inb4; "nothing is original" "your idea has been done because nothing is original" "you have to take an old idea and give it a new twist because nothing is original" "just do it because nothing is original and you can pretend it's a 'homage' or say 'nothing is original' when it's pointed out you ripped something off".

Your sarcasm would suggest you don't agree with those statements Skull... Is that how you feel? The great poet Homer was quoted as saying there are no new ideas and that was like a few millenia ago!!! In anycase I agree with everything Skullbie said even tho I'm not totally sure she does. The fact is in order for one to have the desire to create art they themselves were inspired by someone else's art. There is no getting around this fact.

Um. . . Google it, I suppose. Or ask around, I usually run my ideas by a few other creative types, just in case.

Warpedwenger
The great poet Homer was quoted as saying there are no new ideas and that was like a few millenia ago!!!

There may be ideas that are beyond our ability to comprehend, as yet. Did Homer know what Sci-Fi was? I bet he didn't. Just because no one can think of anything new now, it doesn't mean that there are no new ideas at all, forever.

'There are no more original ideas' basically means 'I can't think of any more ideas'.

The only reason there are no original ideas is because the moment you think up a new one, it's been done, pretty much by nature of you thinking of it. I'm in agreement with Custard, the phrase just means you can't think of something.

Besides, most of the time, new ideas aren't labeled as such until long after they're put into practice.

As for making sure an idea hasn't been done before, I turn on the tv. If it's on tv, everyone knows about it and it's ceased to be interesting. If it's all over the internet, it's on it's way out.

Unless it's totally cliché, don't worry about it. Just focus on executing your idea to the best of your ability. :]

Check here, and you'll know.

http://tvtropes.org [tvtropes.org]

Warpedwenger
The great poet Homer was quoted as saying there are no new ideas and that was like a few millenia ago!!!

It's more like story themes and things. The trouble is that people tend to take things literally Wenger... i.e.;

Custard Trout
'There are no more original ideas' basically means 'I can't think of any more ideas'.

No, what you're saying basically means "I can't properly understand this concept" ;)

There's nothing wrong with that though, in fact it's quite healthy to have the niave illusion that "originality" is some sort of real thing and not just a perception we have of an idea (in terms of stories, and artworks). If you still have that juvenile naivete, it gives you more enthusiasm to explore it's limits and push the bounds...
-Like when you think that you can dig to China as a little kid, you might make all sorts of crazy plans and start epic little excavations in your backyard because you still think that's a plausible, viable notion. Or when you try and make a giant attack robot, or fly, or do real magic, or any of the other thousands of things kinds do that adults who know better generally wouldn't.

--------------------------------
To answer the original poster, I cant do better than this;

GracehFaceh
Unless it's totally cliché, don't worry about it. Just focus on executing your idea to the best of your ability. :]

ozoneocean
No, what you're saying basically means "I can't properly understand this concept" ;)

Thank god I have you here to explain the concept to me in the most infuriating manner possible, complete with a smiley that makes me want to reach through the screen and strangle you.

Maybe I'd be more willing to listen to your bullshit if you actually still created anything, rather than burning out and leaving it to stagnate, which is exactly the sort of attitude people of the 'no more originality' tend to fall into.

I dare anyone here to mention a piece of literature, television, or other medium that was wholely original for its time. Tolkien practically invented the modern concept of medieval fantasy, but even HE was inspired by other writers in the 30's--not to mention Germanic myth. Even Shakespeare has been accused of plagiarizing from his contemporaries.

I know that a "you're only saying that because you're unoriginal" argument is forthcoming, but the thing is that attacking ad hominem doesn't take away from the very valid point here: very little, if anything at all really, has ever been truly original. Sure, you can speak as though it's still very well and possible to cook up an idea that no one's conceived before, but there's not exactly a precedence for it.

