Thread: Worries about writing a cliche.

There are times when most of us come up with what we believe to be the best plot or story concept ever, and have fantastic ideas on how the tale will progress.

Often, however, when explaining the plot and background, you suddenly get the feeling that, perhaps the plot and concept are a bit 'samey', if not cliched.

To give you an example.

I've just started a new WIP which when I started plotting and researching, in my head it sounded great, but when I started looking at other writings in the genre, I started to doubt myself.

If you don't mind, I would like to share my plot and idea.

( My story is UK based. Set in Scotland).

Imagine a Venn Diagram. In one set you have the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and GCHQ.

In the other set you have the various British Police Forces both regional (Strathclyde, Metropolitan, PSNI, etc) and special (MOD, British Transport, etc).

In the intersection you have my fictional Agency, ISIS (Intelligence Security Investigative Service), an agency with both intelligence and law-enforcement powers. A British FBI if you like.

My protaganist is a former Royal Military Police, (Special Investigation Branch) Sergeant who has been recruited into ISIS and he's sent back to his native Glasgow to liase with an old school friend who is now a Detective Inspector with Stratchclyde Police investigating a Neo-Nazi gang which have sprung up in one of Glasgow's spralling Housing Estates.

The Neo-Nazi gang also have suspected links to a fundamentalist Christian group who have 'Church Retreats' on the US/Canadian border, and are in the process of setting up in Scotland.

It is the involvement of this religious group which has raised the interest of ISIS, based on intel from both the ATF in the US and RCMP in Canada.

During a personal meeting between my protagonist and his Stratchclyde Police friend, the friend, and some civilians are killed in a very rare (for Scotland anyway) drive by shooting.

The novel then follows my protagonist's investigation into the religious group and the Neo-Nazi gang, and how it keeps crossing over into the murder investigation of his Police Officer friend.

So my question is; as a plot or story concept...Cliched or not?

Thanks for your feedback in advance.

Hi Alcatraz

I don't think it is at all, as I ahve been told a few times in this forum it is very hard to come up with new idea's so you have to make sure you put your own spin on this novel.

Sounds good to me so far, do you have a sample chapter

Graham

Originally Posted by columbo1977

Hi Alcatraz

I don't think it is at all, as I ahve been told a few times in this forum it is very hard to come up with new idea's so you have to make sure you put your own spin on this novel.

Sounds good to me so far, do you have a sample chapter

Graham

Not yet.

I'm just completing the research part of the process.


Researching gang culture, Christian fundamentalism, as well as 'inter-agency' and international intelligence and law-enforcement protocols has been a wee bit consuming.

However (drum roll), I hope to start putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) in the very near future.

Mod note: Moved to Writing Discussions.

I don't see anything particularly cliche about it, but it's not really my genre. I'm sure there have been several similar stories, but whether it's cliche or not depends more on the execution than the idea.

Cliché is not in the idea, but how you deliver it.

Sounds good...and fresh...to me.

Trouble in Glasgow is common. I'm 70 miles down the road and not unaware of some of the strife there. Blimey it's in the papers every day too. But this sounds so different to the usual run of the mill goings-on. Good luck with it. I'm sure your research will prove interesting to say the least.

Hey Alcatraz, Just in case you havn't thought of it yourself, The A9 roadworks upheavel is crying out for some cemented bodies.
Got onto it by mistake when i missed the turnoff for Stirling last week.took 3 bloody hours to get from Dundee to Dumbarton. Didnt know the Sat-nav was in the glove compartment and my navigation skills would make you weep.

There are no new plots, only new permutations. But that doesn't matter. The reader knows your protagonist will solve the murder, beat the bad guys and get the girl. What matters is how well you write it.

There are no new plots, only new permutations.

I'm with Non Serviam on that one. Take a look at Christopher Brooker's book "The Seven Basic Plots" to see why you'll never actually write a truly original 'story'; but don't let that put you off writing.

As far as the originality of your OP, some themes seemed similar to a plot from Spooks and I'm sure the basic elements have been used over and over again. I wouldn't worry about it though. Neil Gaiman tells the story of how he had wanted to write a particular story for the Sandman series but had steered clear of it because it was close to the work of another author. When he eventually met the other author he was told to write the story anyway. You see, it's not the plot that is important, ultimately, but rather the interpretation that the author brings to the work.

I suppose what I'm saying is, don't worry about being original. Worry about being yourself and doing the best that you can do!

