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"SSC8 - Following in Footsteps"

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Thu 22/07/04 at 10:54
Regular
"SOUP!"
Posts: 13,017
Following in footsteps

Originality is hard to come by nowadays. Think carefully about it, we’re at something of a disadvantage in formulating new ideas after thousands of generations of humans have already had their chance to make something new. The ideas we form are based on the ideas of others and glimpses of what we see and hear in the media. We take what we need from other’s originality and form our own generic, almost formulaic version of it. Every twist in the tale of a story has been written before, how else would the writer know this twist would work? Perhaps this is subconscious and on the surface they wholly believe they aren’t plagiarising ideas from writers before them. But they are. Filthy vermin.

I stare at my open word document with half a paragraph written. The cursor flashing indiscriminately, teasing me to write more. I look at what I have written, the introduction to a tale about talking farm animals with heroic tendencies? I shake my head in bitter resentment. I fear I am becoming one of the plagiarising tabloid-penning masses. “George Orwell I am sorry” I whisper under my breath and I hold down the delete key, erasing the stolen idea from the page. The blank page manned by only a flashing cursor screams at me to write something.

I almost spit out my coffee when an idea strikes me like lightning. My fingers tickle the keys expertly as the idea flows fluidly in sentences and paragraphs down the page. A classic, I am assured. A heart rending coming-of-age tale set in Alabama in the fifties about a white lawyer who battles with his conscience to defend a black man accused of rape. I typed for hours, unfolding a sinister side plot about a reclusive neighbour and a childhood romance between the protagonist and a boy named Dill, but then my plagiarism dawned on me and my head fell into my hands. I slammed my hands on the desk and whispered a brief apology to Harper Lee and deleted my work.

I hated what I was becoming, a filthy generic leech, stealing other’s ideas to no avail. I’ve become what I hate, a filthy stealing leech. How hard can it be to think up an idea that nobody else has even considered before? The answer is rather shocking - it verges on impossibility. I start a short anecdote about heroin addicted Scots who decide to pull off a heist, but quickly have to apologise to Mr Welsh. I may as well buy a photocopier and rip off artists that way.

As the night progresses I have to erase the beginnings of a chapter about a big friendly giant, delete the roots of a timeless love story featuring Captain Corelli and get rid of a ballad about a henpecked man named Macbeth. My thirst for literature is my curse, my undying desire to write is my tombstone, inscribed with words someone has already written. A sweet pill of pre-inscribed sorrow ends my career as a writer. It is better to have had passion and lost it, than to never have had passion at all.

Thus halted my spark, my deeply rooted will to entertain not only others, but myself. The need to be quoted faded like the moon on a morn. Not visible to the observer, but still there somewhere deep and dormant, waiting to rise again.
Thu 22/07/04 at 11:39
Regular
"SOUP!"
Posts: 13,017
Oh and i'm not trying to get at you for not understanding, most people dont. It's just you're the Gad Meister and I thought you'd understand writing concepts. Also I'm cranky because I'm hungry.
Thu 22/07/04 at 11:37
Regular
"SOUP!"
Posts: 13,017
It's passive, it's not meant to cumulate in anything.

I guess you dont understand my many styles.

There's the dramatic over-exagerations that probably leave you with something, a moral message or otherwise - take for example 1984 by Orwell.

Then there is the typical melodrama - more flowing that ends on a high and follows a basic theory - starts with a balance of equilibruim being upset, then the story follows the equilibrium being upset, or in instances on a "does he/ doesnt he" clifffhanger.

Then there is passive stories, that dip in and out and random points and arent aimed directly at the reader, the reader is an observer to the events and it entirely inpartial. It deals largely with personal epiphanies that are harder to relate to.

My piece was the latter.
Thu 22/07/04 at 11:29
Regular
Posts: 10,437
Paradox: wrote:
> Also someone will write a first person story from the point of view
> of a leech and get marks for originality.

