I had the immense pleasure of meeting Jay Hartlove at Con-Volution when we sat next to each other on the Worldbuilding And Religion Panel. I was thrilled when Lillian Csernica re-introduced me so I can interview him – because this is a man that pushes himself. Let’s meet Jay!
Writing
Way With Worlds: Tropes And Worlds, The Living And The Dead
So last we met I discussed originality being an illusion, but I feel I do need to cover something – the use of tropes, stereotypes, and “seen-it-all-before” elements in our worldbuilding. For the sake of not having to abuse a thesaurus, I’m just going to call these “Tropes.” Plus it’s shorter to type.
I’ve talked about tropes as something that can kill a world because they’re unreal – yet at times tropes aren’t a problem. Let’s explore.
Way With Worlds: Originality’s Smoke And Mirrors
(Way With Worlds runs at MuseHack, Seventh Sanctum, and Ongoing Worlds)
Every worldbuilder, author, artist has had that moment. That moment where originality seems to be a fleeting illusion.
Perhaps they feel that they can’t seem to do anything original. Every idea they have seems done (and perhaps done better). The fear of being accused of derivation. The sense everything they do seems to be alike.
Perhaps they feel there just isn’t anything left. Everything has been done, there’s nothing left to do.
So let’s address that issue that many a worldbuilder faces – how do we deal with the need to be original? Fortunately there’s an easy answer.
Screw originality, who needs to worry about it?