I believe ideas themselves can be original, not necessarily stories and formulas which could contain many elements tackled by other stories, but idea like Chew for example:
Chew has elements of the classic fbi murder case, but the idea for it is original:
"Tony chu is a cibopath, that is he can eat something and get a mental image about the tree it grew from, the pesticides used in it, when it was harvested. He is enlisted by the F.D.A to track down murderers and smugglers who are illegally bringing poultry into the states, after witnessing flashbacks of a chefs serial killings when his blood spilled into tony's soup. But not all is at it would seem with the 'bird flu' warnings...."

Yes someone can go 'hurf that is the classic fbi murder mystery with a food twist' yet i believe the idea has delved far enough away from that to be called original, the storytelling too.

And made up races in mass effect for another example, yeah "they mostly walk in a humanoid fashion and have horns" but there's enough elements of their history and design to be original even if they contain elements of other stories and legends, and even if mass effect is quite formulaic.

Skullbie
I believe ideas themselves can be original, not necessarily stories and formulas which could contain many elements tackled by other stories, but idea like Chew for example:
Chew has elements of the classic fbi murder case, but the idea for it is original:
"Tony chu is a cibopath, that is he can eat something and get a mental image about the tree it grew from, the pesticides used in it, when it was harvested. He is enlisted by the F.D.A to track down murderers and smugglers who are illegally bringing poultry into the states, after witnessing flashbacks of a chefs serial killings when his blood spilled into tony's soup. But not all is at it would seem with the 'bird flu' warnings...."

Yes someone can go 'hurf that is the classic fbi murder mystery with a food twist' yet i believe the idea has delved far enough away from that to be called original, the storytelling too.

That particular combination probably hasn't been done before, nah. The idea of clairvoyance with an unusual trigger isn't new, though. I mean, you can certainly throw things together in new ways or take them in unexpected directions, and that certainly sounds well written, but there's nothing specifically unique about the parts that make up the sum.

And made up races in mass effect for another example, yeah "they mostly walk in a humanoid fashion and have horns" but there's enough elements of their history and design to be original even if they contain elements of other stories and legends, and even if mass effect is quite formulaic.

Again, an original combination of things that have been done before. New way of doing old things, yeah, and that's fine. Finding new ways to tackle new subjects and new combinations of things people think they're familiar with is what quality, original writing is really about--NOT cooking up something in particular that's never been done before, individually. Heck, House is just Sherlock Holmes if he were a doctor.

Don't look at the originality of a story at face value, is the trick here--and my advice to the OP. If you make your characters memorable and your storytelling fantastic and your setting involving and otherwise keep quality in mind--well, it'll take off on its own. Make it great, and the worst thing that could happen is that you're viewed as a SUPERIOR version of whatever did your idea first.

Tokoyoto
I dare anyone here to mention a piece of literature, television, or other medium that was wholely original for its time. Tolkien practically invented the modern concept of medieval fantasy, but even HE was inspired by other writers in the 30's--not to mention Germanic myth. Even Shakespeare has been accused of plagiarizing from his contemporaries.

Someone had to have come up with those concepts first, though.

Tokoyoto
I know that a "you're only saying that because you're unoriginal" argument is forthcoming, but the thing is that attacking ad hominem doesn't take away from the very valid point here: very little, if anything at all really, has ever been truly original. Sure, you can speak as though it's still very well and possible to cook up an idea that no one's conceived before, but there's not exactly a precedence for it.

Have you tried arguing with Ozone? It's like running into a brick wall, then getting up and trying again, and then the wall tells you that you have the mental capacity of a five year old. Obviously yelling isn't doing much better, but it's a lot less painful.

Skullbie
And made up races in mass effect for another example, yeah "they mostly walk in a humanoid fashion and have horns" but there's enough elements of their history and design to be original even if they contain elements of other stories and legends, and even if mass effect is quite formulaic.

That was only the 'main' aliens though. There were also those weird semi-elephant looking guys who had to explicitly state the emotional inflection of their sentences, and those floating jelly things that communicated through bio-illuminance.

custard
There were also those weird semi-elephant looking guys who had to explicitly state the emotional inflection of their sentences, and those floating jelly things that communicated through bio-illuminance.

