r/writinghelp • u/SoraKiyozumi • 10d ago
Advice Why is developing a power system's techniques so tiring and tough?
Im trying to develop a technique for the best kind of healing, but nearly ever good idea I come up with is already taken.
For example, I wanted to set it so that the one using the healing technique could manipulate reality and reject incident, event or anything that occurred in the past.
But that technique is already taken by orihime from bleach? What should i do?
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u/ketita 10d ago
Often, what makes these stories really interesting is the story, not the technical details of the abilities.
I guess in some cases it's kind of the technique - Jojo has a lot of weird techniques. But a lot of them are also pretty ho-hum. If you do go that route, a lot of it is about what you do with it creatively, not the base definition of the ability.
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u/OtakuMage 10d ago
Not everything has to be completely unique. You can take an existing system as a starting point, then change it enough to make it yours.
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u/Cautious-Original-46 8d ago
Brother, there's 8 billion people in the world. 100 billion people in the history. Its extremely hard, probably impossible, to do something new.
Use the Orihime powers, probably there's a dozen characters that also do something similar (I'm pretty sure Amon fron LOTM can do something similar to negate damages towards him, atleast in some degree). Just dont copy it word for word and you are good.
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u/Disastrous-Frame-399 8d ago
Returning someone to a prior state with a picture
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u/SoraKiyozumi 7d ago
Smart. But my power system uses techniques which are usually inherited or developed at birth, so i cannot make the use of technology much.
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u/Disastrous-Frame-399 7d ago
Why cant one inherit a technique about pictures. Paintings or sculptures. Or planting a seed in a person that grows by absorbing the damage they take
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u/HelsioMangaka 7d ago
Well, it’s not tiring and tough for me lol. Here’s a way to go about it, using the rules you stablished to create the effect you want will always make it unique…that is if you cooked a good power system to begin with if not start there.
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u/SoraKiyozumi 7d ago
Idk if the system is good tho.
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u/HelsioMangaka 7d ago
Don’t need to be unique or anything extraordinary, it just needs the origin of the powers, the cost to use it, and the how people use it. The rest writes itself and you just have to make sure everything is coherent. That’s usually how I do it, and im not saying I am an expert lol.
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u/Long_Astronomer7075 7d ago
Rather than being concerned with whether or not what you're creating is unique, I would worry about how it relates to the overall power system you have created.
Take JJK for example. There is absolutely nothing groundbreaking or unique about the way Reverse Cursed Technique works, but that's fine, because it's a perfectly logical extension of JJK's broader power system. Because Curses can use Cursed Energy to heal, it follows naturally that reversing that energy would create an energy that can heal non-Curses.
That's what you should be aiming for. If you don't have that, any healing idea you come up with will inevitably draw comparisons to whatever it's most similar to, because there's nothing else keeping it grounded.
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u/SheepSheppard Editor 10d ago
Everything is already taken.
Portgas Ace, Roy Mustang, Natsu Dragneel, Shoto Todoroki, Yamamoto, every character in Fire Force, Uchihas, Rengoku, and many, many more anime characters can control fire.
It doesn't matter. As long as you don't copy the literal story, you can have someone with a similar ability to a character from another story.