Originality is Overrated: Why Tropes and Cliches are a Writer's Best Friend

I never say roleplayers have to worship orginality. I don't know where you got that from either. Or why you're saying that i'm going in circles. You said "a lot" have the view that orginality is essential. Which means by definition a majority or at least signifigant porton of roleplayers hold that view. That's a generalization you have made. Those are your words not mine. What I've been saying over and over again is that orginality is not overrated because:

A. Roleplayers fequently use tropes and cliches in their roleplays and they are still popular / sucessful.

B. Your generalization that " a lot " of roleplayers think orginality has not been proven and therfore be asserted as false. Despite your personal experiences with it. So your premise goes out the window.

C. Orginality when it does come influences other people's works. Making it valuable regardless of its age.

So if this is about roleplayers, you are still asserting that "a lot" of roleplayers think orginality is important. Which has not been proven by you or Kaga. Orginality is not overrated.
Alright, that's enough of that. There's a time and place for debating, and this is a workshop, not a debate thread. Go make a debate thread about originality in the General Chatting section, or perhaps a discussion thread in the Class Discussion section in the Roleplay Institute, if you want to continue this. If you do that, or if you feel so moved to private message me directly about it instead, I'll go ahead and respond to this in proper debating fashion. As it is now though, nope, this ain't the place for it.

Please stop posting here if you're going to keep on with the debate or I'll have to ask the staff to intervene, because you're kinda breaking some section rules here and I'd rather not put up with it any longer.
 
@Iallcsz this is not marked as a debate thread. Please discontinue debating in this thread and derailing it from its purpose. As Yorick Jorick pointed out, if you wish to pursue this topic then take it to PMs.

Additionally, here is this helpful PSA.
 
Not the first, not the last.

And end.

Let's get back on topic.
 
Take Maus by Art Spiegleman, nobody respected graphic novels or comics until it was published. It not only told a powerful story, but used animals to represent characters which was never done.
I take it you never heard of "Animal Farm," written by George Orwell in 1945? "Maus" got its start in 1980... so, yes, it's been done before. Just not in "graphic novel" form. Which may be what you meant, to give benefit of doubt. To go even earlier, we have "Gulliver's Travels," by Jonathan Swift, which contains such representative characters, as well. Let's just say Art Spiegleman had plenty of past inspiration for his own work.

This might help.
 
I take it you never heard of "Animal Farm," written by George Orwell in 1945? "Maus" got its start in 1980... so, yes, it's been done before. Just not in "graphic novel" form. Which may be what you meant, to give benefit of doubt. To go even earlier, we have "Gulliver's Travels," by Jonathan Swift, which contains such representative characters, as well. Let's just say Art Spiegleman had plenty of past inspiration for his own work.

This might help.
I've heard of animal farm. But Maus took the decision of representing all of the characters with each of their races being a different animal. The animal metaphor was also to emphasize the racial aspects of Art's story. In addition the animal metaphor "falls" apart later in story, Animal farm didn't focus on the human aspect nor race. It was a commentary on communism. Art also dealt with a much more serious topic than animal farm.
Both stories had different motivations but ulitmately Art introduced a new perspective about animal metaphor it was highly influenial across graphic comics.
 
So Art's direction with the animal metaphor was original. Nobody depicted races as different animals before Maus.
 
So Art's direction with the animal metaphor was original. Nobody depicted races as different animals before Maus.
Far as I know, true. So, Iallcsz, point taken. But I still think Art got his inspiration from others, he just gave it his own "unique" twist. Which, towards the topic, is one way to be "original."
 
Then we agree.
I would seem so. *grins* One of these days, I'll need to get a copy of Maus... heard so much about it, never had a chance to read it.
 
"An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.”
― François-René de Chateaubriand
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hana and Jorick
As a suggestion, it may be wise to avoid phrases that seemingly imply an unintended (not making a statement as to the actual intentions) concept when writing these workshops. It appears to me that many people overlooked the actual point being made to contest a generality made that overall had no real pertinence to what I believe to be the core concepts you did otherwise quite eloquently explain.

The definitions for original, as per the updated Oxford dictionary top three entrees, are as such:

1. Present or existing from the beginning; first or earliest

2. Created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation

3. Not dependent on other people's ideas; inventive or unusual

The first two definitions are, as to my interpretation, not the definitions I believe sir Jorick had in mind. Thus, this entire topic seems to be relevant to the third. A fact about life is that our perspectives are sculpted by others, some having lived thousands of years ago and most of the time in ways we don't even understand due to the complexity of influence. Nothing we make will ever be truly original in the sense that every living person is, in part, a product of their interactions with others. Cliches, tropes, archetypes are, as stated, tools. They're not taboo and to reject them due to their lack of "originality" is to ignore the fundamental fact we are always influenced, and thus in some way dependent, on the ideas of others. I believe originality is a misnomer, but what for is a word I don't quite know. Often, when I see someone call something unoriginal, it is because the trope or cliche used is paper thin and transparent. Sometimes, it feels impersonal. At other times, it feels like lazy writing. I don't know a single word that would describe these situations, but unoriginal is not the term for it, even though it does somewhat apply. Maybe Jorick has an answer on this that I don't. Either way, I do agree with him.

