Literature is an open dialogue. Movies are an open dialogue. Poetry, the arts in general is an open dialogue.
What does that mean?
Well, consider that Shakespeare is accredited with claiming there are only a couple of handfuls of original plots. Every story is written based on one of these plots (whether the author intends to do this or not) and as a result, all stories are based off of a couple of handfuls of different plots. According to the book I ordered (and arrived) last week, there are about twenty plots. As I was flipping through it last night, I discovered that some of those plots are variations on a theme, but the outcome is that the reader/writer is introduced to twenty different structures they can base the major (and I’d imagine minor) story arcs around.
(Note: I did a simple Google search for Shakespeare, Quote, and Plot and came up with quotes where he uses the word but no directly attributable statement about plot by the alleged bard.)
Regardless of plot, stories are an open dialogue between thinking persons. You can take an idea posited in a specific story and find source material, ideas etc., that goes backward as well as tracking those ideas forward. Sometimes an author of a work is rather blatant in their attempt to answer a theoretical question posed by another author, but the outcome is that one author writes (or creates) something and someone else, somewhere else, picks it up and adds to the dialogue.
What do I mean by this? Hrm?
Well, specifically that an author (pick any author) will create something and in so doing will posit a question. My current favorite one is Tim Pratt’s The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl wherein he (indirectly) introduces the popular fantasy world to the idea that we can have magic and adventure set in the American west (or some facsimile of said) just like we often place High Fantasy in the world of Renaissance Europe. Granted, we are closer to the Old West, six shooters, and the Native Americans, but the question is placed out there and it allows for other authors to explore and offer their own interpretations on a theme.
Someday I’d like to add an interpretation on that theme.
Regardless, an author is adding to existing dialogue. Even though Pratt may have introduced the reading world to a new form of fantasy, he is adding to the ongoing literary dialogue of fantasy. He is expressing some unique flavor of it and, at the same time, is touching upon established techniques and dialogue that have helped authors like J.R.R. Tolkien to succeed in their work.
Robert Jordan, a fantasy writer, stated, years and years ago, that he’d intentionally written the first part of Eye of the World so that it was similar to Tolkien’s work in order for the fantasy reading public to feel comfortable with the world in order for him to delve into uncharted territory. The outcome is an epic series wherein the audience (readers) are brought into a well thought out world that transcends the ideas and ideals that Tolkien established in his The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books.
Thematic elements are true of any genre. It is the thematic element, in my opinion, that asks the question. Go back to Pratt’s work, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl. Within that book he delves into fantasy, modern Santa Cruz, CA, and the American Old West. Granted, there is no implicit question in his writing; though the idea does imbue the reader with the ability to seek out a way to explore those ideas.
There are many dialogues the reader can find and explore. About a year (and a half) ago I purchased a book simply titled Mindswap where the author posits that for man to travel the universe he transfers his mind to the body of another individual who takes his (her) body. The reason I bring this up is because there are entire sub-genres of speculative fiction that trace origins back to this story. The book is crap; but it introduces ideas that have been adopted and adapted over time.
Jules Verne is purchased (most frequently) through the Fiction and Literature section. However, his work precedes that modern Science Fiction movements. Added to that are writers like Robert Heinlein and Frank Herbert who’ve added to the dialogue. However, back in the days of Jules Verne there was fiction (which, for a lot of years, was just called Poetry) and nothing more. However, over time, with the advances in real world science, and an increased exploration of various points and aspects in fiction, the world is given a whole sub-genre of fiction called Science Fiction. The same is true for Fantasy. For Romance. For Speculative. And for others.
This is an idea that is often put forward in Academia. A professor will write an article or book that suggests something new or not considered before. Someone else will pick that up, will add to it, disagree, and then publish. That will be taken, written about, disagreed with, and published. All of this until you get to a point on a subject (say, Frankenstein) that is so well researched and written about that it becomes difficult to be a scholar on Mary Shelley or Frankenstein and, instead, you become a scholar on a popular piece of Frankenstein scholarship. The outcome is that you have to nod and defer to past scholarship in order to move forward with possible new scholarship.
Sounds boring to me.
And yet, a similar dialogue takes place in the literary world, in popular fiction. Dan Brown writes The DaVinci Code and as a result there has been a resurgence of publications about the theory that Jesus Christ was married in mortality. Brown was not the first to posit this. He won’t be the last. He is, quite possibly, the most famous. And yet, he introduces elements that are not inherently new, but are unique to that genre of dialogue: conspiracy, murder, mystery, and intrigue.
This takes place in all areas of literature, of art, of poetry, of music. Someone does something. It strikes a chord in someone else and they expand upon it. That strikes a chord and, again, it’s built upon and expanded. You can infer the outcome.
That, I think, is what art and literature is about. You can’t write (or create) without exploring and seeing what other people have done. That does not mean you can’t explore what you will in your own way; it does mean that you will find yourself exploring similar themes as other people. If you are really good you will explore those themes when they are popular and in a way that is unique to everyone else. The point, though, is that you build upon a dialogue that has been going on for hundreds of years.