This is my story's basic plot..but with original stuff too. Is it boring and overdone? I saw another story with the concept and I started thinking this.
well all stories been re-told it was the same in ancient times when stuff was passed down by word-of-mouth than in writing. Since a lot of today's fairy tales were once passed down that way which is why their date of oringal are sometimes hard to track down in the first place.
It might have been done thousands of times before, but it's the first time you've written the story. Well-known and respected writers can get away with re-using anything that's a common idea, as long as they have their own way of making it interesting (and since it goes down as far as style, so that people will read re-tellings of old fairytales and myths by modern authors which don't actually have too much different). Where writers really fall down is if their second book is too much like their first, and their third all the more so, and then no matter how engaging and awesome the first one is, no one will read the fourth.
Cliche? Certainly. Boring? No. Depending on how it's written. Think about how many children wish they were TRULY someone else's child. Wish they had been switched at birth and their real parents would come and rescue them from their boring, strict (maybe abusive) home. Then think of the fact that there is a steady stream of new children in the world. It works very well as a children's or YA story. If done really well (maybe with irony and humor), it can also serve as a good story for adults. -Frank
You can write a thousand eternities of stories out of that plot. Any idea can be boring in the hands of a bad writer, just as any idea can be amazing in the hands of a good one. If you develop a story that you like, and you think you can add your own little twist of uniqueness and style to it, then go for it. I would always advise that you write about something you think is fun and interesting, no matter what it is about
The way I see it, all ideas are overdone and cliche. There is no such thing as a truly unique, one-of-a-kind idea nowadays; someone can always use the phrase, 'You know, I think this reminds me of X' to describe any story written or told today. It's all in how you tell it. It's the storytelling that has to be unique
It is never boring to take a story that has been done before, as long as you do it in a new way. I cannot say if you story does this or not so you have to ask yourself that question.
People usually like things that seem familiar to them. It's fine to use something that is considered cliche as long as it doesn't make your story too predictable.
This brings up a good point -- don't be a slave to the cliche label. Don't automatically think "This type of character, setting, storyline aspect is cliche, so I can't do it." Whether it's cliche depends on how you write it, and certain things (as Malo Beto pointed out) are cliche for a reason: because people like them. On the other hand, please don't be so cliche that it's predictable. Readers will be irritated if they think "Oh, this is one of those stories, this is how it will end" and then it ends that way, with no plot twists or surprises to speak of. Basically I'm just seconding what Malo Beto said.
I'm not that great with the whole cliche thing either so worry not you are not alone. Um, something I try to do when writing my short stories or plots is "Over" analyze them so I can see whats is obvious and what isn't. I then try alter it so its as UNpredictable as possible. I hope this helps and sorry if this post is repetitive.
It's not a cliche, it's just a fairly standard literary theme. You have your hero's journey. You have your rise and fall narrative. You have your quest for identity, which has been modernized into the amnesiac trying to piece their life back together story. It's hard to get away from themes that have been established since literature's conception so don't think too much into it. What counts is your story itself, which is separate from this theme. So write it.
