The War Inside a Writers' Mind

[StarDragon77]

I figure that this would be the best place to post this - both in subject as well as in thread content.

I'm sure that a lot of you out there who are writers who aren't as well as those who may be published have ran into this wall more times than you'd like. Especially nowadays when it seems like everything has been written and been written about.

It is the way within the mind of the writer in which before you set pen to paper or your fingers to the keyboard and you try to think of how to write out the book or figure out a general idea of the book. You run into obstacles like "that's been written about before" or "it sounds too much like this book or this movie". It gets even worse during the writing process in which it feels like pop-up windows in your own head that say "cliche!", "Very cliche!", and "even more cliche". And it really gets worse when you show it to people, or those who doesn't exactly have a good grasp on constructive criticism.

And really the cliche part of it starts to look like this:



Any thought or ideas on how to deal with this?

[aptpupil]

To be honest, I haven't really encountered this specific problem. With both of my novels, I haven't even attempted to sit in front of the computer until I've come up with an idea that I believe is A) original, and B) capable of being expanded into a full-length story well in excess of 100,000 words.

And nobody, but nobody, sees a single word of my novel until it's finished, although a copy-editor obviously would have significant input eventually if I attracted the attention of a mainstream publisher.

And I wouldn't worry about phrases or sentences reading like someone else's words. There are only so many ways that the English language can be manipulated. Get yourself a good, original idea, and write every line to the best of your ability. You can't do much more than that!

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

Yes, ignore it completely.

George Bernard Shaw said 'There are only five stories in the world and they're all Cinderella'!

And where would we have been if Sai King decided that the Dark Tower had too many similarities to LOTR, or Tolkein if he'd thought that LOTR owed too much to Homer's Odyssey?

Long days and pleasant nights

[Haunted]

Write, write, write and then re-rewrite out all those so-called cliches if you must.

[Mr Nobody]

Everything has been written about. But then everything has had songs about it, all the notes have been used, and there's nothing else to be done in film. Indeed, in every walk of life, all we do is things that have been done countless times before. Does that make what we do any less valid, or even necessary?
I believe SK addresses this issue in On Writing, so if I end up more or less paraphrasing, I apologize but it also serves the point: Basically, we can all see a particular thing, read a book, hear a song, feel an emotion...but we'll perceive it in different ways. I think (iirc) SK used a table with a red cloth, a birdcage, and something else (a rabbit? I forget). Anyway, the point wasn't really to do with differences in writing but in perception (again, iirc) - the cloth, for example, could vary in shade, pattern, etc.
It's the same with story ideas. Let's go with Snowbound - Cabin. It's not original. I can think of half a dozen things with a similar setting without effort. But it's how we use that cliched setting that is important and the story I write would be different from yours. There would be similarities, some would be striking, but it would still be your story.
Remember, there's no copyright on ideas, only on the way those ideas are expressed. You could, for example, write a story about a disease escaping from a lab and wiping most people out. It's been done countless times. Where trouble comes is if you then take an old man and a baby into an underground lab, and the germ escapes (The Andromeda Strain, more or less, though it came down on a satellite originally, iirc) or you have two groups of survivors, one in Colorado, the other in Nevada...(which is The Stand).

The way to deal with it, in my experience, is to just write. Get the story down on paper without going into extensive planning (planning always makes my writing stale and boring; I like it best when I don't know what's around the corner - and tbh even when planned, things can change anyway so why bother?). The ideas may seem familiar, perhaps too familiar, to you, but it's your take and as long as it's not outright plagiarism (word for word, or plotline for plotline) and you're not trying to pass anything off (no writing about a creature and calling the story IT, for example), there should be no problem.
If there was, the courts would be full to bursting and there'd be no new books, films, or music hitting the market.

[StarDragon77]

Hi,

Yes, ignore it completely.

George Bernard Shaw said 'There are only five stories in the world and they're all Cinderella'!

And where would we have been if Sai King decided that the Dark Tower had too many similarities to LOTR, or Tolkein if he'd thought that LOTR owed too much to Homer's Odyssey?

Long days and pleasant nights

Though ignoring it is a case of being easier said than done.

[aneaglesangel]

No I haven't encountered this specific problem yet, especially since I'd say my story is a bit different, LOL! The problem I'm having right now is I'm not exactly sure how to begin the end. I seem to be sort of stuck and have a lot to think about. I keep trying to start the last part and keep ditching what I'm writing, nothing seems right. I figure sooner or later I will hit upon what I need and the old typing fingers will take over once again, but it's sort of driving me crazy. I don't like it when I can't get going and I'm hoping it will come to me soon. I'm such a yapper usually the words just come, but lately, zilch. I've been figuring that maybe once I tie up a few loose ends, things will get going again, or so I hope!

[Anton177]

I think the most important thing that we need in our lives is balance. This little niche of a paradox you're explaining here is no exception.

Sometimes, yes, it is best to ignore that voice and just let your creativity flow. But if you ignore it all the time, all you're going to be left with is drivel - you need to cut things out because yes, sometimes you can write a load of ****. It's not a problem, it's an inevitable fact in someone's opinion that after a certain amount of time you're going to write something quite below par. Listen to your head and heart at intervals, let them talk to each other, and decide what to do about anything when taking both and neither into consideration.

Sometimes it's better to write for the hell of it. If it's been written before, write it for yourself. You might not have read what has been written in the past, and I'm sure not all of it has been seen by the public on bookshelves. There will always be an original thought, because nowadays the concept of an original thought is recycling and diluting older ideas. It's pretty, well, demoralising, but you can't win 'em all. To ignore or not to ignore... sometimes it's best not to think.

[michal]

You know, they say that there are only 7 or 9 stories and that any story told is a variation on them. It is the way you tell the story that matters.

But of course, being a professional content writer I manufacture cliches by order...

[StarDragon77]

You know, they say that there are only 7 or 9 stories and that any story told is a variation on them. It is the way you tell the story that matters.

But of course, being a professional content writer I manufacture cliches by order...

Yeah, and of course the other question that ravages within the mind of a writer is whether they really have it or not.