Many of us are avid readers, our interests in books ranging from works of fiction to biographies and autobiographies to magazines and newspapers. Many of us are ardent fans of several T.V. series or movies, addicting us and inscribing the stories in our minds for a really long time. What is common in all the three mentioned above? It is a good story, script or the idea. Just a simple question first: What makes a book or a movie or maybe, a T.V. serial unforgettable? It’s a understandable story, polished characters and the sequence of the events, in addition to nice acting in case of movies and serials. So, no matter what characters are there, how the role is portrayed, or how well the movie/book is edited, it all comes down to a good, trustworthy story.
Both the movies and books have another thing in common. They narrate a story, about people’s lives, their struggles, their ambitions, their success, their downfall, their tale. It is easy for us viewers to comment on how we would have liked the story to end, or how we would have wanted the story to proceed, but it ain’t easy for the writers to appeal to the audience all the time. Just like the readers/viewers have some expectations on how the story should continue, the writers too, have some hopes on the continuation of the story. I speak from experience.
I have been struggling to write some sort of a story, be it a novel, a short story, an anecdote, but all I’ve come up with yet is nothing. I have had made three attempts at writing, all of which are, till today, on a hold. Its just the ideas on how you can proceed the story that sometimes make you crazy faster than you can say your name. You write five, six pages, introducing characters, details etc, but then suddenly, you are like, now what? Sometimes, say you manage to write some twenty, forty pages. Fine. You read the whole story, then you’re like, ‘Oh my God! This is just like what I read in so-and-so, or what I saw in so-and-so.’ DELETE. DELETE. DELETE. And right there goes your story, finished.
We were born in the twentieth/twenty-first century, with thousands of thousands people born before us. The oldest book ever found is from 480 AD. And this is 2014. All the books ever written, even before our birth definitely have, outnumbered the breaths we have taken till now. It is possible that each story you develop may be similar to some written earlier. My point is, if you write a story, and it is found to be similar to some other: plagiarism. I can now sympathize with the storytellers (a collective name for the entire bunch of them) for putting the most original ideas into words and thus, enchanting us regularly with their stories, as crappy as they can be.
As for me, I am still searching ideas for my 8 page story. All I can say is now, after racking my brains for twenty days, I will never hate any author.
The World Past Me 