Two things I always find helpful to remember when I feel like my work is too similar to something else/not original enough are

A) Your story will spend a lot of time growing and changing before it ever gets to the point of submission, publication etc. You'll get new inspiration or find new ways of doing things or learn new stuff about the characters. This process is (usually, mostly) organic, which means it's unique to each person – which will have an impact on the end result! Sure, the story will probably share tropes and surface similarities with other stories, but there will also be stuff in there that was generated by the process and is therefore unique and interesting. (The only reason it might feel too much like something else is because you know what influenced or inspired you. Like Radley says, you can see the back of the tapestry).

B) when we write stories they're influenced a lot by who we are as people & what we like as writers. Everyone is different – likes different things, has had different experiences, has different morals and opinions and worldviews. Two people can be given the same basic outline and premise for a story, but each person will focus on and be interested in different aspects of it, or have something else to say with it. Those interests are the strengths you need to play to! Even if you feel like a story has been told before, it hasn't been told by you <3

(and, also, there is always the beloved "two cakes" analogy, which is slightly less relevant for your worries about breaking into tradpub, but: for every person who complains about something being "unoriginal" there's someone who wants something samey & like what they've already read. There's a good reason why certain tropes, plots and character types remain hugely popular despite their proliferation).

Hi! I was wondering if you could give me some advice... I keep seeing writing advice telling us to write something new and fresh and original and such to be able to get an agent and stuff, and it's getting in my head. I feel unmotivated to write the story I feel in my heart because I don't think it's super new or original and I'm worried I'll always "fail" at being a writer because of it

Gideon the Ninth is, at its heart, a locked house murder mystery. The only difference is that, rather than Poirrot or Marple, the main characters are a buff lesbian sword-girl jock and her Horrid Little Necromancer (pos), and that it's set in a decaying space-dynasty.

That's an extreme example. But, take another hugely popular book - Six of Crows. It's a bank heist crossbred with a prison escape. Again, what sells it is the characters (and, to some degree, the setting, though I would argue if it had been set in our world, the characters would've still shone enough to make it a best seller).

You've probably heard that there's nothing new under the sun. That's true. It's also true that almost everything that's created is, in its own way, unique.

You don't have to create something completely fresh in order to be successful in tradpub. You just have to (and sorry if this sounds cynical) write a story that will sell. I would argue that, in all honesty, writing something completely whacky off-the-wall avant garde and never-before-seen is a possible, but risky way to enter tradpub, because there's no precedent for a sales team to use in marketing. Just looking at, say, the romance genre - where every book has the same basic plot! - should show you that originality isn't always a selling point.

Find your strengths as a writer - worldbuilding? Characters? Dialogue? Intricate Rube Goldberg-machine plots? Then focus on making those strengths shine in your story (and, of course, on improving the rest of your writers' skillset). Uniqueness will follow.

*lying in bed kicking my feet and staring dreamily into the distance* absolutely love the trope where a character is doing a double cross or is undercover or secretly betraying the protagonist(s) in some other way & they start to have Misgivings about their traitorous role & maybe those misgivings grow into ever greater doubts and they're working up the courage to come clean & then something or someone else reveals their betrayal before they can, shattering whatever might have been salvaged of the situation and plunging everyone involved into an inescapable tragedy <3

Something I think ppl who aren't used to it struggle with when it comes to ancient history is that frequently 'we do not and cannot know this' is the only truthful response a historian can give. People severely overestimate how much we actually know about Ancient Rome.

I remember talking to someone at a party once about the debate over Septimius Severus's ethnicity (whole other can of worms) and they asked if genetic testing of his remains was not a way to settle it and I was like oh. Oh okay you are under the impression we have the physical remains of Roman emperors from the second century AD alright then. (We. Do not.)

I hate work I should be at the (remembers I don't want to go to the club) the imagination

Free serotonin from Honey thr Italian greyhound

I'm back to thinking about Van Gogh! now wading through the absolute mire of academic discourse about whether his death was suicide or murder, and it's. well some of the bickering (I can't call it anything else) is really fucking funny.

Like, sure, there's a definite criticism I want to make about two core camps forming – those who sensationalise Van Gogh because of his mental illness (and therefore want him to have committed suicide), and those who either want to "cleanse" his reputation by arguing that he was murdered or who claim that it must have been murder because shooting oneself in the stomach is irrational. But rn I'm actually most intrigued by the third camp: the academics who are coming from a purely evidence-based angle, but are also clinging onto their preferred theory by their fingernails. There is so much bitching and passive aggression going on here. Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith are the biographers who put forwards the murder theory. they make a point of calling the senior Van Gogh Museum researchers Louis van Tilborgh and Teio Meedendorp "art historians" while arguing against their argument against the murder theory. a different Van Gogh specialist (who defends the suicide theory), calls Naifeh and White Smith "American writers" while calling Tilborgh and Meedendorp "respected specialists". you would think that academics could make a sound argument without trying to play down one another's hard work and credentials omfg

i just find the whole thing sort of morbidly fascinating – not morbid because Van Gogh died, but morbid because unless we get some definitive primary source with a reliable provenance, we have absolutely no hope of knowing the details of Van Gogh's death, and it's honestly quite bizarre to watch very respectable researchers and academics stake their reputations on this specific hill. like i understand the appeal of a juicy unsolved mystery but i also feel like it's only really relevant in terms of examining how it influenced people's perceptions of Van Gogh and his work, and honestly cannot see the point in trying to determine whether it was murder or suicide (or freak accident or an act of self-harm, both of which seem like equally plausible theories).

