“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” T.S. Eliot.

One of the things that is intriguing about what is taught in creative writing programs is how similar the advice is for would be novelists. For example, the structure of the novel can be broken down in to the following eight elements, as defined by Nigel Watts in his book Teach Yourself Writing A Novel:

1.     Stasis

2.     The Trigger

3.     The Quest

4.     The Surprise

5.     The Critical choice

6.     The Climax

7.     The Reversal

8.     The Resolution

I wonder how many people, using that structure, write novels that are, to all intents and purposes, identical to someone else’s.