Likely as not, you’ve experienced this at one point or another—that moment when, in the middle of reading a fantasy novel, you suddenly recognize the three other books, movies, or myths that inspired it. You see tall, elegant elves and think of Tolkien. You come across “pretty” vampires and blame Twilight. Or you find yourself walking through the doors of yet another magic school and yearn for the days when the Harry Potter series or The Magicians trilogy were still new to you.

As that one, so often-quoted Bible passage goes, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

Which leads many fantasy readers and writers alike to question: is writing original fantasy even possible anymore?

All Writing is, in Some Way, Derivative

Writing is, itself, unoriginal. Millions of people these days do it, and fantasy especially has become one of the most popular genres to read and write in. Whatever language you write in, you’re using the same letters and words countless others have used before you and will use again. Even if you make up an entirely new language and alphabet, you’ll still have to translate your story into something others can understand if you want anyone to actually be able to read it—most likely, yourself included.

Likewise, most stories follow the same basic structure. They have beginnings, middles, and endings. They have building action, a climax, and likely, a denouement. Writers like Christopher Booker take things one step further and believe there are only a finite number of stories (seven, to be exact) one can tell and that mere minor details provide the rest of what we optimistically call “originality.” And, to be fair, it’s true that almost every fantasy story can trace its roots back to either classic authors like Tolkien, Lewis, or Carroll, or even farther back to the myths and folklore that have been shared and reshared among humans for centuries.

But being a writer myself, perhaps it should be obvious what I’m going to say next: I do believe writing original fantasy is possible. We just have to be careful what rules we set for ourselves when defining what is, and what is not, “original.”

Yes, Writing Original Fantasy Is Possible

First, let’s look at the definition of the word “original.” (Yes, I’m going to be that person today.) Google’s Oxford Languages definition says something is original when it is “created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation.”

Put that way, a very loose interpretation becomes immediately obvious. As long as you wrote the words yourself, your work is original, right?

But of course, that only paints blatant plagiarism as being unoriginal. What about remakes, retellings, or (far worse) authors that toe the line of plagiarism without actually crossing it by “borrowing” much and adding nothing of their own?

There is a definite gray area between what is and is not original fantasy writing, and I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers here as to how to navigate that gray area. I, too, wonder at times how much inspiration is too much. 

Writing original fantasy, however, depends on one important thing: that no matter how much or how little you think you are borrowing, you add something significant of your own to it, too.

This is what we writers mean when we say, “Write what you know.” It’s not about strictly sticking to the exact experiences you’ve had; otherwise, we’d all be writing nonfiction. It’s about using those experiences to inform your work. For instance, I struggle a lot with an internal conflict between my values as a believer in death positivity and my fears as someone who would really rather not die anytime soon. That tension played a major role in the direction I took when writing The Harbinger’s Head, and I plan to use it to (hopefully) even greater effect in one of my WIP novel manuscripts.

Are these feelings unique to me? No. I know there are others who feel the same way, that logically they believe death is a good and natural part of life, but emotionally they may be terrified of what it means to die. And even the experiences that led me to those feelings, including the cultural beliefs I was inundated with as I grew up, aren’t completely unique to me, either. But by the time you factor in all the little things that make up my identity and my experiences—and the fact that every single day on this Earth is, in itself, a unique event that will never occur again, because time never repeats itself—it becomes clearer and clearer that I can write something original, simply by drawing on the uniqueness of my own existence.

You can, too.

How to Write an Original Fantasy Story

I won’t lie; it’s not going to be easy. I wrote hundreds of pages of fanfiction before I put any real effort into coming up with a story of my own. Once I started, I still had to work through dozens of plots that turned out to be little more than poor imitations of my favorites before I began to really dig into what “my writing” really looks like.

It’s a journey I’m still on, by the way. Any writer worth their ink will tell you the same. The one constant in our lives is change; good writers know to let their writing evolve right along with them.

So there aren’t any hard and fast rules for exactly how to write original fantasy. But there are some things you can try that might help get you to where you need to be in order to accomplish that goal:

• Read a lot. This may sound counterintuitive, but the more you read, the more disparate sources of inspiration you’ll be able to draw on, and the less your own writing will sound like any one of them in particular.
• Read outside of your comfort zone. Sometimes the best (and most original) ideas come from discoveries made outside of your preferred genre. Many a great fantasy story has been inspired by some scientific discovery, and who doesn’t love the pleasant surprises a good genre-bender can bring to the table?
• Practice—a lot. If you’re just getting started on your writing journey, be prepared for the first ten, twenty, or more drafts to sound unforgivably close to something you’ve read or watched before. Rather than beat yourself up about it, accept it for what it is—good practice that will set you up to write something better next time.
• Experiment. Don’t be afraid to play. Write something bad just because it’s fun. Try a new format, or a new genre, even if you’re not sure you’ll like it—because you just never know what might come of it. I always saw myself as a novelist in the most traditional sense, yet my first published work of fiction was an interactive fiction game. Life is funny that way; rather than fight it, try to have fun with it.

One last piece of advice: do your best not to fall too far down the rabbit hole of anxiety around originality. All that time and effort you might spend worrying about how fresh and new your story is or despairing over the state of storytelling in the 21st century could, and should, be spent instead on simply writing an original fantasy story of your own. Even if you’re not there yet, keep writing—you’ll find your way eventually.

Kim Berkley is a fantasy author and the narrative designer behind The Harbinger’s Head, a fantasy/horror interactive fiction novel about a headless faerie and the hapless protagonist charged with helping him find his missing head. Click here to try the first chapter for free!