Originality

Well, this is post number seven. That's a whole week's worth!

Anyway, last night we were watching The Return of the King. Or, rather, some of my siblings were watching it; I was at my computer, which is conveniently located so I could watch on the other computer, but I wasn't really watching, regardless, because I was doing stuff.
I did go and watch the end of it, though, and if you don't know what happens, you've obviously been hiding in a hole for the past fifty years to have missed both the book and the movie, so I'm not going to be like "Oh, careful, this will ruin it if you haven't seen/read it!" Yeah, whatever. It has one of the most predictable endings ever, anyway, otherwise I wouldn't have watched the movie before reading the book (I hardly ever do that, except with Eragon, [I did try to read this once, but didn't get very far] because I knew I would probably never read it-- more on that in a bit); I still haven't read it, actually. For some reason I've read The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers, but still haven't gotten around to finishing it all up. There's not much of an excuse for this, because they're pretty good books. I'm reading Moby Dick for school right now ("So say that spot-e whale eye? That whale-e dead!"), though, and that's a pretty long one (The long ones are often the best ones, especially if they're old, too), so I don't want to start anything else big at the same time. So where was I? Oh, right, we were watching, and Gollum bites of Frodo's finger, and they fight for a while, and finally Gollum falls in, and Frodo almost does, and appears to be debating whether to let go of the ledge thingy, because the right landed on some cooled lava. Apparently he's not too smart because the fall would obviously kill him, but whatever. Weird magical objects make people do odd things. Anyway, he doesn't let go, and Sam helps him back up, and the world is saved. Then everyone sees Sauron's tower collapse, and Mount Doom exploderates. Then I say "I'm sure Sam and Frodo weren't on that thing when it blew." I hate people who laugh at their own jokes, but I thought it was pretty funny. That was just the beginning, though, because after it was over, the following funny conversation occurred.

Me: The End... Or is it? Seriously, movies could use more comic-book-like endings.
John: No, really, they should make another one!
Me: But the movies are about books, and there are no more books. That wouldn't work at all.
John: Oh yeah...
Seth: What about the Silmarilion?!
Andy: They are actually making a Hobbit movie.... Ooh, The Sons of Hurin!
Me: Hobbit versus Predator!!
Seth: ...I'm pretty sure someone's actually used that joke before.
Me: Whoah, really?

