Have we stagnated?

[Nihilium 7th]

I was talking to someone after class today about the Book of the New Sun series (he had just managed to finish it after a year) when he said something I thought was ridiculous at the time. According to him "Writing has stagnated." At first I didn't get was he was trying to say but after a lengthy conversation I caught the gist of his statement. According to my friend (we'll call him Bob for now.); for the passed decade nothing new has been written about. Every novel, series and comic book for the better half of a decade if not longer has been reincarnations of things people would have read in the twentieth century. In a sense he believes the Film and Literary industries have hit a ceiling.
I'm not sure if I agree with him entirely. What say you Scribes?

 

[Reaver]

I don't buy the belief by some that "there are no new stories". I think that there are an infinite amount of untold tales that are worth sharing.

It is true that it seems that Hollywood has been remaking and 'rebooting" many older movies and movies franchises. Even the music industry appears to have this problem. I heard a song on the radio that has the theme song from The Munsters in it.

However, the thing with movies appears to be that this rehashing stuff usually occurs from about May until the end of September. When the fall hits, that's when the original stuff starts to come out.

I'm probably wrong about music. I rarely listen to it on the radio. I have my ipod with my few hundred song playlist of stuff I like. What can I say? I'm old and set in my ways.

I do believe that I'm right about the endless untold legends that have yet to be shared by this mythical thing we call writing.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

It's interesting, I bet if we were to do a survey between each truly transformative work in literature we will find many, many rip-offs and rehashes. What you won't find is the Internet and its ability to communicate these similarities to a broad and complaining audience. This change I think is the biggest reason we see so many rehashes. The Internet is causing this phenomenon, not that we've stagnated. We're still trying to think to the corners of the box we are in.

 

[ThinkerX]

For a long, long while now, I have noted that many 'hot new novels' have far older prototypes. The details change, and the writing styles may differ (change in the underlying language, sort of), but the concepts and much else is the same.

Generation Starship? I've read tales of this sort going back to the 60's - and maybe earlier. That situation, short of going completely wild card, well, there's not that many options. A YA book of this sort I paged through a few weeks ago struck me as a sort of updated version of those tales.

'X-Files?' reminds me a lot of 'The Night Stalker,' from way back. And before then, you had literary 'occult detectives' who tangled with some of the same beasties that made appearances in those shows.

Like him or hate him, Tolkien spawned a whole legion of imitators and pretty shaped a lot of elements in modern fantasy.

D&D took Tolkien and went a step further, refining more fantasy elements.

And most of the big name superhero's predate *me* and I'm not exactly young anymore. Yet superhero movies are a big, big deal.


How good the story is depends on how the tale is (re)told.

That said, there are some fairly recent innovations: fantasy military being the biggie. A few decades ago, it was pretty much just Glen Cook and the obligatory rip-off scene from LOTR. Now a genre in its own right.

 

[X Equestris]

At the core of it, there are a few basic plots. There are a certain number of character archetypes and character arcs. But you can combine these and get all sorts of stories that are still different.

To borrow a quote from Sun Tzu in the Art of War:

"There are only five notes in the musical scale, but their variations are so many that they cannot all be heard. There are only five basic colors, but their variations are so many that they cannot all be seen. There are only five basic flavors, but their variations are so many that they cannot all be tasted. There are only two kinds of charge in battle, the unorthodox surprise attack and the orthodox direct attack, but variations of the unorthodox and the orthodox are endless. The unorthodox and the orthodox give rise to each other, like a beginningless circle -- who could exhaust them?"

In the same way as what is described in the quote, you can combine standard plot, character archetypes, and character arcs, then add in a setting that you have built based upon facets of the real world and other fantasy worlds. You'll get something that could be boiled back down to those basics, but together they make something unique.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Sun Tzu is such a jackass. There are 12 musical notes and three primary colors of light. Why, if I ever met that clown… I'd not have used words like "jackass"and "clown."

So, while I'm waiting for Zombie Sun Tzu to murder me, I want to say that Horizon Zero Dawn's skyscrapers-turned-lush-green-forest and robo-dinosaurs seems to be an original setting, or an original take on post-apocalypse. (They call it post-post-apocalayptic.) I'm with Reaver. It's not that originality doesn't exist; it's just not always attempted. I think the Sun Tzu quote makes an excellent point—it's a new approach to the basic elements that makes your story stand out—or an original twist on what's been done. Horizon Zero Dawn's setting is Monster Hunter's​, but HZD's twist makes the setting original enough.

 

[cupiscent]

I think the short answer is "yes" and the longer answer is "yes and no".

