Writing Tips and Reviews

The Problem with using Other's Ideas

I'm not going to sit here and be "you have to be purely original in your stories but I can other people's assets without permission". Yeah, that would be retarded. Instead, I'm going to go through the actual problem with using ideas other people make up. And no, it's not copyright, that would be copying and pasting someone else's work to call your own.

-No understanding of why it works-

If you like an idea and want to use it, then that's completely fine, but you should know why it worked.

-Dialogue

Why is it okay when Mash says: "Fujimaru is the most human—like person," but not okay for some random human to say it? Because she's not human, a line talking about appreciating humans and how they are should probably not be said by someone who is human. Because they live that life.

There are exceptions, like a doctor talking about human life style, but not a pop star who got a concussion, is trapped in a hotel room, and thinks this one girl is the only other human alive.

If you quote other works, or rewrite the sentence with the same meaning, you need to know why it was impactful when that character said it. Mash isn't human and is going to die at eighteen, if she comments about it, it's okay. If a normal human makes the same comment, it's not okay. There's a context behind those words.

-Concepts

If you like a sad scene in a movie or book and you want to replicate that feeling, you should know what the story did to incite that feeling. A sad scene should have build up beforehand. If you only hit the notes, there's a small chance it will work.

Let's bring up Roman's death, he died saving Fujimaru. Why did that make people cry? Well, he was introduced as Chaldea's doctor, he and Fujimaru talked before the building exploded, he guided Fujimaru through the first mission, acted like a mentor and father figure to Fujimaru and Mash, and had fun scenes where he cracked jokes or ranted about what he dislikes. After we find out he's actually Solomon and gives his life to save Fujimaru, people cry. Because we grew to love him and care about him.

Now let's replicate that but intentionally misunderstand why it worked. We have Raine, she's just a normal girl, now let's bring in Jack, some guy she just met. We'll also time skip to two years later, we'll say they had a perfect life together, then kill Jack and call it a sad scene. Why does this not work when Roman's scenario does? Well, we don't know who Raine and Jack are as people, we don't know what their relationship was, and we don't know how they felt about each other.

This is where show don't tell comes into play, you can't say "they lived a perfect life until Jack died" and expect the audience to cry about it. That's how stories usually start and bring in the reader to find out what happened, not the entire story.

Understanding a concept means knowing what steps a writer took and replicating those steps in your own way. Because those are what matter. If you like a game's open world feature, don't make a linear game while calling it "open world", it's that simple. Some concepts aren't that hard to do, magical girls, magic school, regular slice of life, fairytale, isekai, seriously, these are done all the time and in so many different ways.

-Terms

If you use the same term as another work does and want to use it in the same way, then understand what it means. Words also have multiple meanings and made up ones, so take what you have and work with it. Also be careful about using a word someone made up or made up a definition for. Because if you use that in the wrong way, you'll look like a dumbass.

-Mythologies

Many stories use mythologies as a base, whether they use the exact figures like in Fate, or use it as a base, there needs to be an understanding of it. Using the name "Arthur Pendragon" and having it be a woman pretending to be a man works because there's Fate logic integrated in that makes sense with the actual story. Using the name "Arthur Pendragon" and adding it to a character who takes no inspiration from him is bad writing.

Just because it's a popular name doesn't mean it's automatically going to be good. World War Z for example.

And speaking of WWZ

-What happens when you completely miss the point-

If you have no clue why the idea worked, then it's best to not use it.

When you hit and miss, you end up making it look like a badly done parody instead of its own thing. Look at any Disney knock off movie and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. It's too similar to be its own thing and does those similar things in the worst way possible.

-Spicing it up-

My personal suggestion is to take the idea, let it sit for a while, and allow other ideas to influence it. That way, there's a connection to the original, but it's not line for line or the Disney knock off version of it. Madoka Magica took the idea of magical girls and twisted it to be a dark story about sacrifice to gain power and what power can do to someone.

-Conclusion-

Taking ideas from other people isn't going to send to you to court. That's when you steal the work and try to call it your "original" work. It's when there's no understanding as to why that idea worked. Once you have that, you can do whatever you want with it. You can make a magical girl story, but understand what makes those stories so interesting, then put your own twist to it.

Nothing is original anymore, it's the way that it's portrayed that makes it look "original".