Seriously, ‘everyone’ uses ‘he said’ because it is an easy way to keep dialogue flowing, and make your character inscrutable for the moment, while letting the reader put their own connotation on the phrase. For me, it often comes down to trusting the reader to understand what I’m doing and like me because/despite it all.

And in all reality, all books in a genre share the same stereotypes because that’s what a genre is–a grouping for stereotypes. You can’t have a western that doesn’t have ‘the west,’ (whether that means six shooters, indians, card sharks, saloons, or just the aura of the old time west) and you can’t have fantasy without the fantastical and sometimes even the mundane. There’s a reason that many ideas repeat themselves in books (especially as regard to people) because people don’t change. So there will always be the ‘wide eyed farmboy’ because there are always innocents in the world getting in over their head. And if we want them to survive, there often needs to be the ‘wise old sage’ who keeps them from killing themselves out of ignorance. And yeah, we’ve seen it fifty million times before, but it’s a truth, and if you dress it up enough it’s still the same truth, but not as blatantly obvious.

If you want direct plagarism, compare Lotr to Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara. I kid you not, you will see fifty million parallels. Then go take a look at Patrick Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind. Same sorts of themes and ideas, but totally different constructions, which makes one a terrible piece of writing, and the other startlingly good to read.

So, enough diatribe. Most of that’s just stuff I try to remind myself of when I get too down about writing. Hope it helps.

Write some more. More often. We are all waiting.