Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I totally get that point of view. For an artist hoping to come up with creative and original ideas, the thought that you are, even subconsciously, only following a pattern because someone explicitly put the idea in your head, would be disturbing.
On the hand, I could also make a case for understanding the archetypes (?) that Campbell described and then choosing to use them for effect, or knowingly go against them. Sort of like the tenet of needing to know the rules before you break them. Also, taking Gaiman's idea one step further, wouldn't it be better if he had never read any books or stories in his life?
Why copy other people's ideas of story and structure....? Why stand on the shoulders of giants when you can reinvent every wheel, make all the same mistakes and figure out from scratch all that took humanity centuries to learn....
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Well, if we're trying to cover all the bases
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I see it a bit like watching "The making of ..." extras on DVDs etc. If the movie was really good I generally avoid them (at least the first time). I don't want to know.
But I'm interested in writing fantasy because I enjoy reading fantasy, so whether I recognise it or not, there must be some pattern there in fantasy that I am looking to capture. How better to capture it than to understand it.
The risk/difficulty with taking the technical aspects too much to heart is that your story telling may become rote. This can remove the enjoyment of writing, not to mention what it can do to the results.
But some authors do write to very distinct and deliberate patterns, and do it very well. Agatha Christie comes to mind. I love her work, but the majority of the books are very similar (though my favourites come from among the others). Piers Anthony's Xanth series is another example that springs to mind, each almost identical to the last.
For me, Neil Gaiman stands out as one of the most unpredictable writers. There is always something very "Neil Gaiman" about the way he writes, even in his non-fiction writing, but the stories vary greatly. I admire that, even if it means that there are some of his books that I find less accessible than others. So I can see that he might be less of a fan of patterns than many other writers.