Oh, sous chefs - Imma need you to get on out of my kitchen.
(Kindly don’t ask me for details, if you would, as there’s no way for me to send this one to Subtle Town, it’s too specific)
An open letter to peeps who can’t seem to call up originality on their own:
[sighs] [again] Let’s go with food metaphors, as I am hungry.
There are some of us writers ‘round these parts that specialize in cranking out the bread-n-butter on the reg. This is good. This is needed. This holds true in the professional writing world and movies and TV and whatnots. Audiences need tried-and-trues to come back to every now and then.
Then there are some of us - same in the pro world - that on the reg turn concepts on their heads. Same slab of beef, but different recipe, more often than not tossing spices of one-off words/turns-of-phrase in the mix. This is good. This is needed. Audiences need to have their brains shaken up every now and then.
It’s tough to smother a unique recipe in (perfectly acceptable) store-bought gravy to the point where the texture and ingredients and seasoning are hidden - several, if not many, of your dinner guests will taste it and know. Ergo, it’s “safer” to snitch from the one-offs, from concepts, vs. a plot point in its entirety.
Understand this: When one of my buds who are familiar with my tone/phrasing/cadence/etc. both in stories and in convos are munching on a perfectly acceptable bowl of comforting mashed potatoes, and find themselves thinking “Oh hey, where did that handful of bacon crumbles come from? __ doesn’t typically make with the bacon. And isn’t that a helluva lot like the brown-sugar-and-honey oven-baked bacon Nash served not but __ days ago? I mean, not as tasty, but pretty close?”
Well. Ya busted. You’re reeeeally busted the bigger your dinner party (follower count) is, and you double-down when all those lovely food critics give you star ratings (reblogs).
And I don’t know what to say about it, other than at first I had to assume subconscious pick-ups on your part. When it happened subsequent times, I also chose this mindset, however made a point to peruse your stuff more often, despite it largely not being my jam. When I’m doing this randomly yet I’m seeing it more, and every time it is published after mine, I gotta ask...
If you cannot manage to write stories without “picking up” other peoples’ personality and wit, stop reading other peoples’ stories and posts.
And specifically? My stories and posts. My advice? I mean, you dig my shtick, so I figure this’ll be of interest. If you find yourself jotting notes down randomly, thinking, “Ooooh, that’s good, where on *earth* did that come from?!” take a sec to check yourself.
If you can’t pinpoint within a reasonable degree what it was that inspired the turn-of-phrase or the concept or whatever, it may not be YOURS.
It’s likely not a crop that’s spontaneously sprouted in your mind, it’s more likely some specialized seeds have blown over from a neighboring farm. And if that’s the case, and that farmer starts getting pissed? Particularly when your customer base was already gigantic?
Then, baby, I hate to break it to ya, but, uh - you’re eventually gonna have a long row to hoe.