How do you maintain originality in your writing?

-I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but it seems like sometimes when I write I have to stop myself from making my story sound too much like another person's. I often worry that what I'm writing about has already been written. Anyone else ever have this problem? How do you deal? Thanks in advance.I feel like the type of story ideas you come up with depends on where you're looking. When I first started writing, I wanted to try a story with supernatural creatures in it, a paranormal, but I felt like everything had been done. Vampires, werewolves, angels, ghosts, and the rest. I wanted to write YA so I kept setting my stories in modern day high schools and I wanted to include romance so the characters would always meet in a class or in the cafeteria and they would all sound the same. But the more I read and the more I Lived the more ideas I began to have. I fell in love with English history--Jane Austen, the Brontes, movies like The Duchess and Amadeus, and set my story in the 18th century. I went to Bermuda and missed it afterwards, wanted to return, and set in in an 18th century tropical island. I loved Jane Eyre so I added in a gothic mansion, watched Because of Wynn Dixie and added a missing mother. It's the combination of ideas that keeps it different, the combination of things that you love. Set the book or story or whatever you're writing in a time period that you love, a season that you love, and go out into the world and imagine how the people and places that you see can contribute to stories. And never let yourself believe that all the good ideas have already been taken--it's not true. Just think about the places you would like to live in, the things that you would like to do, poeple you would like to be--don't base stories off plot but off characters and images. Plots may be similar but characters never are. After awhile, you'll find that you have more ideas than you can possibly write down, and none of them will be like anything you've read before.I totally get what your saying. Im a twilight freak (yeah i know stupid but im not like a #1 fan) anyways Stephine Myer was the one who inspired me to write. After reading her books i started making my own and it was EXCATLY like hers the only difference was that inside of the main characters being vampires they were werewolves. and the gurl and te guy ended up having a baby just like bella and edward.

After i noticed i kept the plot but changed the details. (for example: the two main people _like edward and bella_ met in skewl but then i went back and changed it to meeting at a party.) you can go back and change details that make your story sooo different. I still kept some of the stuff from before and yeah it might still sound like twilight but as i got more and more into the story it changed completly.

the best way to deal with it is to just hold up on the writing if you have a writers block and listen to music. i always do that and sometimes i have these awesome daydreams and i use those daydreams to somehow put in my stories.

hope this helped :)
The first step to refining your own original style is to recognize that yes, each author has their own, and yes, people can and do compare them. There are only so many plot ideas and ways to play with them, but fortunately, that's a really big number, allowing for plenty of combinations.



When you can start comparing styles, (ie, Tolkien uses high, old-fashioned diction, whereas Joss Whedon is prone to Buffy-speak type-things; Jane Austen goes for quadruple-semi-colon-infused sentences while Hemingway is short and to the point; Pratchett goes for post-modern randomness, Robert Jordan gives every minor character a plot arc, Goodkind's so heavy on the angst and darkness that he makes Lackey's characters look trouble-free and Lovecraft's settings look happy and optimistic, Eddings repeats things, etc.) you can start getting an idea for what elements of different styles you want to add to your own characters and writing, and which ones you'd rather avoid at all costs. Just play with the individual tropes and the overall summary and style will work themselves out.
Well everything has mostly already been done so its really not ur fault. Like my plot wise is very original and has never been dont before. I checked and theres a few close to it, but not like it. However parts of my story are cliche like love and the concept of everything happens for a reason...but the plot and how it works around those things are very original. My point is that there is always gonna b a bit clicheness (is that a word ??) in ur story but sometimes its better to read what u know then b introduced to a whole new thing. As long as ur not copy and pasting, ull b fine :)
Because all plots have been somewhat done, you need to focus on the originality in the writing. Make it flowing, exciting, etc. but put a good spin on it.
How do you write like another author, and why would it matter? People only compare plots, not the way it's written.
Well thats one of the hardest things about writing! everyones done every idea! but just try to do what you feel in your heart and it will be original.