No, no book is truly original. For that matter, it wouldn't surprise me if someone did this kind of book before Battle Royale. The thing is what do you DO with it?
For example, you know I've been thinking a lot about epic fantasy. It quite often follows the hero plot of Harry Potter and Star Wars: a young man (sometimes it's a young woman, but a man is more common), grows up in obscurity, discovers he has an incredible background he never knew about (quite often involving magic, though in fantasy he's often also or instead heir to a throne) and saves the world. You often have a wise old man, a sarcastic sidekick, a love interest, etc.
Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Every genre has its tropes. Heck, you can take every story down to its most basic points of rising action, climax, conclusion, etc. These are part of our collective consciousness of how stories are supposed to work. Can you break these patterns? Of course! But (1) that's not what I want to do as a writer and (2) even those have a certain pattern to them.
If you haven't read it, I suggest Story by Robert McKee. It's about screenwriting, but covers the basic elements of storytelling and sort of clarified a lot of my thoughts on writing in general and specifically on these issues.
(BTW, I haven't commented on your Hunger Game entries yet, but I"m lazy, but EEE so glad you read!)
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Date: 2010-02-19 07:34 pm (UTC)For example, you know I've been thinking a lot about epic fantasy. It quite often follows the hero plot of Harry Potter and Star Wars: a young man (sometimes it's a young woman, but a man is more common), grows up in obscurity, discovers he has an incredible background he never knew about (quite often involving magic, though in fantasy he's often also or instead heir to a throne) and saves the world. You often have a wise old man, a sarcastic sidekick, a love interest, etc.
Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Every genre has its tropes. Heck, you can take every story down to its most basic points of rising action, climax, conclusion, etc. These are part of our collective consciousness of how stories are supposed to work. Can you break these patterns? Of course! But (1) that's not what I want to do as a writer and (2) even those have a certain pattern to them.
If you haven't read it, I suggest Story by Robert McKee. It's about screenwriting, but covers the basic elements of storytelling and sort of clarified a lot of my thoughts on writing in general and specifically on these issues.
(BTW, I haven't commented on your Hunger Game entries yet, but I"m lazy, but EEE so glad you read!)