Why is Liu Cixin original?

Liu Cixin in The Wall Street Journal

Some people just are original. They’ve got it.

Maybe it’s because of their past experiences. Maybe they’re just wired that way. Regardless, they somehow have a more original voice than the rest of us.

Liu Cixin, for instance, has it.

Cixin is a science fiction author best known for The Three-Body Problem trilogy, which is being adapted into a Netflix series. 

In the prologue to The Three-Body Problem, Cixin writes about how a blend of random experiences coalesced to define his imagination.

And so, satellite, hunger, stars, kerosene lamps, the Milky Way, the Cultural Revolution’s factional civil wars, a light-year, the flood … these seemingly unconnected things melded together and formed the early part of my life, and also molded the science fiction I write today.

Part of why he’s original is luck. He didn’t choose these experiences, they just happened. 

But even if you didn’t win the originality lottery, you can always be more original. And it’s not even that hard.

Draw major inspiration from outside your field

Cixin Liu is really a scientist and engineer who writes fiction. His dominant interest is science, which he translates into fiction.

Sure, plenty of sci-fi authors are the same, but there’s an infinity of possible ways to do this. 

When you draw inspiration from other fields, you almost can’t help but be original because you have to translate those concepts in order to merge them into your medium. You have to invent.

If you’re a developer, don’t let software dominate your interests. If you’re a filmmaker, don’t let film dominate. If you write science fiction, don’t let science fiction dominate.

Stay Out of the Herd

The key to originality is simple: stay out of the herd. Or at least, venture out of the herd regularly.

Originality, like creativity itself, is about finding unusual connections and sources. If you get your media through the major algorithms and popular content, you’ll just create versions of that stuff – and second-rate versions at that. 

Matter of fact, the more useless a subject seems, the more exciting the discoveries can be. Who would think that kerosene lamps would have much to do with writing hard science fiction? For Cixin, that experience wove into his imagination.

The simplest lesson of all

Here’s the simplest lesson of all we can draw from not just Cixin but all authors: read books.

Most people don’t read books anymore. Books improve your life in a wide variety of ways. They improve focus and attention. Fiction raises your sense of empathy. There is no greater fuel for the imagination than books.

Go read a book. If you haven’t yet, start with The Three-Body Problem and thank me later.