Yves

Oct 2 2010, 12:18 PM

You do it by taking any hint of a worry about being cliché out of your head. You then throw it in the garbage, where it belongs. No, seriously—most ubearably cliché stories come from people trying too.

The best way to be original (or at least good, which doesn't have to be original) is to look for what kind of story -you- want to hear. What themes matter to you? What kind of characters would you like to meet? How much action and romance and intrigue and so on would you like to read?

Bear all this in mind and go into your rough draft determined to create something awesome. Then follow your nose. Let the characters be what they want and go where they wish; let the setting form around them like something out of a dream; let the story flow as it occurs to you.

-Then- come back to edit. This is where you read the story out loud and listen for anything that sounds just a little too tired, a little cliché. Let your ear be your guide, taking out everything that doesn't ring true.

Then you go back and rewrite to fill in the spaces you removed, and you proceed from there = ) The result may not be an original story, but if your ear's good, at least it won't be an incredibly tired story.

Quote:

 

1. Don't worry.
2. Start with what you like.
3. Just go from there.
4. Refine as needed.

Quote:

 

Unfortunately, there's not instructions on how to be original, by definition, the instructions themselves would become cliche.

Tesla Canon

Oct 2 2010, 06:13 PM

Well, Yves and I already gave our advice, and it tends to work if you're willing to put the time and effort into it. It all should be self explanatory, but if it isn't, I'll expand on each bit. I admit, I'm really only focusing on the character aspect of this, but a story is nothing without the characters involved.

First: Don't worry.
More specifically, don't worry about trying to make something absolutely unique. Someone, somewhere, sometime, has likely had a similar idea to what you're going for. Don't let that fact stop you. If you do, you're getting nowhere fast.

Secondly: Start with something you like.
It tends to be obvious whether or not you're really behind what your creation. You're not likely to grab someone's interest if you aren't interested in what you're making.

Next: Just go from there.
This just follows from the previous piece of advice. If you're interested in what you're making, really, absolutely interested, the ideas will probably be bouncing around inside your head. It'll probably be hard to settle on just one idea, but if you stick to it, everything will work almost naturally, even the smaller details you didn't consider the first time around.

Finally: Refine as needed.
Nothing's perfect, especially not the first time. Just keep going, you'll learn as you go. As you learn, you'll figure out or be told what you're doing wrong, and hopefully what you're doing right. And as you keep going, you'll see how it pulls you to develop things further.

The only other piece of advice I can give you is to keep having ideas. You'll find something.