In my first attempts to write a novel, I felt that I needed to create something entirely original. If my voice didn’t add something to the conversation, why speak at all? Why spend a life toiling away at the keyboard, plucking words out of my brain like teeth from my skull, if I didn’t write something new? Never mind the fact that in my earliest attempts, I was hardly familiar with the literary canon of my chosen genre, and I therefore could not know what had already been said. I thought I could articulate the inarticulable. I thought I could shed light on the human condition in new and profound ways.
Maybe I could’ve. And maybe I still can.
But originality cannot be an end in and of itself. Originality, I argue, is a consequence. Much like happiness, it can only be discovered on the path to other goals. I did not know this, and I sought out originality as if it were a treasure to be unearthed. This rendered me motionless. Or, when I did move, I would quickly become discouraged.
My preoccupation with originality prevented me from finishing anything. Every time I started a project, I would realize that it was derivative, or else it wasn’t compelling. There are so many people that have lived, and as many of them have told stories. At this point, every type of engaging story has already been told. The only way to be ‘original’ in the structure of a story is to write something that isn’t very… well, good.
However, this impossibility of originality should not discourage you. It should liberate you. For I also contend, almost paradoxically, that everything you write is original.
Up until now, I’ve been talking about originality as we think of it. Coming up with a unique idea or a new storytelling convention. But allow me posit a different way of thinking about originality.
If you and I come up with the exact same setting, and we move the exact same characters through the exact same plot, and we both write 80,000 words, then we’ve both written a book. But my voice is not your voice. The way I speak and the words I choose are different. The flaws and imperfections in my articulation of the story will not match yours. Even though we’ve told the same story, our disparate tones will create disparate feelings in our audiences.
And that je ne sais quoi, dear reader, is originality enough. So keep writing.
– AJG
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