Yeah i thought the elcors way of speaking was original, another example of an original idea on an old think(elcor are elephant creatures with star wars jabba details)

To me something can be original even if it contains elements of a previously existing idea, if it gets far enough away from it with enough twists then i would call it original. May not be for you 'purists' but whatever.

And like jaex compared stories to cooking in another thread, just because someone says "every dish has been made now and if someone makes an original dish i'll bet some obscure diner in Oklahoma has made something similar" doesn't mean their wont be new ingredients in the future to cook with.

Custard Trout
Someone had to have come up with those concepts first, though.

That's not valid evidence for creation of new ideas today, though. Ideas can be traced back to when stories weren't even written down, and were just told from parent to child or to travelers. Stories from then evolved into stories that evolved into other stories. People added things that they had experienced, those things got mutated in the telling, and those things got reused in other stories. That doesn't mean there's any core storytelling elements left to be used, and the fact that entirely unique elements haven't been used in the last... God only knows how many centuries, should be proof of that.

As long as you don't abuse major cliches, originality shouldn't really matter and certainly shouldn't be fretted over. A good story is a good story. It should have more than just a unique premise to drive it.

Custard Trout
Thank god I have you here to explain the concept to me in the most infuriating manner possible, complete with a smiley that makes me want to reach through the screen and strangle you.

Settle down nerd boy, you'll blow a pimple :)

Last time I noticed I had a lot more creation on display on the net than you do... ^_^

Skullbie
Yes someone can go 'hurf that is the classic fbi murder mystery with a food twist' yet i believe the idea has delved far enough away from that to be called original, the storytelling too.

It depends on the weight you give to the specifics or the whole, the theme etc.

If you want to get right down to specifics, it's going to be really easy to be "original", that's why the term really matters where specifics are really important, like in patent cases, trademarks and such.

But what makes a story? The little bits, the patterns, the themes, the whole, what? I myself tend to thing the bigger picture is probably more important, but you could be off a different opinion.

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I'm always fascinated how things go with ideas- how many times you see them repeated across different works; the overall themes, specifics, all sorts of aspects of them.

For instance, I have this current storyline in my comic where they're trying to get this small Jade Buddha away from certain people, in order to stop other people getting it, as well as giving it back to the people who owned it so they'l be allies... etc. It's complicated.
Anyway, A few days ago I watched a DVD of the Steeve Coogan and Jackie Chan Around the world in 80 Days film. In that they'd introduced an extremely similar storyline with a small jade Buddha that's exactly the same size as the one in my comic.

There was no direct influence obviously, because I'd only just saw the film and they weren't looking over my shoulder when I thought up the idea either... My reason for including the theme was to be able to set my story in some exotic locations and further on the main theme of the comic. Their reason for using it was so they could bolt on a kungfu movie onto a classical Jules Verne story.
But ideas about returning artefacts to people's in order to appease them or stealing them to demoralise them are pretty old and classical and true in a lot of ways, so that's where that aspect came from. The specifics of the size and shape of the object matching though...? Coincidence.

Tokoyoto
That's not valid evidence for creation of new ideas today, though. Ideas can be traced back to when stories weren't even written down, and were just told from parent to child or to travelers. Stories from then evolved into stories that evolved into other stories. People added things that they had experienced, those things got mutated in the telling, and those things got reused in other stories. That doesn't mean there's any core storytelling elements left to be used, and the fact that entirely unique elements haven't been used in the last... God only knows how many centuries, should be proof of that.

As long as you don't abuse major cliches, originality shouldn't really matter and certainly shouldn't be fretted over. A good story is a good story. It should have more than just a unique premise to drive it.

Skullbie
And like jaex compared stories to cooking in another thread, just because someone says "every dish has been made now and if someone makes an original dish i'll bet some obscure diner in Oklahoma has made something similar" doesn't mean their wont be new ingredients in the future to cook with.

This is my answer to that.

