"Derivative" vs "Familiar"

I've been going out with submissions (shown it to agents, friends, etc) and I've gotten positive response so far for my book. But some people have mentioned that a few parts are "familiar". Is that just a nice way of saying that character is derivative? Thanks.

–Jared, NY

Sort of. Yes.

But I think there is also an important distinction between the words "derivative" and "familiar" — at least, there is in the way that I use them. I think of "derivative" as an issue of craft/aesthetics, and "familiar" as an issue of the marketplace.

When I say that a work or part of a work seems derivative, I'm not saying that it's simply unoriginal. I'm saying that the author doesn't seem to have a broad foundation, and seems to have a particular artist that he or she is aping.

For example, ELOISE came along in 1955 and had a little girl speaking directly to the audience. She was brash, spoiled, and unrepentant. The book broke a TON of rules for picture books….and immediately, a style like that would spawn a million imitative submissions. Why? Because a bunch of people would read it, and without realizing all the ways in which the story was iconoclastic, they'd decide to write their own picture book. Because they didn't have a broad foundation in the craft, they simply started with ELOISE and went from there. But to truly love and understand ELOISE, you had to have read just a few of the titles she built on. You had appreciate all the rules she was breaking.

This is the same for Hemingway and Jazz and "Shadow of the Colossus," and Watchmen and Italo Calvino. You get the idea.

But when I call something "familiar," I'm basically saying the entire concept or idea is overused right now*. And this has a lot to do with the marketplace. Right now, if I saw a zombie MS, it would be hard to accept the project, whether or not it was derivative of "Night of the Living Dead," solely because the shelves are saturated. In about five years, that same project might work. But for now it "feels a bit familiar".

* Other editors I know use familiar in the place of "cliche". The downtrodden geek protagonist girl who loves to read is…familiar.