One only has to look at current mainstream Hollywood output to see that the reboot, the year zero, the sequel, the revival, the adaptation is king. And not just common (Brian makes an excellent point on the likely ubiquity throughout history of referential media) but the lack of originality in the concept is openly stated and indeed touted as a selling point.

Sometimes it seems like I can't find a new fantasy book without a blurb comparing it to either Game of Thrones, Harry Potter or, in one mind-boggling example, both.

And from another angle, as I launch into querying a novel, I'm coming across the need to include recent comparison titles. This, I am lead to believe, is so that agents can point out to publishers that this novel is similar to those novels for which you have recent and proven sales figures. Don't worry, the inference seems to be, this isn't so innovative and creative that it's difficult to forecast sales.

However, if you dip just a little beyond the mainstream media, there's an amazing wealth of innovation and creation going on. Not just the wonderful array of crowd-funded and indie projects in all media, but traditional media providing outlets for wild and incomparable ideas. (I'm particularly thinking of Max Gladstone, and Kameron Hurley's Mirror Empire, and similar books that are just stark in their Big Idea differences.)

I think it's increasingly important to be an active, not a passive, engager with media - by which I mean seeking out the interesting stuff rather than simply taking what is handed to us and finding it lacklustre. The problem is that it can be more expensive to be active, which means it's not available to everyone. But perhaps by increasing our active engagement, we can start to make a change in the mainstream uncertainty about creativity.

 

[evolution_rex]

No, I don't think it's true. I'm far more adept in film knowledge than I am with novels, but I believe it applies to all forms of media; every decade is filled with people going on about how it's the end of originality. That's because most mainstream movies/books/music etc are generally unoriginal. Unoriginal stuff sells, believe it or not. The truly original stuff get praised and are then talked about over the years, gaining a large audience.

With books, the new stuff that gets headlines in the news are all young adult novels trying to be the next Harry Potter/Twilight/Hunger Games. They're the most successful kind of book and in a time where books aren't as popular as they once were, publishes actively look of these things and put a lot of effort into marketing to make them successful. But most of them will not be taught in college classes in 50 years. The ones that will are currently harder to find. Originality, the strange and the unique, aren't appreciated by the general population and it takes those who are a fan of the medium to find, understand, and enjoy them.

 

[Penpilot]

There are archetypical stories. In terms of that, there may be a limited number. Yes, boy meets girl stories have been told and retold. OR Hero's Journey. But so what? That's painting things with very broad strokes.

I can say there are only three types of plot, man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. himself. Since those type of stories have been done at least once, there are no new stories to be told. HOGWASH.

Any one who knows there stuff will know it's not originality of plot, it's originality of presentation, and experience.

Many peoples lives follow a similar plot, like in the board game The Game of Life. You go to school, you graduate, you meet that special someone, you get married, you have kids, etc. Does that mean every person's life that follows this pattern has lived the exact same life? No. Does that mean their life isn't unique? No.

Again, if they say there are no new plots, I can be on board with that. But if they say there are no new stories, that's not true. If they can't find the new stories, they're not looking hard enough or at all. Because if there's anything, this is a golden age of story telling. I'd like to see TV shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, or Game of Thrones be broadcast in the 80's. Not likely.

As for comics, again not looking very hard. When has there been anything like the Walking Dead comic? And has this person even heard of Alan Moore and everything he has ever done? How about Kurt Busiek's Astro City, or Brian Michael Bendis's Powers? Or Gaiman's Sandman?

These aren't your typical super-hero books.

IMHO, if you think everyone's horizon's are the same as yours, you should attempt to broaden them before declaring your limits are everyone else's limits.

 

[Mectojic]

According to some, there are only about 7 original stories. All the rest is built off them.
However in our post-modern world, what we like to do is combine multiple of these ideas, and play with them in new ways.
I argue that there is a constantly changing flow of writing, but only those at the very top can manage to change its course in the stream. (Yes I'm just quoting T.S. Eliot).
But we have certainly advanced from Tolkien - look at the questioning of good and evil in ASOIAF, for example. Look at the progress sci-fi has made. Love stories are no longer what they once were.

Things are indeed changing. It can sometimes seem like they aren't, because more than 90% of successful writers copy others. In fact, 100% of writers copy others. But the successful ones through in new innovations.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I think it's increasingly important to be an active, not a passive, engager with media - by which I mean seeking out the interesting stuff rather than simply taking what is handed to us and finding it lacklustre. The problem is that it can be more expensive to be active, which means it's not available to everyone. But perhaps by increasing our active engagement, we can start to make a change in the mainstream uncertainty about creativity.

