Originality

When movies, comics, books or other media is consumed by society at large one of the first elements that's examined is its "originality". For example, when Avatar was released it was instantly criticized because, in the opinions of some, it resembled other popular stories. My response to this is...who cares? If you like something, who cares. If you want to tell a story that has be inspired by something else...do it!

What's important in art is that you make your creation your own. I'm not talking about blatantly ripping something off, that's a whole other thing. I've struggled with originality in my own work. In the past I've been too critical of my process of inspiration. I'd punished myself (by not writing) if I felt that part of my story, a character, or whatever closely resembled something in popular media that I liked. I realized that if you want to be "original" you have to have passion for what you're creating, you have to own it, you have to look through its eyes. If you do this, you've created something original...who cares what anyone else says.

I'm writing about this because I was thinking about fooling around with a side project apart from my ongoing story work, just for fun. In my previous post I talked about Lost and how I have a huge nerd boner for the show. I wanted to do something similar, with the science-fiction elements more overt...in that it will takes place in space. It would be more of a writing exercise for me...maybe I'll do it.