Episode 129: How to make your fantasy world original?

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• published: 10 Oct 2016
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Today's Topic – The Originality Trap And How To Avoid It! I have spent countless hours working on being original.  It was truly a concern.  I worried about my clothes, my music, my art, and my fantasy world.  I wanted everything to be original.    However, I like most people failed at the task. I read books people did not read. I played games that others made fun of.  I wore all black, just like most of my friends. I listened to metal, unlike all of the other people. I wish I could have learned the truth earlier. I was not original; I was just not mainstream.  However, I could not have been original.  At least not by my definition, I was merely an arrogant jerk who like to think less of people who I thought brought into the system. The End of originality And was I not only not original. I was an idiot. It took me well over twenty years to figure it out. I started to figure it out in 1999 when Stardust came out from Neal Gaiman.  Many of my players teased me when Neal had a city called Highwall.  How dare he! I had been using that name for a decade.  So, to proof my originally, I wrapped up that game and started a new game that took place in space.  I could force the players to fly away from my embarrassment of the City of Highwall.   In my fantasy world, Gardul. There were a few being called gods.  They gain power through belief.  So, I wanted to have them use the players to battle each other to gain power.  The older gods would try and seize the power away from the newer gods.  I was so proud of my story. During the early stages of the story, one of my friends commented how he loved this game. It was just like a book called, “American Gods.” I was insulted, I denied it and to prove my point I had them shoot and kill and themselves at a previous point in time. This created a paradox that destroyed the universe. A storyteller scorned Honestly, I was so agitated that I have never spoken to Neal again.  Of course, again might be a bit of a stretch since I had never had the fortune of meeting Mr. Gaiman.  However, the incident did teach me a lesson. No one can be completely original. Let’s Face it, even if a person could survive doing nothing that has never been done before, which is impossible. The had an origin from two other people.  What is originality? The truth is if I had thought about what it means to be original instead of worrying about what people perceived me to be. I could have saved a lot of time. Because the reality is as similar as all human beings are there are no two exact copies. The environment effects all of us differently. My exact taste in music, art, and entertainment is closely matched by my friends.  However, they are never exactly the same. And at a more fundamental way, we vary at a genetic level.  And thanks to a study about identical twins, by Geneticist Carl Bruder, he found even that there were subtle differences in them. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical/ However, the fact we are all individuals does not meet my need for being creative when I write. So, I decided to look up in the dictionary what it means to be originality and according to oxford I have two choices: “The ability to think independently and creatively” or “The quality of being novel or unusual.” First choice for the win! Now, I have, to be honest. The second choice stood out to me.  However, I had to dismiss because “novel or unusual” are too subjective. What is novel to me a white male who was born in Indiana and now lives in Connecticut might not be all that novel to an Assamese female from India.  And even if we do agree something is novel, there will be a troll on the internet that calls us both idiots.  So, that really leaves me with the ability to think independently and creatively. Now, I know what you are thinking. The troll will still call me an idiot because they are still objective terms.  And, you are right.  However, I think they can be used in non-subjective ways. So we will just pretend that I am correct. Now, I will wait for a few moments if you want to troll me in the comments. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/originality What is originality not? Now, Since I have spent years as an information technology analyst. I have to say what is out of scope.  What I do not mean by being original in my mind. First, writing about underrepresented peoples, cultures, or genders will not make a work original.  Even, if you think there should be more books written from different perspectives that will not in and of itself make it original. Even, if you hate political correctness and want to belittle the underrepresented characters, you are not original. Also, rewriting the nouns to other...