“Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his true self and not from the self he thinks he should be.” Brenda Ueland
Every non-fiction gem of wisdom has been said before.
All human experience has already been cataloged in countless books.
These truths can paralyze us, especially in the early days of writing when we don't know how to deal with the demons of self-doubt.
But your thoughts have not been written before, and your story has not been told before.
You are the original aspect of creativity, and what you bring to the world will be different to what others bring, even on the same topic.
Originality is just a twist on what has already gone before.
As Picasso said, “Great artists steal.”
I read a lot of books on writing novels before I wrote a novel. I also read thousands of thrillers.
This kind of intense reading and deconstruction can be used to help you understand the structure of successful books, and you can do it for any genre, including non-fiction and memoir. You can then use that structure and what you've learned to put your own spin on the genre.
This is not plagiarism, which is directly copying people's work. It also doesn't mean taking another author's structure and directly reproducing it, changing names and places but keeping the same ideas.
It's more about modeling and understanding what is working with specific books, noticing what keeps you enthralled as a reader and then using that process in your own work.
For example, I binge-read Jonathan Maberry's awesome Joe Ledger series recently and identified what I particularly liked about the books:
- Features a secret government agency tackling global conspiracies and a team of fighters, including strong female characters, led by a damaged assassin
- Techno-thriller elements of genetics and science
- Combined with a classical element of monsters and horror villains like vampires, zombies and mythical creatures
- Fast action pacing and high body count
I enjoy similar aspects in novels from James Rollins, Jeremy Robinson, Matthew Reilly and others, and I also weave them into my own thrillers.
Not at all.
It means they will satisfy readers of this type of book and we all bring our original spin to the structure of an action-adventure thriller. In the same way, there are millions of books for writers out there, but this book is my experience shared in a way I hope will be useful for you.
Whatever you want to write, you need to be aware of the expectations of readers and what has gone before in order to take it into the realm of something new and put your own spin on the idea.
Antidote
Embrace what has already been done and read a great deal in the genres you enjoy and want to write in. Elements from those books will resonate in your writing quite naturally, but you can then take them further by bringing in your imagination and your voice.
Don't obsess over perceived imitation or cliché in a first draft. Just get the words down and as you self-edit, go through and fix it up.
“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.” Salvador Dali