#deerguk

as much as my body physically resists some of my older works and urges me to delete them, I still have them! I look back at the deerguk ones every now and then, especially since they’re easy to access via the blog. but the sugascript ones... they’re locked away in at least three different folders... and I only read them if I wish to cringe and laugh at myself sdfghsj.

Well, okay. While I am flattered that you think my stories better fit novels, the whole “you try to pull off this ‘I am an author’ concept” sounds like you are making it out that I am trying too hard. For one, I recently started studying a Creative/Professional Writing and Publishing course at university, and my number one goal is to publish a novel, if not multiple in the future. So yes, I do want to be an author. But it is definitely not a “concept” that I am trying to “pull off” at all. It is something that I am slowly working towards with a shit-load of practice and learning.

Besides, if there is one thing that is greatly promoted in all of my writing-based classes, it is that you do not spew a thesaurus into your story to make it sound “nice”. I choose those words (which rarely appear as it is) because I want them there, and because they are the words that come to my mind while I am writing. Not to make the story sound “nice” or because I am so desperately wishing to come across as a “real” writer. Flowery and extravagant words do not make for good writing, and they certainly do not define someone as a genuine author.

Second of all, the only stories that I look at that extensively use words that my “audience cannot comprehend” are Do You Feel It, Sugar? which was done as a one-off stylistic choice, and A Ticket to the Sun, which was initially posted on deerguk, and I have not updated since I was using that blog. I honestly perceive all of my currently posted stories to be on the style level of deerguk, except more refined with sentence length, plot development, character development, etc. But in my personal opinion, the majority of fic writers that I know have a very similar vocabulary breadth to me, which they utilise in their own fics. And that is not me trying to direct the finger at anyone else, I am just highlighting the fact that practically everyone in this community writes this way, and I am not doing it to stand out, nor to fit myself into this “I am an author” concept that you are proposing. 

I don’t really know why you’re calling it drama, since I haven’t seen this broadly debated at all. It’s pretty general: the more widely a trope is written, the higher the likeliness of one story of that trope being similar to another.

Using the soulmate trope as an example, it has a very straight-forward formula. I have read numerous soulmate fics that have been constructed on this formula and have been identical in many aspects, despite that the authors definitely wouldn’t have copied each other. It’s simply because there’s only so many ways you can write a trope and most writers tend to go for the first that pops into their head: soulmate meets soulmate > conflict occurs between the soulmates due to them previously being enemies or one of them having a sensitive past or one of them already having a soulmate > conflict resolves and soulmates end up together because love always pulls through and they were designed by the universe to be united.

With soulmate fics especially, the likelihood strengthens, as there are many categories that narrow it down. The matching tattoo. The connection of senses. The monochrome vision until you see your soulmate for the first time. The changing hair colours. Unless you come up with a “bond” that is very unique or throw in a very original twist, matching one of those categories with the general formula is bound to cause similarities to appear.

And I’m not saying that fics like that are bad at all. I’m a slut for soulmate fics. My old soulmate series, Sillage, was constructed on that exact formula. They’re just more susceptible to similarities with other soulmate fics of that nature, which is what occurred with Sillage and is part of the reason I lost inspiration for it. When readers start to notice this, they call you out on it for plagiarising, even if you’ve never read or heard of that other fic before.

Also, I’m not saying that you cannot write an original soulmate fic, because you definitely can if you put a lot of thought into it. For me, not writing one is personal preference in order to avoid the possible backlash.

Another example that I’m going to leave you with is A Ticket to the Sun. I thought it was a highly original idea when I came up with it, despite that the ballot element of it was vaguely inspired by The Hunger Games. At the beginning of this uni semester, one of my readings was The Lottery by Shirley Jackson; a short story published in 1948 in which a village has an annual ballot, and whoever draws the paper with a dot marked on it is sentenced to death by stoning. Even though I’d never heard of The Lottery when I started writing A Ticket to the Sun, the plots are very reminiscent of each other, and I was both horrified and amazed whilst reading it because of the shocking similarities.