(Here are the articles btw, if anyone else wants to wade into this with me: in favour of suicide is Van Gogh: It was suicide, not murder by Martin Bailey and in favour of murder we have NCIS: Provence: The Van Gogh Mystery by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith)

I have just bashed out over 2,000 words in a single two hour sitting about the issues arising from viewing Van Gogh's work solely through a mental illness lens

Over half of those words were about how hyperfixative states are actually not very productive in the long run and the impact on your mental health of sudden bursts of so-called "divine inspiration"

The irony of this is not lost on me

Good news: I have one (1) last chapter of this draft of The Kindness of Ravens left to write

Even better news: this draft is PRECISELY 50 chapters instead of an awkward 49 or 51 :D

im not sure you know what ancient rome is

So we all know that Tumblr is US-centric. But to what degree? (and can we skew the results of this poll by posting it at a time where they should be asleep?)

Reblog to increase sample size!

aw jesus after everything I'd read about the tender and heartbreaking autistic representation in delicious in dungeon I thought I was prepared for the scene with Shuro telling Laois how he really feels but. fuck.

I've had variations on that conversation with two separate ex-friends and it's just. it really is impossible to overstate what it does to you.

I'm gonna um. watch an episode of dead boy detectives and cuddle my dog and try to squash some stuff back down into the mason jar they've been gathering dust in for a few years

i think what’s on a person’s nightstand is very telling so reblog this and put in the tags the things you have on your nightstand

read one review from someone who had a food processor for 30 years and they've been running into the same problems with finding a new one – the life expectancy of most appliances has shrunk drastically and they're not made to be repaired long-term, which makes the high cost for top-quality ones feel like a risk not worth the reward. i've been down this rabbit hole of reviews for an hour and a half now (and don't get me started on the ""review"" videos that are literally just someone selling the product). had seventeen tabs open at one point. i only meant to take a quick look at what options there are before i start studying and now i'm wallowing in a sucking pit of despair and overwhelmsion at the sheer number of Products, many of which are Expensive or Not Very Good.

....maybe i'll just hang onto my blend xtract until the mug shatters. that seems like a better course of action at this point tbh.

enshittification reminder of the day: finally had to concede it's time to replace our little Kenwood blend xtract, which has worked fine for something like.... five years? probably longer tbh, because it spent a while unused in a cupboard. but the one surviving plastic mug attachment is now dented and scratched from use and from hot liquid being poured into it, so i doubt it'll hold out much longer. it outlived and replaced the new spice blender i got for my birthday two years ago. it's been used for loads of things it wasn't really designed for (e.g., processing pork for gyoza and beef mince for kibbeh), and handled it as well as could be expected of its little made-for-smoothies blades. so i'm poking around online looking at different blenders and food processors, thinking maybe if mum and i go halves and take advantage of spring sales we can get something decent with more features, and.

i keep reading reviews and seeing videos of Kenwood blenders crapping out in a puff of black smoke on the first or second use. their current equivalent of the blend-xtract we've got is no exception. my gran and grandad both swore by kenwood or salter appliances and the ones we inherited from them worked excellently, but i just keep hearing bad things about/having bad experiences with newer models.

please i just want something to make food prep easier on my poor little hypermobile hands 😭

enshittification reminder of the day: finally had to concede it's time to replace our little Kenwood blend xtract, which has worked fine for something like.... five years? probably longer tbh, because it spent a while unused in a cupboard. but the one surviving plastic mug attachment is now dented and scratched from use and from hot liquid being poured into it, so i doubt it'll hold out much longer. it outlived and replaced the new spice blender i got for my birthday two years ago. it's been used for loads of things it wasn't really designed for (e.g., processing pork for gyoza and beef mince for kibbeh), and handled it as well as could be expected of its little made-for-smoothies blades. so i'm poking around online looking at different blenders and food processors, thinking maybe if mum and i go halves and take advantage of spring sales we can get something decent with more features, and.

i keep reading reviews and seeing videos of Kenwood blenders crapping out in a puff of black smoke on the first or second use. their current equivalent of the blend-xtract we've got is no exception. my gran and grandad both swore by kenwood or salter appliances and the ones we inherited from them worked excellently, but i just keep hearing bad things about/having bad experiences with newer models.

please i just want something to make food prep easier on my poor little hypermobile hands 😭

I love subjects and topics

Today I learned that in ancient greek the elites called themselves "the smiling ones". the statues that they commissioned called kouroi (don't @ me on spelling it's late) are almost always depicted with these serene little smiles. the statues literally embody class. I just sat there and went "wait that's so cool!" and then had to Take A Moment before I could continue working through the book. i want to learn everything about all of this forever ❤️

Hmmggn I am being seduced by classical studies and I am not sure I have the strength to resist

Hmmggn I am being seduced by classical studies and I am not sure I have the strength to resist

underrated threesome dynamic of herding dog x lamb x wolf