The Originality Trap: Why Coherence Matters More Than Novelty

When many of us first begin creating—whether in writing, coding, or game design—we are haunted by the pursuit of originality. We fear tropes, clichés, and “borrowed” mechanics, convinced that unless our work is radically new, it lacks value. This is what I call the originality trap: the belief that innovation requires absolute novelty.

Ironically, this obsession often stifles creativity rather than liberating it. Early drafts become incoherent as we avoid familiar structures. Games sprawl into messy experiments as we try to reinvent mechanics wholesale. The result is work that is different but rarely better.

The Shared Building Blocks of Story and Game Design

In literature, Joseph Campbell famously identified recurring patterns across myths in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). The “monomyth” demonstrates that most stories recycle the same archetypes: the call to adventure, the mentor, the ordeal, the return. Yet Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Odyssey remain distinct because of how these shared elements are arranged.

Games mirror this principle. Mechanics such as resource management, progression systems, and combat loops appear in countless titles. Sid Meier once defined a game as “a series of interesting decisions” (Meier, 2012). What distinguishes Civilization from StarCraft or Age of Empires is not the raw mechanics—many are functionally identical—but the way they are woven into a coherent player experience.

Features vs Narratives

This is where the difference between features and narratives emerges. Features are discrete capabilities: crafting systems, weather effects, skill trees. Narratives are the integrated whole: the way features interact, reinforce each other, and create meaning.

As in writing, where tropes become narrative arcs only when coherently arranged, so in game development features become compelling when unified into a systemic story. Originality is not the invention of new atoms, but the arrangement of existing molecules.

A Universal Analogy

Physics reinforces this lesson. Everything in the observable universe—stars, planets, humans—is built from the same fundamental particles: quarks, electrons, and the forces that bind them (Greene, 2004). The uniqueness of a star versus a human arises not from the invention of new matter, but from the particular arrangement of shared components.

So it is with creative work. Stories borrow tropes, games reuse mechanics, code repurposes structures. Their individuality emerges through coherence, not invention.

Conclusion

Originality is overrated; craft is underrated. By escaping the originality trap, we allow ourselves to focus on the true challenge: weaving familiar pieces into a unity that feels inevitable, complete, and compelling. In writing, coding, and game design alike, how we arrange the parts is what makes a work truly its own.

References

• Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press.
• Greene, B. (2004). The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. Alfred A. Knopf.
• Meier, S. (2012). Sid Meier’s Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games. W. W. Norton.