Creativity and Predictability

Think left and think right
      and think low and think high.
Oh the things you can think up
      if you only try.
---------Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss)

      So, should we give Dr. Seuss the credit for inventing the phrase, "Think outside the box"?
     
     When a novelist is busy "thinking outside the box," is is always a novelty (pun just happened, and I love it!)?
    
     I fear that the pursuit of novelty may result in short shrift for plotting or characters.
That said, when Tolkien wrote that wonderful tale of Middle Earth, it was indeed filled with novelties...
     ....Or, was it?
    
     Ogres and dwarves, dragons and magicians, bogeymen and giants had all been in stories since time immemorial (hey, I was born in Memorial... Hospital, that is!)...granted, hobbits are a "new" kind of little people, but folklore is filled with humanoids of all stripes and sizes.

     What's so unique about the Hobbit and Trilogy? Or, is there really anything unique? Is this just another "grail quest," where saintly do-gooders must fulfill a mission to save themselves or their kingdom or their liege-lord?
     Is Frodo in the middle of a not-so-thinly veiled allegory? (Tolkien vigorously sez, NO!)

     Or, is The Hobbit/LOTR simply a smashingly good story that takes a familiar genre to new hgts of detail and delight? And, is the "novelty" of the story just the fact that Tolkien wove a wondrously complex tapestry of characters who grew as they stumbled from one trouble into the next?

     Think about this--do we really like novelty in a protagonist, or do we love their familiar quirks, their verbal tics, their predictable outbursts of rage or humor or irony? As I reread favorites, or watch the one or two TV programs that "behave like novels," I find myself enjoying not the novelty but the familiar: the wise-cracking as two best buddies insult each other (think "Car Tawk"), or the female's preoccupation with fine dining or shoes; the recurring jokes and peculiar postures that tell you--yes, this character is real, is predictable (to just the right degree) but is also flexible and sometimes surprising.

     Got any books/stories/programs/movies that leap to mind as you read this?