✨Bookmarked✨ discussion

Many books follow a specific trope which works as their base plot for the formation of the story, and some books have totally different plots which can't be compared with others.

Is originality in story and plot important in books, for it's success and for a reader's satisfaction? What are your views?

After all, Voltaire had said:-
“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”
-Voltaire

Do you agree with this?
Let us know below:-

Voltaire is right. I mean everyone borrows from everyone. Despite how unique we are as humans we think a lot a like or along the same lines. How many of Shakespeare's plays were based off of Greek Myths and other legends/myths. Startling number.

There are books that have unique magic systems that are totally ground breaking, but the story is the "same old". While we always crave original and unique ideas. We also hunger for comfort versions of stories or remakes of our favorites.

Such as inspired . It launched Armentrout's career despite it being so similar (*cough*tweaked copy*cough*) and the series did go in a different direction after the first book.

Or a reader liked the concept of a story, but couldn't get into the writing style or the characters. Someone else writes a book similar, but the writing style fits better or the characters more developed. Or so many different versions of that scenario.

Emma has how many different retellings or inspiring different takes? Or any of Austen's works.

What I don't like is how publishers have checklists that they impose on a series or book. Like instalove or romance in the very first book. This kills off on my my favorite things like slow build romances. Where a character can fall in love over the span of books. Besides instalove there is, love triangles, female characters not allowed to date anyone other then the ML, certain characters must die or have to and so on. I think my main issue is that if the author doesn't want to do it, or it wasn't their idea, you can tell in the story sometimes. Basically publishers have decided what sells a book and what readers want.

I always say there are no annoying tropes. Just poorly written ones.

Hopefully that wasn't too convoluted.

I agree with you Shera. While I do appreciate uniqueness and novelty in a book, a lot depends on the execution. What good will a poorly executed concept do anyway. Whereas an amazing written common trope can change the whole reading experience.
As Shera rightly put, there are no annoying tropes, just the poorly written ones.
Like for me personally I hate love triangles. And this is like THE most common trope one can find. But very very few authors get it right. And that changes a lot of things.

Arundhati wrote: "I agree with you Shera. While I do appreciate uniqueness and novelty in a book, a lot depends on the execution. What good will a poorly executed concept do anyway. Whereas an amazing written common..."

I was thinking the same thing with love triangles. I've grown to hate them, but then every once in a while there's a well written love triangle that makes me realize why they are so darn good. They're just super rare.

I wish more books were allowed to focus on friendships and found family. I do think they're finally starting to get utilized more.

Shera (Book Whispers) wrote: "Arundhati wrote: "I agree with you Shera. While I do appreciate uniqueness and novelty in a book, a lot depends on the execution. What good will a poorly executed concept do anyway. Whereas an amaz..."

Ah the found family trope. It is one of my favorite things. Truly. There is nothing more satisfying than watching bunch of very different people coming together forming a squad. I too like to see more focus on friendships and relation rather than just insta everything. Slow well paced developement is so difficult to acheive and very few books are able to do it.

Love the forming of a squad! Ha-ha!

Yes. I remember the YA books of my youth (ha-ha!) actually had the lead have multiple relationships and the first love was not the ending love. It drives me crazy that even adult series seem to have a problem these days with a lead having more than one love interest through out the coarse of a series.

Rachel wrote: "Is there really such thing as originality? It has occurred in my mind several times that there will be people in the world who have had the same idea, yet only some or one actually build upon it an..."

Well said about originality.

To some extent yes.
But as pointed out by many people here, true originality isn’t possible because every story is at least inspired by something. Especially when we look at modern literature, the tropes are probably copied from some other novel.

However, a good novel always manages to put something original and unique in the same familiar ideas. This is what makes the novel worth reading, a fresh idea or twist which compels the readers to read more. So even the novel isn’t original, at least something in it should be.