LogFAQs > #958361435

adjl posted...

If artists chose not to create because they couldn't come up with something completely original, there'd be very, very little art in the world.

The real problem is in how you define creativity and originality.

If you're looking for pure originality completely untouched by any other influence or duplicated elements, there probably hasn't been an actual artistic accomplishment for the last few thousand years of human history. Almost everything we do is built on what came before, or consciously references existing pieces.

Creativity is basically taking all of the influences and inspirations that have come before, and combining them in ways that put a new spin on those things. Poe writes a story about a detective based on a real French policeman, which in turn inspires Arthur Conan Doyle to write Sherlock Holmes. Other writers follow, a new genre grows out of the cross-pollenization, and eventually thousands of writers write tens of thousands of stories, each with its own unique elements or outlook. Mystery novels lead to mystery radio plays, and mystery movies. All of those thing that follow aren't somehow invalidated solely because Poe came up with the idea of a consulting detective first.
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