Many, many Wattpad authors are worried that their story is too clichéd.

I can understand why they think that way. Many outsiders outright hate Wattpad because they think it's nothing but a flood of endless After copycats and "bad boy" stories where the writing is as bad as the boy.

So, writers are worried that their story might contribute to that flood of clichés.

Personally, I never had that problem myself. I'm strongly motivated by novelty and, thanks to my neurology and my rather unconventional thought process, I often come up with stories that are... different (but not always in the positive way).

Writing a non-clichéd story can be hard. When something isn't done by others, there's often a good reason for it. That's why my tips will always include caveats.

Also, I have to be honest with you, readers are attracted to clichéd books. Most readers on Wattpad don't have long attention spans. It's easier for them if they already read your story with different names.

However, a clichéd story will never have the type of impact a non-clichéd one will. If your story is clichéd, maybe more people will read it, but few will remember it. It will be just one of many Wattpad stories.

I've talked enough already. How do you make sure your story is original?

Well, there are a few tips and tricks, using popular stories as an example.

Trick 1) Combine two or more existing things into something new:

Wizards, but they go to high school - Harry Potter

Fantasy, but in space - Star Wars

Horror, but in space - Alien

Frankenstein, but with dinosaurs - Jurassic Park

A love story, but with vampires - Twilight (this USED to be original; now, it isn't)

Another love story, but with fallen angels - Fallen

Another love story, but with BDSM - Fifty Shades of Grey

A game show, but in a dystopia and with deadly stakes - The Hunger Games

A detective, but he's a wizard - The Dresden Files

A superhero, but he's a ghost - Danny Phantom

Or, if you're writing fanfiction, you can just make your story a crossover.

Caveat: While combining two or more genres into something new can lead to original stories, sometimes, the end result will appear weird.

The Dresden Files is a good example. The books are great, but few people have heard of them. That's because some people like stories about wizards and others like stories about detectives, but these people are not necessarily the same. Most fans of detective stories got turned off due to the whole magic stuff while most fantasy fans dislike the detective aspects.

Of course, don't let that discourage you. When the Kim Possible cartoon was first pitched, networks told the creators that this show would flop because boys won't watch a show with a female lead and girls won't watch a story with action. They were wrong and the cartoon was a big hit.

Trick 2) Break a cliché in your chosen genre:

A horror story, but it's the blonde teenage girl whom the monsters fear, not the other way around - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

A fantasy story, but the evil overlord has already taken over the world and the heroes must conquer it back - Mistborn

A space opera, but the physics make sense - The Expanse

A superhero story, but the villain becomes the hero - Megamind

A supernatural love story, but the true love will die if the heroine kisses him - The Raven Cycle

In fanfiction, you can just take away an essential component from the original and explore its implications (like, how would your favorite superhero spend their days if they lost their powers forever?).

Caveat: There is normally a reason why certain clichés exist. If you break them, you need to know what you're doing. Many sci-fi/fantasy heroes have a powerful ability that makes them special because their stories are more fun that way. I made Lucas, the main character of Starsnatcher, super powerless because I wanted to see what happens when you drop an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation. Unfortunately, his powerlessness resulted in a lack of agency and an unsatisfying story full of contrivances needed to move the plot forward.

That being said, a skilled author might have succeeded where I failed. Tolkien also had a rather weak main character with Frodo, but his Lord of the Rings still became the seminal work of fantasy literature. 

Trick 3) Explore something that usually gets ignored.

Before its terrible last season, Game of Thrones was one of the most popular fantasy shows on TV. Why is that? Well, the fantasy genre has some conventions, even if they aren't terribly realistic. There's clear good and evil, the good guys never die, and getting rid of an evil ruler never causes major political chaos. Anyone who ever watched GoT knows that it avoids basically all these clichés.

Watchmen is another example. It's a superhero story, but the heroes have to deal with things like public backlash, difficult moral choices, realistic trauma, and other things superhero media likes to skip over.

Geeks call this approach "deconstruction".

Caveat: Again, clichés exist for a reason. You can show the realistic consequences of what would happen if a girl fell in love with some "bad boy" (read: an abuser), but then your story won't appeal to fans of "bad boy" stories. It won't be fun and romantic anymore. At best, it's gonna look at a mean-spirited stab at the genre. Also, realistically exploring the consequences of abuse and trauma is hard. Many of my characters in Starsnatcher are traumatized in some ways and their behavior is ridiculously unrealistic.

That being said, it can be easier if you do it in a comedic way. Worst Story on Wattpad ( https://www.wattpad.com/19159531-worst-story-on-wattpad ) shows the ridiculous parts of many Wattpad stories through parody (the main caveat here is that you need to be actually funny).

And even for more serious works, deconstructions can still work. Game of Thrones is still beloved by fantasy fans because it retains a lot of what we love about the genre (dragons, awesome battles, etc.).

If you want to be really original, you can combine multiple of these techniques. However, all of them come with downsides, and being original is not the be-all and end-all of fiction people think it is. That's why, for beginners, I'd recommend trying out just one of them.

The more you try, the more complicated your story becomes and the more skill it takes to tell it. Not saying it can't be done.

Did I miss anything?

Did you try out any of these techniques?

Do you think they help?

Give me some feedback and suggest topics for future chapters!