Published on December 19th, 2012, this is a very important post.  One that I wish I remembered before today since I think it holds even more true today.  We keep looking for the ‘next’ person to take the mantle of someone instead of letting newer artists be the first of their own name.

Many times I have been asked who I write like. Do I want to be the next Tolkien, Lewis, Jordan, etc.? I never liked this question because it immediately makes me think that people expect me to be unoriginal. I know they are talking about popularity and writing style, but it really does come off as a person claiming that everything has been done before. In my youth, I found this to be offensive and aggravating. In my current years, I find this to be surprisingly true to a point.

I think everything has been done before to some extent. There are only so many basic plots that exist and the artist has been around for centuries. I wouldn’t say everything is a rip-off or influenced by past works, but it isn’t too hard to make connections to some extent between current works and past works. The example that had me thinking of this recently is the Hunger Games. I admit to never reading the book or seeing the movie because of reasons that I will not get into here. Still, I immediately thought of Running Man, Battle Royale, Spartacus, and anything else that dealt with pitting one person against another. There are even some historical similarities that I think of like gladiator fights and child soldiers. I even thought it reminded me a little of The Most Dangerous Game. This isn’t to say that the Hunger Games is a horrible idea and should never have been created. There is an appeal to it and I have wondered a lot about what drew people into the story. I know there is my culture’s obsession with gore and violence, but I think there’s more to it.

I think a traditional plot device such as quests and tournaments to the death can be overlooked if they come with a new world and interesting characters. We read fiction to escape reality, so exploring a world that is different from our own is very appealing. You get a thrill of excitement whenever you come across a town or environment that isn’t on a map. Creatures that you would never meet in the real world are commonplace. It is almost like a child going to the zoo for the first time and seeing an animal that they never knew existed. There is a sense of discovery and wonder that comes from reading about a world that is not your own. Well, there is this sense as long as you let the world take you away until the book is closed. I meet a lot of readers who resist the pull of a book and focus on reasons why they shouldn’t like it. Things like a spelling error on page 74 destroyed the book for them or they already read a story with a similar plot, so this one must have been inferior. I really wonder what would have happened if these people read the second book first. Would the book they are praising now be the weaker of the two?

The second way to utilize a traditional plot device and still earn points with the reader is the method that I like to use. I love designing characters who the reader can relate to even if the reader only relates to a single character. My secondary characters have a history and some depth, so they are more than background. My main characters are flawed to the point where a reader might find them obnoxious at the beginning. Luke Callindor is a perfect example of a character who starts out whining, getting into trouble, and being about as heroic as a crying toddler. Still, part of the fun in reading a story is to see these flawed characters grow and adapt through their adventure. I always believed that character development can trump a standard plot as long as you keep it interesting and somewhat realistic. A hero that begins with no confidence and skills should not be an unstoppable warrior by the middle of the book. There is a recent movie example that I would like to use, but I think the movie is too new for me to safely say it. I will state that commercials made the hero look like some warrior badass, but when you watch the movie this character received no combat training. By the time of the final battle, this character spent the entire thing running and dodging until meeting the villain. This then resulted in a rather amusing beating and the hero wins through a lucky shot and the villain’s own arrogance. I find this type of character development and realism more interesting even when this was a movie that was not original in any way. It made me believe that the character was human and could possibly fail, which I think is very important to push a story.

The truth is that everything has a connection to something in the past. We are all influenced by the world around us and a lot of it is entertainment media. I grew up watching cartoons, movies, playing video games, reading fiction books, comic books, and all manner of media. I ran around my backyard with toy swords pretending to battle whatever historical warrior I was into at the time. Everything I have ever done has been influenced by something that came before me, so my books will be the same thing. This is why my goal is to make memorable characters within the story. I get more enjoyment from hearing someone tell me about their favorite character than being told why they liked the overall story. This may sound strange and it also comes off as me outing myself as someone who doesn’t sit in a dark room struggling to think of something that hasn’t been done before. Besides, I prefer to have the lights on when I create stories and characters. Prevents eye strain, stubbed toes, and the voices appreciate it.