Trust me, it won't. ;-)

Your story is a very good, original piece, I just found it a bit too subtle and didn't get a lasting impression.

Like I said though, it's good.
Thu 22/07/04 at 11:23
Regular
"SOUP!"
Posts: 13,017
I didnt want to write the obvious entry, which, depending on what sort of judge you are, will probably win.

A basic story about a metaphorical leech who takes from a person (typically a woman married to a man, the woman being the leech), the man finding out that she is deceiving him somehow and either leaving her and being all emotional, or killing her and being justified.

Also someone will write a first person story from the point of view of a leech and get marks for originality.

Me, I will get nothing.
Thu 22/07/04 at 11:17
Regular
Posts: 10,437
Nice story, although I do agree with Ashman that it didn't move me like some of your other stories. Fresh direction though, and a nice change from the usual entries in SSC.
Thu 22/07/04 at 11:12
Regular
"SOUP!"
Posts: 13,017
I'm off on holiday tomorrow so though I'd enter before I went away.
Thu 22/07/04 at 11:00
Regular
"bei-jing-jing-jing"
Posts: 7,403
Interesting.

I wasn't expecting an entry so early from you, but we have to give credit to Rickoss on the excellent subject choice. It was a much more entertaining piece, but failed to really move me in many ways. Well written all the same, though.
Thu 22/07/04 at 10:54
Regular
"SOUP!"
Posts: 13,017
Following in footsteps

Originality is hard to come by nowadays. Think carefully about it, we’re at something of a disadvantage in formulating new ideas after thousands of generations of humans have already had their chance to make something new. The ideas we form are based on the ideas of others and glimpses of what we see and hear in the media. We take what we need from other’s originality and form our own generic, almost formulaic version of it. Every twist in the tale of a story has been written before, how else would the writer know this twist would work? Perhaps this is subconscious and on the surface they wholly believe they aren’t plagiarising ideas from writers before them. But they are. Filthy vermin.

I stare at my open word document with half a paragraph written. The cursor flashing indiscriminately, teasing me to write more. I look at what I have written, the introduction to a tale about talking farm animals with heroic tendencies? I shake my head in bitter resentment. I fear I am becoming one of the plagiarising tabloid-penning masses. “George Orwell I am sorry” I whisper under my breath and I hold down the delete key, erasing the stolen idea from the page. The blank page manned by only a flashing cursor screams at me to write something.

I almost spit out my coffee when an idea strikes me like lightning. My fingers tickle the keys expertly as the idea flows fluidly in sentences and paragraphs down the page. A classic, I am assured. A heart rending coming-of-age tale set in Alabama in the fifties about a white lawyer who battles with his conscience to defend a black man accused of rape. I typed for hours, unfolding a sinister side plot about a reclusive neighbour and a childhood romance between the protagonist and a boy named Dill, but then my plagiarism dawned on me and my head fell into my hands. I slammed my hands on the desk and whispered a brief apology to Harper Lee and deleted my work.

I hated what I was becoming, a filthy generic leech, stealing other’s ideas to no avail. I’ve become what I hate, a filthy stealing leech. How hard can it be to think up an idea that nobody else has even considered before? The answer is rather shocking - it verges on impossibility. I start a short anecdote about heroin addicted Scots who decide to pull off a heist, but quickly have to apologise to Mr Welsh. I may as well buy a photocopier and rip off artists that way.

As the night progresses I have to erase the beginnings of a chapter about a big friendly giant, delete the roots of a timeless love story featuring Captain Corelli and get rid of a ballad about a henpecked man named Macbeth. My thirst for literature is my curse, my undying desire to write is my tombstone, inscribed with words someone has already written. A sweet pill of pre-inscribed sorrow ends my career as a writer. It is better to have had passion and lost it, than to never have had passion at all.

Thus halted my spark, my deeply rooted will to entertain not only others, but myself. The need to be quoted faded like the moon on a morn. Not visible to the observer, but still there somewhere deep and dormant, waiting to rise again.

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