Everyone likes to think they are imaginative when it comes to writing.

To a degree, it is true, but to a degree, it also isn't. Humans are because we have our own perspectives. Humans also are not because we have different perspectives on the reality and truth around us. We can look at a pillar from different angles but it's still the same pillar and our differing opinions don't change the pillar no matter how hard we try. Humans also tend to be monkey-see, monkey-do. We see our parents do something and we reflect it, but this is countered by our own individuality and ability to think for ourselves and go against the grain. We are reflections of what we absorb and choose to reflect back as proper behavior, so everyone is somewhere in the middle between being total chaotic and being the same.

People are not as imaginative as we like to think. Look at any story and it is just a parody of something else or a kind of... fanfiction if you will. Superheroes are just modern-day demi-gods. The demigods and deities of Rome are fanfictions of the Greek ones. The Greek demigods and deities are fanfictions of the Canaanite ones. I mean Baal, Zeus, and Jupiter are basically the same person. All three had rain, lightning, and the insistent need to sex anything that moved, (or didn't). Start from Baal and today we have Thor fighting Hulk. First, you get Hades adopting a dog, naming it 'Spot' in Greek, and then we have Harry Potter dodging fangs. Sorry HP fans, but it was not the most imaginative guard dog to have come up with. It wasn't that risky in the imaginative department. Nor was coming up with a phoenix from the already established mythos. Many stories do that, they go for what is already established and safe, even in pocket moments, to have something work without really taking risks and going for truly original.

But there are extremes in how far people will go to be imaginative. How far outside their comfort zone they will go. How hard they will try and say "lets see how risky we can go." How original, how far away from reality. Because which is safer, a story about someone running a coffee shop or a hippy on a gallon of LSD?

Which is why I have decided to come up with my first non-official kinda-maybe award-thing and/or recognition of something special. I don't plan to award things like grammar or covers or things people go for by the millions. But things that are special and aren't 100% defined by talent and skill level. I'm not grading and I'm only choosing stories I have already reviewed in this book.

When I think of imaginative and original, my first thought is not 'okay whats original?' but rather "Okay... how original?" How far are they willing to go out of their comfort zone? How risky are they willing to be? A story like mine is not that original being I take entire scenes and dialogue snippets from a manga. Its a fanfiction. A story like "Under your Influence" is a comedy/romance established in a modern world. A story like "Fury is Born" is a kid living his life in established history. A story like 'The Signs We Missed' is a serious, extreme, but reality-based message about people who really need help in life. 'Selected' is a werewolf romance in a website full of them. All of them are original, but they aren't jumping head first off the edge of a cliff into Neverland level bat-shit crazy risk.

So first of all, I figure some qualify as being naturally more imaginative more than others in seeing how far they push the standard of originality. This was a tough one. Really was. So many completely original stories. But the ultimate question to me was what is the least founded on reality as we know it in the aim to really REALLY being original and imaginative?

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This story is so bat-shit crazy and aims for originality to such a far extent that it, literally, has a creation story where a black hole sits there cracking jokes and in the subsequent chapters you have an officer leading a charge on ice cream and there is a rock that quotes philosophy. I have never in my life read a story where the writer had to be so cracked up on drugs as this one, and that is worthy of recognition. This. Took. Balls!

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The writer starts off safely. You got a couple of highschool crushes hanging out, and then all safety is thrown out the window as suddenly you have murder sending people into some screwed up form of reincarnation, people in multiple dimensions, magical people keeping dimensional nightmare demon-things back, laws of reality are thrown out the window, and just nothing like what I have ever read. This story takes huge risks going into ideas and areas I have never even heard of. It can remind me a bit of an anime cliche, but that is still a huge risk in a largely western audience that doesn't come from that kind of culture of entertainment.

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Post-apacalyptic world. Seen it, done that. The world is controlled by a corporation of jerks. Okay, next. Why is this here? Not that imaginative and risky until you read the word 'cars'. Then its like... who has ever written a post-apaclytpic story where every word is dripping about driving, racing, and pure speed? Robots, yes. Zombies, yes. But cars? Surely you're joking. But no, my smasher, I shit you not. Cars. This original and completely different world takes the balls-to-the-walls risk of being entirely centered at its core around a genre I have never even heard of being in the written form. Cars. And as if that ain't ballsy enough, this loony has to be so crazy and risky as to pump its veins full of what I can only describe as poetic-action-in-motion in the most sense. I didn't even know this kind of writing was possible until I read it. Post apocalyptic poetry-action in motion about cars and racing. Give me one other story like that and I'll eat broccoli.

If you are interested in learning to write, mastering the craft, want some really good reads, or just to chat and hang out with a mature group of adults, feel free to hit me up for a smashing discord book club that has lasted years.