Never refuse to use a tool; just make sure to use it right.
 
I would like to see a workshop on using tropes actually, on either using or identifying them. I think that might be useful. I love the initial idea in this thread, though debates got a little fiery.

If you can identify tropes too, it helps you reflect the elements you liked from a story in your own later, it's very useful for figuring out WHY something was good. Not saying tropes are 'copy story idea here, past there'. They aren't like that at all, they're a generalization of a popular or well used concept. If you are going to copy the exact same setup, then it's going to be boring. But if you take elements from something, it can add flavor to your writing.
 
I would like to see a workshop on using tropes actually, on either using or identifying them. I think that might be useful. I love the initial idea in this thread, though debates got a little fiery.

If you can identify tropes too, it helps you reflect the elements you liked from a story in your own later, it's very useful for figuring out WHY something was good. Not saying tropes are 'copy story idea here, past there'. They aren't like that at all, they're a generalization of a popular or well used concept. If you are going to copy the exact same setup, then it's going to be boring. But if you take elements from something, it can add flavor to your writing.
Unfortunately there's really no reasonable way of explaining how to use or identify tropes, at least as far as I can think of in the context of a workshop. It would either be extremely simply and not very helpful or overly complex to the point of being probably useless to anyone who doesn't want to read a novel worth of material.

For using tropes the simple version would be "find out what tropes exist, maybe cruise tvtropes.org for a while, and then make use of some in your writing." The simple version of identifying them would be "read and watch a lot of stuff, figure out what character traits and plot devices and so on are used in a lot of them, congrats you found a trope, repeat until satisfied."

The complex version of using tropes would very quickly turn into something better titled "Creative Writing 101" or similar, because making use of tropes is the core of writing fiction and non-technical non-fiction (biographies and such use tropes, manuals on how to repair an engine probably not so much). The complex version of identifying tropes would be the lecture portions of a college level or non-shitty high school English literature class, because identifying the mechanics in play behind the scenes and understanding what's going on there is what they're all about, and tropes fall into that category of mechanics along with themes and allegory and whatnot.

Maybe someone else who thinks in a different way than I do could come up with a way to reasonably condense the useful information, but as far as I can conceive of it once you get past "consume creative works, recognize patterns, then apply those patterns" you'd have to get into the whole mess of trying to teach critical analysis and intensive reading techniques and how to build stories and character and ugh. If someone could do a good job of explaining all that in a concise workshop, they shall have my respect and jealousy. :P
 
I would like to see a workshop on using tropes actually, on either using or identifying them. I think that might be useful. I love the initial idea in this thread, though debates got a little fiery.

If you can identify tropes too, it helps you reflect the elements you liked from a story in your own later, it's very useful for figuring out WHY something was good. Not saying tropes are 'copy story idea here, past there'. They aren't like that at all, they're a generalization of a popular or well used concept. If you are going to copy the exact same setup, then it's going to be boring. But if you take elements from something, it can add flavor to your writing.
Do you mean something like maybe a listing and summarization of common/uncommon tropes and cliches to use? Or not really >.> Because I feel like I could do that for sure but I also think you're asking for more of an application workshop, in which case I'm in the same boat as Jorick that it's not really something you could post a workshop for
 
I would like to see a workshop on using tropes actually, on either using or identifying them. I think that might be useful. I love the initial idea in this thread, though debates got a little fiery.
Hmm... :ferret:
 
May I put in my two cents?

My "theory of creativity", so to speak, is that one should treat their inventions like a pyramid.

Ideas
are constructed
using the concepts and inventions
that came before it. There is no shame in using
previously used or invented ideas - in fact it is completely necessary
to progress into new ideas. The concept of animal metaphors in MAUS had been used
in literature before, for instance - Animal Farm, the Grimm Fairy Tales, and others have used animal metaphors
in the past. Spiegelman merely used it to represent the concept of racism in a very real way, to simultaneously help animate what it was like to be hated for who you are (and how
easy it is to fall into hatred of others in response), but also to minimize the horror of the images that he illustrated within the pages of MAUS, because otherwise it may have been too graphic.​

One idea is built upon the foundation of many other ideas. The same applies to tropes and cliches. As I have always told the people I have worked with, It does not matter so much that what you are using is original material, so long as you strive to use it in your own way. So many statues are made of marble, but they do not all look exactly the same.


As for a tropes workshop, why not follow the steps of those "Creative Monsters" or whatever threads? Post a challenge! "You must write _____, and it must include these specific tropes. Try to be original!"

Or I might have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm new here! Hello!​
 
As for a tropes workshop, why not follow the steps of those "Creative Monsters" or whatever threads? Post a challenge! "You must write _____, and it must include these specific tropes. Try to be original!"

Or I might have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm new here! Hello!
Hm, well, that's an idea. This is what I meant when I said people who think in different ways might come up with ways it could work. It's not exactly the same thing as a full guide on how to use tropes, but it could be interesting and useful on a smaller scale. I might just have to work up a few things like that to see if anyone makes use of them.

As for the rest of your post, yup, you nailed it.