I believe this is really central.

The big things that pull in the big bucks will almost always be things we're already familiar with, but there will be a lot of really cool things that fly under the radar that you won't find unless you go looking for it. So even if what you see at a glance are just remakes and reruns and retellings of the same old thing, that's not all there is.

 

[acapes]

Nothing really 'new' to write about until technology gets a jump on science fiction

 

[Reaver]

Nothing really 'new' to write about until technology gets a jump on science fiction

Not sure if I agree here but a valid opinion nonetheless. Isn't the point of sci-fi to imagine what could be?

By the way, love your signature!

 

[skip.knox]

With due respective to the putative Bob, I think this is more about him being bored. He's really saying he himself has not read anything that has excited him. But rather than simply saying he hasn't found anything fun and is bored, he turns into an observation on writing in general. Makes it sound less petty. Fiddle, sez I.

For one thing, the statement makes the huge implication that Bob has read enough literature to make the generalization. Nothing original? Really? And that ten-year span. Why not fifteen or twenty or fifty?

For another, people have been making this observation for, oh, centuries. It's right up there with kids these days.

For a third, plenty of people have read plenty of books that have got them terrifically excited.

Finally, what others have said on this thread is perfectly valid. Yes there is plenty of re-hashing going on. Yes the Net changes our perceptions of what's happening. Yes there is nothing new under the sun *and* there are more things on Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your writing class, Horatio. But Bob's statement sheds light on none of that.

*harumph*

 

[Nihilium 7th]

*harumph* Indeed. His statement bothered me a lot mainly because he is one of my beta-readers. Basically it felt like what he was saying there was that there is no way for me to be creative because "Creativity isn't profitable." which to that I say bah! But now I'm left with questions. Should one be creative for the sake of being creative? Can one be too creative. Is innovation that important to begin with?

 

[skip.knox]

Well, wrt the beta reader, I would ask him what he meant. Provide examples. Consider alternate views. He may just have been feeling grumpy. He may have a whole new insight on the universe. The only way to know is to ask questions.

As for your own questions, what would you define as being creative for the sake of being creative? What would that look like? Can you think of any books that would meet spec?

I'm assuming "can one be too creative" is just another way of saying the first question, but maybe you mean something else.

Same for the third question, but again, maybe you mean something further?

My own take on it is this: everything in service of the story. I just try to think up stories. Then I try to write them. Then I try to get them published. Then I try to get them read. Each of those steps is so gargantuan for me, I feel like Jack in the giant's castle. It leaves me with little energy for considering philosophy. That is a commentary on my energy levels, not on philosophy, which has been a respectable activity for at least four human beings. Maybe more. ;-)

 

[Mythopoet]

I think a good case could be made that publishing (the traditional variety) has stagnated, indeed, has been stagnating since the 80s or so. Their offerings have begun to look more and more the same for a long time now. If one book hits it big they all try to jump on the bandwagon by publishing more of the same. They always want the sure thing, no taking chances unless it might lead to a prestigious literary award.

However, your "friend" appears to be suggesting that it's writers who just aren't writing fresh things, possibly because it's suddenly, in the 20th century, become impossible. This is quite preposterous. While there may be a limited number of subjects that human beings can write about (the number gets smaller and smaller the more broad you make the categories), there is an infinite amount of ways in which those subjects can be written about. There is no limit to the imagination.

Honestly, if I were you, I'd drop this guy as a beta. He sounds very cynical and the type of person who would be looking for things to criticize just to be able to criticize them.

 

[Penpilot]

Should one be creative for the sake of being creative? Can one be too creative. Is innovation that important to begin with?

IMHO, possibly, maybe, and perhaps.

But seriously, I think being different for the sake of being different is like trying to reinvent the wheel. For me, I focus on telling the story I want to tell. Sometimes that takes me into well travelled territory. Other times not. All the other stuff will take care of itself.

Take a look at this list of movies.

Jaws
Alien
Friday the 13th

On the surface, they couldn't be more different. But if you think about it, they are all the same basic plot with many overlapping elements.

Nothing draws out creativity more than setting limitations on yourself.

 

[Chessie]

The big things that pull in the big bucks will almost always be things we're already familiar with, but there will be a lot of really cool things that fly under the radar that you won't find unless you go looking for it. So even if what you see at a glance are just remakes and reruns and retellings of the same old thing, that's not all there is.

This is why lately, when searching for something to read on the Kindle store, I have been selecting works that seem obscure and strange. Haven't been disappointed yet.

 

[Reaver]

*harumph*

*harumph*