Overused Plots Part 2

Sooo...I recently talked with le incredibly genius, ESTJ, older brother, and he had some comments about "Overused Plots", which I thought I should publish for the sake of propagating quality and accuracy.

Last post, I said that we authors should never use the overused plots that I had listed.  However, my brother remarked that "it isn't necessarily a bad thing to write a journey/amnesia/rebellion/dead-family story."  After all, when the authors of popular stories (Rowling, Collins, Riordan, etc.) wrote their stories, they weren't using "tried and true but cheap and lazy plot starters."  They were using good, fresh, and imaginative plot starters.

However, now that those plots starters have been used, widely-dispersed, and mimicked, they are overused, even though they are still creative and flexible plot starters.

"So, the key isn't to bash ideas based on those plot starters, [even] though, coming up with new, less-used plots is interesting.  [The key is] ... to call for the need to identify what about your cliché-plot-started story is unique and special and memorable."

Write on!

Clove