Also, just in case you mention GCHQ at all: I only live about fifteen miles from Cheltenham. If you want something to put in your book you might like to know that some of the locals call it The Donut because it's a a big, round building like Television Center.

Originally Posted by MrSteve

Take a look at Christopher Brooker's book "The Seven Basic Plots" to see why you'll never actually write a truly original 'story';

Or better still, don't. The book is a steaming turd. You can't reduce literature down to formula, and Booker shows a lot of bias - writing off Burroughs' Naked Lunch as pornography, for example, and describes Ulysses as 'masturbatory - and inaccuracy, where he occasionally has to bend things to make them fit his theories.

There is one basic plot - People doing stuff. It has a SF offshoot - machines doing stuff without people - but 99.9% of written work fits the first category.

When you start analysing your writing, or making it fit a mould, you lose it. Throw out the books written by people like Booker, who seek to reduce what you do to a simple cipher, and those by the multitude who make money telling people how to write the novel they themselves have never written.

I'm with everyone else here. Were we to compare plot overviews, half the folk on this forum would be writing the same story. Ultimately, writing is not what you're telling but how you go about it. Two people writing the same thing are going to end up with very different pieces.

Originally Posted by Mike C

Or better still, don't. The book is a steaming turd. You can't reduce literature down to formula, and Booker shows a lot of bias - writing off Burroughs' Naked Lunch as pornography, for example, and describes Ulysses as 'masturbatory - and inaccuracy, where he occasionally has to bend things to make them fit his theories.

There is one basic plot - People doing stuff. It has a SF offshoot - machines doing stuff without people - but 99.9% of written work fits the first category.

When you start analysing your writing, or making it fit a mould, you lose it. Throw out the books written by people like Booker, who seek to reduce what you do to a simple cipher, and those by the multitude who make money telling people how to write the novel they themselves have never written.

Amen.

Don't worry about it, unless you know in yourself that this story has been written a thousand times. Like the guy always gets the girl no matter what he did. or that all heroes have to be a knight in shining armor. if it's not. then don't stop writing.

Or better still, don't. The book is a steaming turd. You can't reduce literature down to formula, and Booker shows a lot of bias - writing off Burroughs' Naked Lunch as pornography, for example, and describes Ulysses as 'masturbatory - and inaccuracy, where he occasionally has to bend things to make them fit his theories.

I can understand your views on Booker's book and, to a large extent I agree with the sentiment. I recommend it not as a work of instruction but rather as an example of how any book can be boiled down in to one of many plots. You may think that much of Booker's mapping of stories to his system is contrived. I would contest that it can actually be a useful work for some people.

That doesn't mean that it is completely correct on any particular level. I actually find there is a particular irony between Booker's comments on Joyce and his obvious reconstruction of the monomyth for his work. The one thing he seams to understand is a practical application of monomyth structure in to more contemporary genres. There are plenty of people for whom these interpretations are important for there writing.

You can't reduce literature down to formula...

When you start analysing your writing, or making it fit a mould, you lose it.

I don't think this is true at all. It boils down to the type of writer that you are. I know I would have been lost in writing (especially ghost writing) had I not analysed writing before hand. I rely on a particular structure for my work because I tend to ramble if I don't. Having something there keeps me in check is incredibly useful. Even so, because of the types of book I have written, you probably wouldn't realise that there is a story structure behind it.

I always feel that the arguments leveled towards the use of story structure to be a little intolerant. I know that there are some lazy writers who use story structures and produce particularly bad pieces of work. That's not to say that every bit of work created using a story structure is a bad one. I think, ultimately, the best way for any one person to write is to find the systems that are right for them. If you study teaching at all, you find that students have different personality types.

I've been told that I'm a 'Why' person and I think that explains why I have a need to analyze writing in order to do it. To me, it's these personality types that explain perfectly why some might not want (or even be able) to analyze there writing without it having some detriment and yet, to others, it is a necessity.

Ultimately, we all write in different ways. If you are just starting out then you probably should try all of these different ways until you find the system (or lack of system) that's right for you. If you're not then whatever is working for you is probably the path you should stick to.

I don't think you even have to READ a book called "Seven Basic Plots" to know it's a crock of shit.

Once you set up something like that you either end up with total bullshit or something so basic that you wouldn't even be able to write something that didn't fit one of them. "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl" might cover a lot of books and films, but having that "formula" doesn't help you write.

Anymore than "three act structure" helps you write anything.

You're way better off just analyzing the plot of a book, or books, you admire then knocking it off.