealthy. Right now, reading seems to be one of the primary ways you affirm yourself. You've stated here certain feelings of hopelessness over never being able to read all the books you want to, of anger that you're reading a book that you didn't realize you've already read--all of which is already not appreciative of reading as an experience but seeing it as a means to affirm yourself, as a list to check off. Instead you should be happy to read the book you're reading, one, two, ten times as an experience in-itself, each reading disclosing something never before realized. Otherwise your reading becomes a retreat from reality, a means of vicarious experience, an admission of nihilism.
Well, I'm going to be the boring person and say, "I agree with the people who posted before me." While I may not have any room to talk, as the only "stories" I have ever written were for school assignments and any level of creativity was stunted by the length requirement, I think it all comes down to you needing to keep writing. Don't worry that you may be stealing every character description, every setting, and every subplot from a book you've read in the past. Just allow yourself to get every idea out on paper (or screen haha) so that you can see what parts you like and what parts you despise. Besides, I think you'll discover the motivation to continue writing once you see yourself making substantial progress!
And, like Diego said, listen to your own advice -- let yourself enjoy the journey of writing rather than fixating on the end result.
Oh, and I'll be happy to read anything you write :)
<3E>
Ryan, I admire your willingness to share so honestly. Many thoughts come to mind that I’d be happy to elaborate on in person, but here are some initial observations:
The definition of originality under which you are operating is too limiting and black-and-white. Yes, everyone is borrowing from others to one degree or another, but originality emerges through one’s own rendition of certain themes and tropes as well as through how one juxtaposes communally familiar storylines or archetypes. So, to read someone’s work and identify a familiar theme or trope doesn’t immediately qualify it as unoriginal.
More importantly, I would strongly urge you to banish the critical voice that seems to continually berate your own efforts. Motivated attempts to express oneself creatively are precious – even spiritual – acts. I don’t care what actually emerges on the piece of paper or painter’s canvas. The process of expressing oneself and nurturing the creative spirit justifies itself and ultimately requires no external validation. It is, to evoke a Jungian theme, an act of profound self-individuation that is necessarily difficult and exacting.
So I would encourage you to put aside the self-flagellation and stop focusing on end results. Embrace the process. Make some time each day to pursue a creative endeavor, whatever that may be. I don’t think reading per se is “bad” or “good”, but it obviously is a time commitment, so you may want to pare it down to make sure you get some writing time (if that is indeed the form of creative expression to which you feel most drawn).
Finally, remember that finding your own voice takes a long time and often must be paid for with sweat and blood. It is completely unrealistic to demand of yourself that you find this voice at this stage. Writing can be a way of both paying homage to your influences while also gradually exorcising them so that a voice that is uniquely your own emerges. But that takes time. And I would reiterate that what’s important isn’t whether or by how much you are progressing in this endeavor, but rather the mere commitment and intention you bring to developing your creative faculties and that aspect of your being.
So take heart, silence the relentless inner voice of critique (and ignore any that come to you externally) and put pen to paper. Whatever the final product, the act itself is noble and pure. It will yield fruit if you give it space.
Chris
Post a Comment