“There are no original story ideas, only original ways to tell them”

Last week, we had a terrific discussion about the movie Ex Machina. In it, Marija Nielsen made this comment:

My takeaway is that this movie beautifully demonstrates my belief that there are no original story ideas, only original ways to tell them. We should always look for various ways into the story we want to tell and try out different walking shoes, even if they clash completely with the clothes we wear. That is the only way we can find the diamonds.

To which I responded with this:

Marija, you hit this one square on the head:

“…there are no original story ideas, only original ways to tell them.”

Story ideas have all been done before. However…

The crafting of the story structure. The shaping of each character. The presence of our voice. The exploration of various themes. Pace, scenes, atmosphere, tone, and all the rest, those specific ways we bring a story to life are our conduits for originality.

That’s an excellent takeaway… and sounds like a blog post waiting to happen!

Name one movie released in 2015 that is utterly and wholly original, a story which has never been told before. There are none. Every basic premise or plot, story conceit or idea has been told or used before.

That’s the ‘similar’ part of Hollywood’s business theory: Similar But Different.

The ‘different’ part comes in when we, as writers, put our individual stamp on the material, hopefully reflecting an “original way” to tell the story.

In all honesty, I find this freeing. We are freed from trying to generate a new story idea because there are no new ones. On top of that, what we can bring to a script is something we can grow and control: Our voice. That’s where the originality comes into play.

So cheer up! Every story’s been done before. Now go about the business of discovering what is uniquely ‘you’ as a writer, then bring that awareness to bear on the stories you write.

HT to Marija Nielsen for her observation.