erazmus

Originality is the big thing that sets a writer's (or any artist's) work apart and is the springboard to huge success, right? Sure it is, thats why every truly original work always sells leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. Everyone knows this.
Um, sure.
It is one of the things people like to say they are looking for. Publishers and Agents are looking for original voices, new angles, fresh stories. They all say that, pretty much, but when I look at who is out on the shelves, who I'm reading today that wasn't around ten years ago, I come away with a different opinion.
It seems that what I'm looking for as a reader isn't originality. Which if you think about it shouldn't surprise anyone--look at how many authors get tied down writing series of books about the same characters in the same types of situations over and over. They do that because that sells. Repeating yourself sells a lot in science fiction and fantasy, and in other genres as well.
It helps new writers too. Of course a new writer doesn't have a last book to do over, but the easiest way to break in seems, to me from my limited outside perspective, to write some startling fresh and original work, that is just like something else that is already selling like hotcakes. I have to admit as a reader this has always affected my buying and trying new books as well.
Old sample: Way back when I was in High School I got into reading J.R.R. Tolkien. This wasn't Tolkien's first big rush, that was ten years before, with "Frodo Lives" tagged on subway cars and hippie kids grooving to this great new thing called fantasy. This was the last half of the seventies when Tolkien went mainstream. Lin Carter was pushing every piece of crap fantasy novel written in the last seventy years and I, along with every other kid caught up in the craze, were snapping them up like pretzels looking for stuff just like Professor T's, while reading multiple paperback sets of Lord of the Rings into shreds.
As always I was looking for some new fantasy when I came across a book that ended up launching a very successful writing career. That book was "The Sword of Shannara" by Terry Brooks, and I and my peers glommed on to it, not because it was startlingly fresh and new but because "it was just like Tolkien!" (That first book really was, though the series became more and more original in later volumes). That was the angle Ballentine (through their new imprint of Del Rey) was pushing and it worked. It was exactly what I was looking for, it had the same things I associated with Tolkien-not just the inside the story things like reticent Wizards (druids in Brooks) elves, dwarfs, young men on a quest against evil armed against them with shadow drenched servants- but all the external things I associated, consciously or not, with LotR, like heft, detailed maps, and cover art that was the same as the Tolkien calenders that had become real popular the few years before. I, and everyone else dying for new fantasy, dived in.
My point is, the publisher knew we weren't looking for some terrific new fantasy, we were looking for something very like what we had fallen in love with, like a kid who falls for a redhead and is a attracted to other red heads for years afterward. They bought Brooks, and we bought Brooks, not because of his original style or ground breaking new concepts in fantasy but because of the many similarities his work had to what we were already in love with.
Originality is best appreciated after a writer has established a reader base. If people wanted new, original stories they wouldn't line up for movies like Halloween VI or House party 2. That's not to say you can't sneak a new story over on them, its done all the time. But it is much safer to sneak in a new take wrapped in images already accepted by a big chunk of audience. Save your startling fresh and surprisingly original for when you have a track record.
I think what publishers, agents and bookstores are looking for is reliable competency. Can you tell a story in a way that will grab readers with its comfortable familiarity. Does your writing take them on a journey they feel safe starting, because they've enjoyed similar journeys from other authors. You don't have to write "just like" other, successful authors, but your story should feel like what other stories have felt like. Technical proficiency at writing fiction, thats the hook.