In Writing Fiction, I was assigned to write my experience of waking up and getting to class in the frigid cold. The challenge was to make such a bland, day-to-day activity into an engaging story. At the time, I was (and still am) reading How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying; it’s a book written in first-person with a lot of engaging inner dialogue that keeps the reader even through mundane scenes. That made it the perfect inspiration I needed to successfully complete my assignment. So, I studied a couple of chapters from the book to see what made the original piece effective and applied that when writing my assignment. It worked out in the end; my professor acknowledged that the piece accomplished its goal.
This is an example of purposeful intertextuality. That is, the relationship or connection between texts (any form of communication). In fact, intertextuality comes with the notion that all texts are influenced by another, and thus borrow from each other; sorry to break it to you, but you really don’t have a single original experience. Then what does that mean for writers—especially those who make creative works?
(Not) a copycat
I think a relatable fear for writers is worrying that your work might come off as “copying” another author. You wrote a story about a wizard with a lightning bolt birthmark that goes to a wizarding academy? You just wrote Harry Potter. How about a story about a totalitarian world where there are cameras and eyes everywhere surveilling you? That’s 1984, isn’t it?
The thing is, there are plenty of other stories with similar plots, but are executed differently. For example, Mashle: Magic and Muscles’s main character studies at a wizarding academy and has a lightning bolt tattoo. Even the uniforms his academy assigns share similarities with the ones in Harry Potter. What makes its story original is it is more comedy-driven and the main character doesn’t even have magic; he passes academy tests through sheer physical strength. Keep in mind that there were also plenty of Harry Potter-esque stories before it was even published. Yet, Harry Potter is not a copy-and-paste of what came before it because it was executed differently, making it original. This is just how intertextuality works.
Adaptations
To further this point, I’d like to bring up adaptations. There’s a reason why we dread a Netflix live-action adaptation of our favorite series. As much as they may try to follow the original material, they still frequently mess it up. They execute the story differently from the original, so even though it’s technically the same story, it’s different. The difference in who is producing the story changes the story. In a sense, it’s “original.”
Even the difference in medium affects a story. From my experience, comics with a lot of action and fighting are more engaging in their live-action forms. This is because the tension and movement is easier to feel and perceive on screen rather than on paper. But with that may come the sacrifice of detail that the original material had. Pick your con.
Original execution
There’s one more thing I’d like to bring up. In Doug Eyman’s paper “Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice,” he says: “constructing and … understanding texts that use intertextuality as a rhetorical effect is more easily accomplished.” So the next time someone defines or explains a piece of media as similar to so-and-so media, remember this: Intertextuality is a great way of explaining a text to someone and convincing them it’s worth checking out. That’s why when I try to convince friends to watch my favorite obscure anime Heavenly Delusion, I say it’s “a cousin of The Promised Neverland, but done right.” And you likely do the same.
So don’t worry about using “taken” plots or ideas in your works. You will incorporate them in your works whether you’re aware of it or not because your works are the result of inspiration. And it’s the execution that makes the work original and yours.
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