You're Unoriginal

I didn't realize that literature has a lot in common with music. The title says "One Story" and they mean it. As more years go by, stories become less unique because you've heard it before somewhere. The reason I say literature is the same as music is because the example that Foster uses at the end of the chapter makes so much sense. We borrow from others without even knowing because it's been around for so long we've become familiar with it. Foster was right when he says that familiar literature never leaves us and it becomes a part of us. He uses someone playing the guitar as an example and he just plays what he's heard throughout his life. Of course the non musician is amazed because he doesn't understand music. However, the musician says it's no big deal because he's playing what he's heard. In fact, a famous musician would look at him as unoriginal based on his playing of familiar tunes and nothing else. They're not new compositions nor are they his. This could be an advantage because not everyone is familiar with literature. However, the person who is can immediately tell the resemblance from other texts and where they're from. Whatever story we try to create, it's going to sound like something that has already been written no matter what. Sometimes authors borrow from each other but they do it in a nice way. The author can create a sentence just how the other author would, mimicking the language and structure for example, and then credit them for being better at it than they are. Or for new authors that are rookie writers for the first time can write something and believe it's original because it's theirs and they wrote it. It doesn't mean it's actually original because it could've been used before. 

Not only does it happen with texts, but with ideas as well. Now a days, it's hard to create something unique. If you want to write a story about a man getting abnormal animal or insect powers, that's already been taken by Spider-Man. Something as crazy as putting all the fairy tales together, that's not unique anymore because they made a move out of that. Something that doesn't involve people but cars: Fast and Furious. Cars turning into people sounds like transformers. We may borrow from others as freely as we'd like because ideas in literature are out there on our fingertips. Additionally, it's also difficult to find the originals of something new when it was first created because even if you did find it, it's not going to sound like what you just read. Especially if it's from so long ago. Things change over time. Sometimes they even create the same thing on purpose. For example, the movie Karate Kid. It was made a long time ago and then a new one was made with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. The movie titles are also the same, just the fact that they're different eras, they reflect the views and beliefs of that era. I just think it's cook how literature shares a lot of other texts to create something new. Some authors even use allusions in their texts. The point is that Foster is right: everything is one story because everything is shared.