Young Writer Writes: How do you end up creating an entirely new idea
without basing the story off of any of the other books you have read?
If you steal from one author it's plagiarism;
if you steal from many it's research.--Wilson Mizner
The Writer’s Response: To put it bluntly, you can't.
We are all influenced by other writers. I learned most of what I
know about writing by reading. Reading is like taking a private workshop with a
master of the craft at minimal cost. My best advice is to read widely; that
way, you're less likely to steal too much from any one person.
Don’t worry so much about coming up with a brand new idea. It’s been
said that there are no new ideas—that all stories fall into a limited number of
standard categories. Fear not! If you give two writers the same idea, they will
write entirely different stories. Each writer brings to the page her own
database of experience. Nobody has the exact same life experience as you
do—they’ve not been the places you’ve been, met the people you’ve met. Even if
they had, they would not view them through your unique filter. Writers are
constantly gathering material for story just by living their lives.
Make each idea your own by incorporating your own experiences into
the writing of it.
When I read another writer with a strong voice, that voice tends to
leak into my own work. The best defense against that is writing practice. All
artists do this--there is no substitute for practice. The more you write, the
more likely you are to develop your own voice. Our first novels tend to be
derivative; subsequent novels become more and more our own.
