BEING ORIGINAL - Terrible Writing Advice

Learn how to come up with truly original ideas that can help a writer ascend to the highest circles of avant-garde artistic achievement.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro to Being Original
00:57 Originality is actually kind of hard
01:50 Originality can backfire
02:54 Plot and genre can strangle new ideas
04:15 Cultivating ideas for a story
06:04 Ideas are cheap
07:52 No one owns ideas
09:11 Fiction is big enough for many interpretations no matter how slight
09:49 Writers don't have to be original at all if they don't want to
10:03 Don't lie either, Jeez
10:23 All storytelling is built upon what came before
10:46 It's all been done, sorry
11:04 Stop. Worrying. About. Being. Original!
11:35 Sponsorship Wars
15:33- Outro

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

CREDITS

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License


SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

CREDITS

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[dbsommers]

"I wrote something original. It drove everyone who read it insane and allowed the Old Ones into our universe, but it was original." Sutter Kane.

[np]

"The worst story in the world is still infinitely better than the best story in my head because at least the worst story actually exists in the real world."

I was not expecting such a motivational quote from Terrible Writing Advice to make me get back to the grind of querying agents.

[paulnewton]

9:26 Reminds me of that one Tumblr post.
Writer: "My cake isn't nearly as good as that one over there..."
Reader: "Holy shit, two cakes!"

[Starsmasher]

As someone who browses TV tropes way too much, this certainly hits way too hard.

[SlayingtheGloom]

I think the best way to overcome cliches is simply to ignore their existence and try to write something personal and special to you specifically. If your writing is emotional and personal, than any cliches which appear in your story won’t matter and won’t break the immersion. Think of Lotr. Is it cliche by modern standards? Absolutely. Does that do anything at all to break the immersion? Absolutely not. Don’t worry about being original, just write the story you would want to read.

[theironmarshal]

Just remember aspiring writers: Being original takes the form of either flagrantly ripping off older works with little to no modification, or obsessing about having your book reinvent fiction, while never actually writing anything.

Hope this helps!

[dawashingmachine]

Two painters stand before an easel

One holds a wide palette with multiple different colors, and mixes and combines them to create a piece that draws on older works while interpreting them in a new, interesting way

The other has spent all that time trying to invent a new color

[swarple]

As one of my professors said to us in senior year of art school, “Everything’s been done before, but it’s never been done by you.” :)

[thefaz]

Me reading: This is SO GOOD. I want more exactly like this.
Me writting: This was already made, who'd want more of something already done.

[shostysboo]

I’ve been struggling with my story because I felt like it “wasn’t original enough”, but after watching this, I feel a lot better about my story. I really needed to hear this.

[jimmykedge]

Ah being original
The thing people sometimes try way to hard to do over.. writing an actually good story

[zaharabliss]

Ah yes another day of religiously following twa's advice to write the bestest story ever

[spamielentertainment]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that JP took the time to fully animate greed for a gag. That stuff takes Time, so much Time!

[ineednochannelyoutube]

"Oh my god, he's fully animated!"

Greed just keeps getting snazzier and snazzier each episode.

[HailSatanLLC]

I love how the video is satiric, while the chapter names are the actual good advice.

[TheCompleteMental]

If inventors were worried about originality, we'd still be in the stone age

[Bagas-nfdx]

When the audience say "wtf are you talking about?" then your story is original enough

[yamivolcarona]

As soon as I saw Greed have an actual walk cycle, I knew things were getting even crazier

[lepidusstupidius]

One time I started writing a story. I got through three chapters. One of my family members asked what the plot was. I told them, only to realize I had accidentally written the Lion King.

[thatjeff]

Just the other day, I saw a post from someone claiming they had a pottery class where the instructor had everyone split into two groups: Group A had to crank out as much pottery as they could to receive a good grade--quality didn't matter, only quantity. Group B *had* to submit one and only one perfect piece of pottery in order to receive a good grade. At the end of the semester, most of the really good pieces of pottery came from Group A. The reason? (supposedly) Group A focused on cranking out pottery, not caring what the quality it was, *BUT* in doing so, they obtained experience in creating somewhat decent pottery. Group B spent so much time on researching what made great pottery that they never sat down and actually made pottery until the last week of the semester.

Definitely a bs story but the underlying moral is sound: crank out crap; eventually you'll get to the point where it becomes less crappy until it's actually somewhat good. Then go from there.