What Makes a Story Original?

Twice lately I've seen novels called "original." Since that's a quality any writer would like his or her stories to have (has "their" been officially accepted as the singular gender-neutral pronoun yet?), it makes sense to do some thinking about how we can achieve it. What makes a story original?

Some argue that there are no truly original stories left, that they were all told long before anyone currently living was ever born. I think that's true in the sense that most stories can be fitted to one (maybe sometimes more than one) plot form: the quest plot, the adventure plot, the rescue plot, the revenge plot, the rivalry plot, and so forth. Not being a great plotter myself, I have two books on plot patterns that show how to spot the bare bones of a particular type of plot, choose a basic skeleton that best fits your idea, and flesh it out with your own characters and events. The books overlap in their advice to some degree, but they also differ on how many plot templates exist and what they should be called. From Hemingway to Fitzgerald to Homer to Melville to Dickens to Austen to Sophocles to Hawthorne to Henry James to Shakespeare *inhales*, and no doubt to Faulkner, example after example is cited to prove the authors' point: If the plot exists that doesn't fit some pre-existing pattern, good luck finding it.

Others argue that of course there are original stories. No realistic story about computers could be written before computers existed. No American literature could be written until that one-of-a-kind nation, the USA, was born. Besides that, many suggest, originality lies in character, emotional accuracy and voice, not necessarily in plot.

I think this is one of those issues where the "sides" aren't sides at all, and both have a piece of the truth. If you accept the idea that there are certain types of stories that resonate with human beings and those types are likely to be finite, which I do, you conclude that originality doesn't lie in developing a new, never-used plot pattern. On the other hand, if you pick up a book like The Hunger Games and marvel at the storyline, you know plot plays a role in originality. This book gives at least one clue to an original story, I think: it takes a fairly new phenomenon, reality TV; adds a current political problem, a sense of division among Americans; and spins them out into some plausible conclusions. It asks "What's new? How might that new thing change over time? How might it turn ugly?" When seeking an original plot, another question to ask might be, "What's the story behind ____?" Impossible, by Nancy Werlin, which I will be reviewing next Monday, asks the question "What's the story behind the ballad 'Scarborough Fair'?" The quest for originality challenges the writer to ask -- and this is broader and more elusive than any one example -- "How can I think outside the box?"

Let's turn to character. This is like the plot issue, in a way. Though everyone in the world is unique, and theoretically so can our fictional characters be, many psychology experts agree that there are four basic temperament types. Just four. They're called by different names and may be broken down into varying numbers of subtypes, but the four main types are readily identifiable from one system to another. Everyone, unique though he or she (they?) may be, is one of four types. How do you move from a type to an original character? I think you do it by tuning into that person's emotional truth and being sure to express it. For example, in Rex Zero, King of Nothing by Andrew Clements, Rex speaks some lines that nail his emotional state in a specific way. Waking up one morning he says, "I feel smart, just like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz when the wizard gives him a diploma. Morning is like a diploma." What an original way to express the newness of morning -- as commencement. Rex describes a wobbly smile as "a smile with training wheels." This kind of care taken with specific language to express thoughts and feelings in turn creates the original voice.

So -- what do you think? What makes a story original?

Outside Editorial Development -- The Wave of the Future?

"Editorial development is increasingly taking place outside publishing houses." This is a quote from the website of namelos, a new firm formed by a respected group of children's book professionals including Stephen Roxburgh, Carolyn Coman, and Joy Neaves, many if not most of them with ties to Boyds Mills/Front Street, especially the now-shuttered NC Front Street office. Altogether, the staff has a host of experience in editing, art direction, publicity, agenting, teaching, and writing. They offer development services to authors and illustrators, even editors, agents, and publishers, to make a book everything it can be. The advantages, they say, are that the writer gets editorial guidance (and honesty, if they feel the project isn't marketable); agents and editors get more fully developed, high-quality submissions; and the writer/artist receives the company's help with submitting to agents and editors "with a few well-placed emails and phone calls." Alternatively, namelos can and will guide you toward the goal of successful self-publishing, offering their "editorial, design, production, subsidiary rights, sales, and marketing support."

Outside editorial development, they say, is "evolutionary and inevitable" in these times when publishers must cut the costs associated with getting books in print. The concept is certainly interesting, and the idea that these reputable people are in your corner with ongoing editorial help (to the extent that you want to purchase it) and networking -- networking! -- is more than a little appealing. So -- what do you think? Would you welcome the chance to get this kind of editorial help before you ever submit to agents or editors, and then get help with submission too? Would you balk at paying a fee for such services? Could this be the first step in a major change in how the industry works? Will namelos become overworked and then copycat companies spring up whose credentials will be harder to assess? Are the higher costs of publishing being passed along to the arguably poorest people in the chain -- writers and artists? Do chime in!

Book of the Semi Month Club

I saw The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd and thought, "Yippee, a mid-grade mystery!" I picked it up eagerly, and was not disappointed. Though I didn't swallow it in one gulp, I came as close as I could.

Plot Summary: Ted and his older sister, Kat, receive a visit from their cousin, Salim, who is about to move from England to NYC with his mom. Salim has never ridden the Eye, a huge observation wheel in which people riding in sealed pods get a twenty-five mile view (on a clear day) of London in all directions. As the kids queue up to buy their tickets, a strange man approaches and almost forces a free ticket on Salim. Though somewhat nervous, Ted and Kat decide they'll save their money and that Salim should accept the free ticket since this may be his last chance to ride. The siblings track their cousin's pod as the Eye makes its thirty-minute revolution. The pod opens -- all the pods open -- and the riders emerge. No Salim. No Salim at all.

Besides the fact that this is a fine locked-room mystery, the characters are as strong as the plot. Ted has an unnamed "syndrome," which to this untrained eye sounds like mild autism or some relative thereof. His hands flap when he's nervous, and he has trouble with eye contact. He counts how many pieces of "shreddies" he eats for breakfast. He's obsessed with weather, though this is at least partly his passion for the science of meteorology. His brain runs "on a different operating system," as he puts it. His sister coaches him in the nuances of body language, and he has memorized a "five-point code" given to him by his neurologist for reading facial expressions, because that's the only way he can figure out people's feelings. Each time someone smiles, Ted reminds himself that this means "he and I could become friends." At certain moments, everyone laughs, and Ted says, "I didn't know what was funny but I laughed too." But -- after dismissing a number of wild theories such as his cousin spontaneously combusted --it's exactly Ted's "operating system" that helps him work out what happened to Salim.

Kat grows as a person, too. She starts the story obsessed with her Hair Flair catalogue, ditches school, and says things to Ted like, "Get stuffed, you creep," because Ted is incapable of not speaking the complete truth when his mouth opens. Yet she becomes Ted's full partner in solving the mystery of Salim's disappearance, playing the brave, action-packed role to his mastermind. She is the only one who will listen to Ted's ideas, as the adults keep brushing him off with, "Shush, Ted, now's not the time." And because she does listen, she becomes every bit as responsible for the last-minute victorious outcome as Ted. The way Ted sees it: "When I talk to people about something I've found out, they don't listen. When Kat does, everybody listens."

As the solution to the mystery unfolds, we discover that Salim's operating system is pretty clever as well. Throw in Salim's dramatic mom, Aunt Gloria; a few more run-ins with the mysterious ticket benefactor; and the police inspectors; and we have a cast of colorful, believable, enjoyable characters who illustrate a number of themes about Difference -- that two people who are very different just might be two halves of a whole; that some differences, such as transatlantic moves, may be harder to negotiate than we think; and that the "different" in "different operating systems" may well stand for "superior."