Tradition vs. Originality

This is one of the biggest conflicts within creative writing. Do I go with what has been tried and proved to be popular, or do I try to come up with some crazy new idea that has never been done before? First off, it is nearly impossible to come up with a completely new idea. Almost everything has been done before. So my answer to that question would be: you've got to do a little of both.

Here are some examples of "traditional" motifs that have been used over and over again throughout history. I've already talked a little about myth. Myth is something that started out as a religious belief, and though this is not the case today, many elements of mythology still linger on in literature, and human studies such as Sigmund Freud's Oedipus complex. The bottom line is that myth is something that appears to be innately part of our society at a conscious or unconscious level.

Another motif is the "hero's journey" For more details about the specifics of this I highly recommend the book The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Basically, the hero's journey is the “coming of age” story usually involving a young person who appears ordinary but is destined for great things. The hero's journey is the path that he takes to find that destiny. This is used over and over again in literature, film, and other mediums. It is one of those traditional motifs that has never grown old with several thousand years of use.

Many of these motifs like mythology and the hero's journey can also be found in fairy tales. Fairy tales are very similar to myth in the sense that they contain basic, perhaps unconscious, symbols of humanity. The different types of fairy tales show up quite frequently in today's literature.

Here are some examples of originality. What's different about original ideas is that they are usually full of traditional motifs. What makes them original is a different spin on the idea, or a combination of two traditional ideas that has never been made before. My favorite example is Star Wars which took the traditional fairy tale and the hero's journey, combined it with science fiction, and created a pop-culture phenomenon. This exact story line was later taken by Christopher Paolini and made into Eragon, but instead of Jedi, there were dragon riders.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, took the traditional story of The Jungle Book and combined it with a traditional graveyard setting. It may have used two unoriginal ideas, but the way in which he put them together allowed Neil Gaiman to create a truly original idea. The film Avatar is often accused of leeching off the Pocahontas story. My reply to this is: the problem with that is...? Yes the story is similar to Pocahontas, but it is combined in a science fiction setting in a way that has never been done before, which is very similar to what Star Wars did. I am not accusing any of these stories of lacking originality. On the contrary I think they all show what true originality is: a blending of ideas.

So how do I create something traditional and original? The traditional motifs can be studied and selected based on the story you want to tell. The original part however, should come from you. By this I mean: write from experience. Figure out what you are good at, or what you know a lot about and incorporate that into your story. Even if you were to write the very same story as someone else, I can guarantee that it will differ significantly because every person is different and has different experiences to draw upon.

Let's look at my story, Ages of Myth. Some of the traditional motifs I am using are: a medieval setting and time period, as well as the traditional hero's journey. I can now combine these ideas with some others to make them more original. To do that I will play to my strengths.

Here are some of the things that I know a lot about which I would like to incorporate into Ages of Myth. I know a little about business/economy, so it is likely that the medieval setting will have a economic focus. I also have knowledge of literature, especially literature history, so I might create a civilization that tells it's own history through literature.

However, I also know a lot about Native Americans and pre-Columbus North American history. This is the idea I would like to play with the most. Since the setting is based in a medieval setting, it would be a very different idea to put a Native American spin on that, combining the two cultures. I don't yet know whether this will be a new mythology for North America (as The Lord of the Rings was for England), or whether it will be a completely different world patterned after Native American cultures. My guess is the former, but it's too early to tell at this point.

We all have a mindset that Humankind is superior now to what we were, and that we will continue to advance. In the medieval time period the opposite is the case. They thought that the people that came before were greater and more advanced. This medieval idea often makes it's way into modern fantasy. For Ages of Myth I'm going to try and do both. The civilization will consider the past to be greater but will be aspiring to reach that greatness again.

These are just a few thoughts to consider while you try to create something that can be originally yours but that make use of tried and true methods of storytelling.