Originality in Fantasy

[expentio]

So, when I started out writing, and designing the fantasy world "Ea", where my story plays in, I was taking some of the usual tropes.
I got for example orcs and goblins. I designed things so monsters are mutated versions of their usual animal counterparts.

Now to what I'm trying to get at:
Should I instead have tried to be all original about it?
My orcs, for example, are more like the pre-greenwashing orcs from WoW. Like mutated humans, who got muscles.
Should I instead have used an original name?
What about the goblins? (those originate from monkeys, but are pretty much goblins in the usual Goblin Slayer sense)
How much sense does it make if I have dogs, horses, pigs, or other animals in my world, despite it having nothing to do with Earth?

On the other hand, where would I even stop?
What about plants?
Would corn make sense?
I'm trying to be original about most plants with an effect.
There aren't any Earth plants in Ea.
This kinda feels inconsistent to me, but at this point, I probably can't change things anymore.

Though, now I'd like to know, how do you think about this sense of making your fantasy world original.
When do you think you'd stop trying to make everything different from Earth, with its own name, and when does it become just weird?
It's not like you want to design some alien planet, right?
Or would that be better?

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I think using something underutilized is enough. There is no reason to come up with new term for mermaid or rusalka when people barely use them in the first place. Same for plants. A lot of people don't even know about plants like, for example, myrica, also known as; bayberry, bay-rum tree, candleberry, sweet gale, or wax-myrtle. Why not use it?

Or at the very least add an out of the box spin to something overused. You know, how orcs in WH40K are mushrooms. They look like your average orks, green brutes, but they are mushrooms. Something like this is once again enough for me.

 

[lambenttyto]

Not only is that a ton of work, but you run the risk of making a world so alien that readers have a hard time getting into the story. We need some familiarity. I would save 70-80% familiarity, to 20-30% fantastical.

 

[Tempokai]

I'd say that originality only matters when it is a main part of the story. If the story isn't based around the goblins a la Goblin Slayer, I don't see the need to invent something from nothing. Tropes exist for a reason, and how it is delivered matters more than the originality of the idea. Sure, you can make your orcs as a mutated humans, but it doesn't matter to the story that much unless it interacts with other stuff in interesting ways. It's basically a system thinking about worldbuilding, how A is explained will change how B is perceived, and how C is done due to A.

If the explanation of lore is emotionally and logically coherent in the world, and is narratively weighted properly in the story, you can get away with pretty much with anything. Every choice you make, be it introducing something unique or just refurbishing the plants must have the logical scaffolding behins it, and delivered during the time when it matters. Basically, how you frame the idea matters more than the idea itself.

 

[Frowfy]

So, when I started out writing, and designing the fantasy world "Ea", where my story plays in, I was taking some of the usual tropes.
I got for example orcs and goblins. I designed things so monsters are mutated versions of their usual animal counterparts.

Now to what I'm trying to get at:
Should I instead have tried to be all original about it?
My orcs, for example, are more like the pre-greenwashing orcs from WoW. Like mutated humans, who got muscles.
Should I instead have used an original name?
What about the goblins? (those originate from monkeys, but are pretty much goblins in the usual Goblin Slayer sense)
How much sense does it make if I have dogs, horses, pigs, or other animals in my world, despite it having nothing to do with Earth?

On the other hand, where would I even stop?
What about plants?
Would corn make sense?
I'm trying to be original about most plants with an effect.
There aren't any Earth plants in Ea.
This kinda feels inconsistent to me, but at this point, I probably can't change things anymore.

Though, now I'd like to know, how do you think about this sense of making your fantasy world original.
When do you think you'd stop trying to make everything different from Earth, with its own name, and when does it become just weird?
It's not like you want to design some alien planet, right?
Or would that be better?

My main genre is modern fantasy so I can only share my vision as a reader.

I read of everything and it's rare to see the authors changing the name of the races. You don't need to worry so much about it, there is nothing wrong in working with familiar concepts. You can innovate in the details, the background of those races, how they affect the environment, how the hunters deal with them, their habits, culture. There are so many places to enrich your world if you want, if I wanted to write a real deep fantasy I'd explore those points.

But again, I never wrote fantasy so this is merely my vision as a reader. Hope it helped you somehow <3

 

[DireBadger]

There's no such thing as originality in fantasy. That's the point of the genre. Authors that try create boring, trite garbage and call it 'original'.

 

[Goodmann]

Perhaps your protagonist isn't unique -- a patch of forest here, a chunk of river there -- enough to ensure terrestrial biology predominates especially at the low end, not enough high end predators in any sample to allow reproduction

 

[Danja]

Nothing is "original" ... NOTHING.

Everything you see is derived from something else (J.R.R. Tolkien derived the Lord of the Rings from Anglo-Saxon mythology, specifically Beowulf).

What do you like? What appeals to you? Take what you know (or what appeals to you) and recombine it (Magic and modern cities? That's how the urban fantasy genre was created.)

Magic and high tech? Welcome to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

(FunFact: Mattel had originally conceived of two separate toy lines for He-Man -- Space and Fantasy. Somewhere along the way, the two heretofore separate toy lines got jumbled together into one franchise.)