Ozoneocean
Settle down nerd boy, you'll blow a pimple :)

Last time I noticed I had a lot more creation on display on the net than you do... ^_^

You have one comic that basically consists of 'lol boobs and guns'. I'm actually trying to come with something at least slightly inventive before I go vomiting it all over the internet.

Also learning to draw. I really need to get around to that.

My main beef with the statement 'nothing is original' is it sounds like it's discouraging people to try and think up new ideas. I believe stories need to follow a formula or structure in order for the audience to understand them, it's people who push the limit and try to experiment with new things are what makes our writing evolve.
(there are plenty of ideas, character types, made up alien races, and formulas now that hadn't shown up in the past thousand years, plenty, and that could not have happened if they hadn't strived for a new idea).

So yeah back to me not being a purist and believing something can be deemed original if it gets far enough away from the old idea/only has small elements of an old idea.

Custard Trout
You have one comic that basically consists of 'lol boobs and guns'. I'm actually trying to come with something at least slightly inventive before I go vomiting it all over the internet.

That's the hook, not the comic ;)
But if people want to get that out of the work, I'm happy to give it to them :}
If it turns others off, so be it.

I find it helps to just forge ahead and throw all your ideas and creation into something. Really make it into something big if you can. That way you don't have heaps of half done and abandoned projects floating around all over the place. -I used to suffer from that. -_-

This is a bit off topic, so to bring it back;
All you see of other creation helps you in your own "originality" because you learn how to create better and who to refine your own use of themes and concepts so they don't just ape what's going on in other people's work and well and how to use those elements more creatively.
When you look at creative works of any kind, it's a good idea to really look at them, not just superficial stuff like Custard mentions, that way it'll help you in your own endeavours. -And that goes for anything; from stuff like Pokemon to Taxi Driver.

I can't believe it took THAT MANY posts to answer the poor guy's question. Thank you, Ozone. I hate the "nothing is original" argument.

And I agree with Ozone on the topic question, the best way to make sure your story is original is view as many other stories as you can. I know it's tempting to think that if you avoid other comics/movies/books you keep your mind from being "contaminated" with other peoples' ideas, but it's not the case. The more you've seen, the more ideas you'll have, because you'll know how to do things differently. And don't be afraid of doing something familiar but in a different way.

The idea that "everything has been done before" is a blatant oversimplification of the art of storytelling. Stories are like snowflakes. Many of them can be similar, but it's hard to find two that are exactly the same, down to the last detail.

I wouldn't worry about it. As others have said already, it probably has been done before in some form or another.

Another consideration, however, is that - even if you have stumbled upon the one remaining completely original idea - you can be sure that, while you are working on it, there will be ten films, sixteen TV series, nine comics and a dozen novels which use concepts very similar to the one you're working on! Ask anyone who's ever put together a project that they thought was original and you can be sure they'll have stories about how many of their own ideas suddenly turned up in such-and-such a movie which came out before they'd finished theirs!

The moral I think is that you should make your story as original as you can, but don't lose sleep over whether something similar might already have been done. The originality comes from the writing and/or art that you bring to the project. No one else has that!

If there's one thing Quentin Tarantino's proven, it's that execution matters at least as much as the original concept (particularly when you're working oh-so-hard to pay tribute to the work that's influenced you). Not to say that I'm necessarily a fan of the tipping of the hat, hyper-referential stuff that's seeping, even flooding, media these days.

And hey, even the cliche stuff works, as opening weekend after opening weekend of been-there-done-that movie after been-there-done-that movie has shown us. If something's good, it's good, whether or not it's been done ten thousand times before.

Be excellent to your work - whether it's a story of a guy meeting and subsequently losing a girl, or the story of a mad scientist trying to turn himself asexual so that he can repopulate the planet after nuclear war - and your work will often be excellent (insofar as the product. Rate of return is a different story. When I figure that one out, I'll bastardize another Bill & Ted quote to illustrate my point).

You see? I'm just restating what several people said earlier (but in my own interesting way), but did that stop me? I don't think so...

Simpsons Did it! Simpsons did it!

For serious? I just thought of something I didn't see much of and put my own spin on it.