McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Derivative Plots?
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Ive heard it argued that everything has been re-hash for years and the last purely original fiction was Twilight Zone. They weren't right, but they weren't completely wrong either.
Shecky:
The ancient Greeks were already saying, "There is nothing new under the sun," and they were pretty much right, if you boil each story down to its essentials. While science fiction is a little different because much of it hinges directly on the use/inclusion of advanced technology, even that can potentially be reduced to the role of plot device, thereby leaving the development and major points... which more than likely bear a strong resemblance to something that's already been done.
About the only truly new thing that can be done is a recombination of story elements and technical aspects. This does NOT mean that every story is utterly predictable, however; as with Jim, many authors, when faced with a choice between A, B and C, invariably find a way to choose D (which, of course, has been done before LOL). That, melded with proficiency in the storytelling itself, is what makes "new" fiction enjoyable.
Hasufin:
I am of the belief that with sufficient mental gymnastics, an argument can be made that any work of fiction is actually just a rehash of Arthurian legend.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Shecky on May 06, 2008, 06:21:21 PM ---The ancient Greeks were already saying, "There is nothing new under the sun," and they were pretty much right, if you boil each story down to its essentials. While science fiction is a little different because much of it hinges directly on the use/inclusion of advanced technology, even that can potentially be reduced to the role of plot device, thereby leaving the development and major points... which more than likely bear a strong resemblance to something that's already been done.
About the only truly new thing that can be done is a recombination of story elements and technical aspects.
--- End quote ---
I disagree, actually. I think there are story possibilities that SF allows that could not be done any other way. Greg Egan does it rather a lot; I do not think "Learning to be Me", for example, is a story the mechanic of which works without the particular technological innovation involved.
Shecky:
I think that the point of those arguing that there really is "nothing new under the sun" is that, when you boil a story down to its essentials, it's still going to be about how humans react to certain situations. If you choose to look at it their way, even, say, a time-travel story is not "new"; it can easily be equated to travel stories where a character goes to a strange, unknown land and has to figure out how to get out of it or keep himself safe while there, etc. The short story you mentioned could even be included if you look at stories about life after death or reincarnation - are those really the same people as before? - or even at stories from when prosthetics and artificial organs (*rings bell for "Hello, SF Themes!"*) were beginning to become widely-known. Is a person with major brain trauma the same person?
It all depends on how much of the essential story you believe hangs on those particular hooks. I'm not dogmatic either way; there's validity on both sides there.
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