 

[CharlesEBrown]

With the "stock" fantasy stuff...
Anything you try to do "unique" either someone has already done, OR there's a reason why nobody has done it.
You want a world without orcs? Don't use orcs - either create your own races and make them unique and distinctive or just have savage humans (who behave like orcs but aren't orcs). Heck, The Worm Ouroboros renamed HUMANS - or at least the ruling class of the human-like natives (of, I think, Venus but it's been a while since I tried to read it) "Demons"

 

[AstreiaNyx]

This is just my personal reading preference: I like originality in small doses. If I have to stop at every sentence to squint and imagine a new race, plant, or new concept or switch to the glossary tab for the 10th time just to remember what a Jaisjhdju looks like, I start to feel fatigued and end up pausing the story, indefinitely. After all, our brains are wired to seek familiarity.

 

[Danja]

I am a SALIVATING fan of I Dream of Jeannie (I specifically prefer the universe set in the two TV-movies that aired after the show -- I Dream of Jeannie: Fifteen Years Later and I Still Dream of Jeannie).

That's the jumping-off point of my stories: a twenty-three-hundred-year-old genie is married to a mortal and is the mother of a half-human, half-genie teenage son.

 

[BreadIsACuisine]

Originality in fantasy would be harder than eating a brick of titanium.?

Changing names making mutates will only make readers more and more alienated to the story as the story goes on. Unless the "originality" is well defined and fits your vision for the world you are trying to build then do it. But if you are trying to make "originality" just for the shake of it then that would become tiring to write very fast.

 

[Supperset]

Make up things that don't usually make sense then try to make sense of them.

 

[DireBadger]

Meh, fantasy is like really good peanut butter sandwiches. It's familiar, comfortable, and makes you feel better than some experimental stuff. I despise authors who break the mold in order to make it 'edgy', like GRRM, because it isn't original, it is simply depressing and trite. It's like putting shrimp boiled in cabbage and cinnamon on a peanut butter sandwich, but there are some people who think edgy and depressing is 'good'. I don't willingly associate with those people.

 

[LilythGeist]

I like to put my own twists on some things.

Like my local equivalent of vampires (the Sanguine) are immortal beings created by a sadistic god called by "The Blood that Devours" mostly so that it has something to torment.

The Sanguine can subsist on normal food and blood is actually their equivalent of Heroin. Gives you the best rush of your life BUT is addictive to the point that even drinking it once can turn you into a bloodthirsty monsters.

The Sanguine also differ physically from "usual" vampires. Their hair and eyes are blood red and they have horn-like bony protrusions extending from their skulls (kind of crown like)

As far as their society goes, a big thing for them are masks that are featureless other for a toothy smile. The purpose of those is to strip the Sanguine of any sort of individuality and make them akin to the "Lower Sanguine" that are horribly mutated multi-armed monstrosities. As a result, a huge source of personal expression are clothes and body paint. Losing a mask is a huge no-no as they are irreplacable (baring specific circumstance) and basically turn you into a pariah with life expectancy of "NO".

As the Sanguine can't age and are sterile (they are directly spawned by the Blood in pools of well... blood), immune to disease and have fairly little work to do as most work is done by slave labour they are basically a bunch of hedonists that are terrified of getting closed to others of their race as trusting the wrong person can result in you losing your mask. They are also governed by a totalitarian theocracy, because obviously.

I love creating the lore for them.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Originality is expensive.

You'd have better experience just throwing more known ideas, mix them with other less known ideas, then put some bait + spice, and throw them all into the wall to see which sticks and get the attention from algorithm.

Usually something original comes from whenever you need to solve things in your stories.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Invention is similar to originality.

 

[GreenLemonShark]

I’ve stressed over originality too. But something my old art professor once told me really stuck, "everything has already been written, drawn, or made in some form." True originality is rare, what really matters is how you bring your own voice and spin to familiar ideas.

For example, in my current story, Cursed Destiny, I’ve definitely leaned into some classic tropes:

- Curses
- Runaways
- Dark magic

But where I focus my originality is in how I present those things:

- The relationship dynamic between a runaway prince and a cursed crime boss.
- The way I explore emotional conflict and messy, flawed characters.
- My specific approach to worldbuilding and how their cursed destinies tie them together and push the plot ahead.

At the end of the day, originality isn’t about throwing away every trope, it’s about making something feel personal and fresh through your characters and your perspective. Readers connect with authenticity, not a checklist of 'never been done before.' So don’t stress too hard, your unique take is what people will care about most. ?

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

I see using existing structure as speaking a cultural language. Sure, you could reinvent the wheel and come up with a new species of "not-orc" to fill in the role of "orc". Then you need to spend pages explaining them just to get your reader to picture what amounts to an orc. Now, if there's a reason for doing that—above and beyond wanting to be original—then go for it. If the existing "orc" archetype doesn't fit with the foe you're trying to craft then by all means go original. Otherwise, as a reader, I would just get through the exposition and ask myself "so...it's an orc?"

Originality lands harder (for me at least) when it's originality in how tropes and expectations are handled. That's what entertains me; being surprised by what happens.

Think of it like this, the exact same Lego bricks can be used to build a blocky airplane with mismatched wings or a screen-accurate six-foot tall model of a Stormtrooper. It's how they were used that mattered, not the fact that they all came off of the same production line.

EDIT: That being said, sometimes rebuilding an archetype from the ground up can actually lead to new and exciting aspects that you didn't foresee at the start. If you're really torn about creating something original vs borrowing from cultural memory, do it as a thought experiment and see what comes out. If the result is something substantially or surprisingly different than the standard then great! If not, just go with the generic and move on.