...Anyway, this whole thing made me think about storyline originality (yes, this does all actually tie together for once, somehow). It seems a lot of times nowadays people are accusing modern fictional works of stealing the ideas of fiction authors of the past. Sometimes there's some truth to what they say, but ultimately, there is no longer full originality. Pretty much my the time the eighteenth or nineteenth century rolled around, all of the good plot devices had been used already in some way or another. Now, in the twenty-first century, there's definitely nothing left. Still, though, one can be unique without being original. One way is taking an idea, maybe one that's been used in literature before, and adapting it to film or theater. The real key, though, is still trying to make things as different as you can; make the MacGuffin (That would the object everyone's after that serves as a way to move the story forward, like the sugar bowl in A Series of Unfortunate Events or the Ark in the first Indiana Jones movie) a person somehow, etc. Then you combine lots of different things together and twist them up in new ways, and you have a new, refreshing storyline. If something seems too similar to something else, you can change it until it's different, and eventually you can have something pretty good going. There are actually things I consider to be even more important than these, though; things that can draw attention away from any familiarness of the plot and make something seem -- and be -- totally new. These things are Setting and Mood. Know why Eragon is compared to Star Wars so much? It doesn't have just the same plot; it has a very similar mood, and, sorry, but the setting is one of the least interesting I've ever encountered. This makes any similarities in the plot horribly obvious, and people will mock them incessantly. What is Mood, though? Well, it's a bit hard to describe. Now, think of a fairy tale -- for convenience, let's go with a Disney movie version of say, Cinderella. Now, think of, let's say, The Lord of the Rings. They're both in fantasy settings, right? Different ones, yes, but we're not talking about setting in detail right now. Now, on the one hand, we have Cinderella. Here's a story that starts in a pretty depressing way, but it has this happy, whimsical feel to it. On the other hand, we have The Lord of the Rings, which appears to start peacefully, but it still seems very dark and serious. Both of them have happy endings, too, but the mood still shows up then; Cinderella lives happily ever after, but a lot of the characters in The Lord of the Rings get separated from each other, and they have to live out the rest of their lives differently than they had thought. Does that make sense to you?
My book is kind of tricky with the mood, I think. The prologue, one can easily tell, is there to set the mood. You know you're in for a pretty dark and horrible story. The first chapter, though, tricks you, because it seems like it's going to be the traditional thing where it's like "OK, the world is pretty messed up right now, and lots of people are dying, but we know it's going to be okay in the end." It's not, though; the story comes to (or rather will come to) this really crazy ending where you'll probably be thinking "It's not over, it can't be! ...Is it...?" And, of course, it is (although a sequel is almost required because the story won't have been fully told out at that point).
Anyway, on to setting. Setting is really important, because, although you don't know it yet, that's probably a major factor when you think "Doesn't this seem like something I've seen or read before?" Mentioning LoTR again, it revolutionized the traditional setting. Tolkien did everything he, as a fantasy writer, should do in creating his setting. He went way, way back, drawing up ideas from old stories, myths, and legends, and modernizing them into a fantasy world for our time. In fact, a lot of people, I've noticed (from stuff I read on the Internet and maybe some books and stuff) see fantasy, as expressed through popular culture, in these two chronological categories that are very different: Pre-LoTR and Post-LoTR. Does it seem like a lot of stuff these days is very similar to Tolkien's world? It should. People shamelessly steal a lot of his work instead of working from the ground up.
Now, looking at my setting (sorry I'm using it as the "good example" here...), I did go back and look at Norse mythology and things like that, and since that was one of Tolkien's big sources, it sort of looks like his stuff in some places. But everything is portrayed in a really different way, and it has people, creatures, and locations that actually seem like the sort of thing you'd find in a comic book or video game. In a book, these things seem really different. I've also come up with a lot of new stuff that isn't really new, but is somehow unique at the same time, like a race of bear-people called the Ursaleth (Jeremy gets bonus points for actually being the one who came up with / reapplied the idea of an anthropomorphic bear in the first place, pretty much; I turned them into a race and gave them a culture) and the birdlike Tengu. There's also some totally crazy stuff, like the Kazarm, who have biometallic bodies and resemble some sort of robot (you'll want more explanation, I know, but you'll have to wait for the book, probably), and many non-sentient creatures like Bloodeater, an enormous, horned some-kinda-mammal-that-seems-like-it-should-be-a-reptile, and the Kalch're, strange buglike creatures with hard armored backs and bat wings.
Not even regarding the new stuff, I threw in a whole bunch of classic things people hardly use, like salamanders and woodwose, and gave them my own special twists. My portrayals of the staples like elves, dwarves, and dragons are a bit different, too. For example, elves aren't the oldest, longest-lived race-- their lifespan is more or less the same as a human's, and they are actually younger, as a race, than the humans and dwarves. Yep, this is going to be very different indeed... It makes me think of a moment a long time ago in a writing class, where there was this short story I wrote, and someone said something like "Hey, what?! Dragons can TALK?!" I don't remember who you were, but, yes, dragons can talk. Dragons will do what I want them to, and that pretty much sums up my entire writing: I'll do whatever I want with whatever I want to do it with, because it's my story. That's the key to making it different: make it yours.
Anyway, I hope that gave you ideas and helped you out with that book you're writing, that movie you're producing, and / or that computer game you're working on.
Of course, none of you are probably doing anything like that, and "you" still isn't much right now, but whatever. Be glad I took the time out to explain all of this stuff... or something.

Sorry the post was so restrained this time, and that it ended up having a lot to do with Ring of Eshara, or, more specifically, Maleshra.
I would throw something else in here, but it's gone on for long enough I think... I dunno... Uhm...
I LIKE COOKIES!
Sorry, that's all I've got. Good enough? No? Well, wait for tomorrow, I guess.
Oh, actually, I guess I could get to talking about the blog itself, and maybe that'd make me think of something else...
OK, so, first of all, thanks, to those of you who have been actually reading this. If you know of someone who would enjoy it, you can go ahead and tell them about it, especially if it's someone I know (Although it probably would be someone I've at least met before, right?). I could always use more people to read my ramblings... Of course, it does seem as if nobody is reading this, I admit. But I'm kinda OK with that, because the main point was to have fun with it. I've had loads of fun, even if it does seem like it would be more fun if there were people to discuss it with... Ah, well, anyway, get the word out... Or don't, I don't mind. Whatever.
Ooh, wanna hear a funny story? I've got a funny story.
So over here, the Internet was being really stupid and annoying. OK, it still is, but this was really, really bad. It would sometimes just not work for entire days. We totally couldn't figure it out; we called the company's tech support, we unplugged stuff, we moved things around... We just couldn't figure it out. Whenever my aunt got home we would ask if it was working upstairs (where my aunt and uncle live), because ours was connected through a router and maybe it was a router problem. Yes, it would be working, and, oddly, it would magically start working downstairs too. Well, eventually, my dad thought of something, and turned on and off the light switch upstairs in the room where the computer was. Just like magic, the modem turned on and off too: It was plugged into one of those dumb outlets that was wired into the light switch, like people use for their lamps!
OK, well, there's your story, and now my tradition of multiple topics in a post is maintained. With that, I'll be going now.... OK, well, I probably won't be going anywhere -- even away from the computer -- but whatever, the post is done, I mean.

:::Source= Paul M-unit 19.91 MKII
...The post is done, he means...

Oh, very clever.

:::Source= Paul M-unit 19.91 MKII
Shut up, you said you were done.

Fine.

:::Source= Paul M-unit 19.91 MKII
...The End... or is it?