For Bloom originality is never unitary. It's a spin on a football already in flight, though some spins melt the ball.
I don't think I agree, actually. Originality is very much unitary. But writers aren't just original, they're specialists in creating what will capture, hold, develop, highlight and communicate originalities. Not "here's an idea" but the activation and ramification and exhaustion of an idea to its fullest degree and furthest limits. Which is why it's kind of frightening.
Originalities are all over. Little things that are new or clever or work interestingly - even your octopus thing must be full of discussable ones. But no one reads for those, except in genre fiction (which is why genre fiction has a bad name, since it relies on small variations). Even there no one is a fan because of the variations - they want to be captured by sensual pirates or shoot space lasers or cast magic missiles at cowboys. The variations are what you talk about afterwards, the equivalent of a cigarette; or, more likely, they're what you think about when you want to break into the field, since all the work is cut out for you in a given genre except whatever gimmick will send eyes your way rather than to the other 42,000 aspirants.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-03-16 07:54 am (UTC)I don't think I agree, actually. Originality is very much unitary. But writers aren't just original, they're specialists in creating what will capture, hold, develop, highlight and communicate originalities. Not "here's an idea" but the activation and ramification and exhaustion of an idea to its fullest degree and furthest limits. Which is why it's kind of frightening.
Originalities are all over. Little things that are new or clever or work interestingly - even your octopus thing must be full of discussable ones. But no one reads for those, except in genre fiction (which is why genre fiction has a bad name, since it relies on small variations). Even there no one is a fan because of the variations - they want to be captured by sensual pirates or shoot space lasers or cast magic missiles at cowboys. The variations are what you talk about afterwards, the equivalent of a cigarette; or, more likely, they're what you think about when you want to break into the field, since all the work is cut out for you in a given genre except whatever gimmick will send eyes your way rather than to the other 42,000 aspirants.