Originality? Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff!

Many writers bedevil themselves with the perceived need to be original. They hope to come up with some idea for their play, novel, short story, poem, whatever, that’s never been done before. Here’s the good news: don’t sweat the big stuff. Originality is rarely found in the plot; it comes in the treatment and details of the story. It’s in the characters you create, the setting of the story, and the language of the characters.

The classic musical, West Side Story, is really what? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet of course, brought to the gang-plagued West Side of Manhattan of the 1950s. In fact, Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins did their best to stick faithfully to Shakespeare’s storyline. The features that make WSS its own classic – and original – work of theatre are the specific and appealing characters created, the resetting of the story in (then) modern-day New York, and, of course, the addition of music, song, and dance.

Take a look at the hit TV series, House. While there are, yes, slight variations, the plot is essentially the same week after week. Dr. House is presented with a seemingly impossible case to diagnose. He badgers and bullies his diagnostic team until he comes up with the brainstorm that leads to the solution, and the patient is saved. Yet despite the repetitious pattern, millions are addicted to the show, fascinated by the quirky characters, the fast-paced and edgy dialogue, and the havoc House wreaks as the mystery unfolds.

So don’t get hung up on the notion of finding an unprecedented plot. There probably is no such thing. Your creative juices are better spent putting your personal spin on an idea that intrigues you.

And, not incidentally, Will S. did not originate the Romeo and Juliet story. It was “borrowed” from a 1562 narrative poem, “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet” by Arthur Brooke, which, in turn was probably based on an earlier Italian novella, which in turn was ...