Just this morning, I was surfing the web, happy as a clam. I clicked on an ad banner on one site---
---and had my current story come crashing down around me. I found a recent, professionally published novel, using an idea almost identical to the one I'm using.
What to do? I still know where I'm going in my story, but chances are somebody'll think I've ripped this off if I use it.
Ah, well...first things first.
(1) I've got to get a hold of a copy of this novel, at least to inspect it, and see just how it's handled.
(2) From the ad copy, there seems to be some difference in his ideas and my ideas---maybe I could figure out how to play that up.
(3) Thinking about prior use---which, regretfully, I haven't done---scrapes up a fifty-year-old (about) story that also has a similar idea. If that writer, and this current writer, made it work, maybe I can, too...
Posted by tommose (Member # 8058) on :
I'm not certain I'd buy the other novel to see how the author handled things. If it were me, I'd want to stay untainted, else ideas from the other story intrude into mine.
Tom
Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :
That's a tough situation. A story has a lot of elements: premise, plot twists, characters, themes, milieu, writing style etc. But most readers select a story to read based on the premise. When looking for a book recommendation, one reader will ask another reader "what's the story about?"
Few readers say "tell me about the characters," or "describe the writing style." Most readers want to know about the premise.
Maybe you can change the setting enough that the premise will be fresh? For example, Tarzan was raised by apes in the jungle. I could write a similar story about a character raised by polar bears in the Arctic. My setting would be so different that it would distinguish my premise from that of Edgar Rice Burrows, even if my plot and other elements are a lot like his.
Edit: spelling
[This message has been edited by Doc Brown (edited July 23, 2008).]
Posted by BethBrownell (Member # 7981) on :
I wouldn't buy the other story, stay untainted as one person said. I would continue on with the story knowing that your story might really be different then that person's book.
Beth
Posted by innesjen (Member # 6126) on :
I have had this experience twice. Once with the movie "Identity" and once with Stephenie Meyer's new book "The Host". I had a story idea that was very similar to Identity and when I went to see the movie I knew what was happening in the first 15 minutes. I realized, then, that I could never write that book. With "The Host" my version of having two people in one mind (which has been done millions of times I'm sure) was already completed and off to potential publishers as her book hit the bookstore shelves. I figure, mine is different enough to warrant it as a unique book and I'm going to keep trying to get it published. Wasn't it Carl Jung who said that no thought is unique? Or that all thoughts are universal, or something like that? To make a long story short, even if all of our ideas have been hatched or are being hatched at the same time as we are having them, luckily a story is made of so many different elements that even if they are all predicatble/already used you should be pulling these ideas from so many places that your organization should create something new. If that makes sense...
I would read the other book after you finish writing yours, not before, you don't want to taint your idea of where your story is going and you don't want to quit because you feel like they wrote it better.
Posted by NoTimeToThink (Member # 5174) on :
Speaking from ignorance as I normally do...
Robert, do not read the novel until yours is close enough to complete that it will not be tainted (as said now twice by others). Fact is there really are no new ideas out there, the differences are in how we present them. When you do read the other novel you can deal with the really dangerous stuff (for example, if both of you used the same character names through some strange psychic creative connection).
There seems to be a lot of discussion in our threads about this topic, and a lot of angst about looking like a copycat (yes, I worry about it too). But since we know that there are really no new ideas, try to be encouraged by the fact that an idea that resembles yours actually sold. Maybe editors will be more inclined to publish yours because it is like another that they felt was worthy of print. This is a good thing!
Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :
I rarely worry about it. I did recently warn someone in a critique that they might be seen as a "Martin rip-off" for having the teenage protagonist get a Direwolf cub as a pet. It's a good idea to know the major books that are out there and not come too close. But as far as avoiding what has been done in EVERY book ever published, I wouldn't worry about it.
Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :
By the time you're finished writing it, then editing it, then workshopping it with close reader friends, then revising, then drafting your query letter, then preparing agent packets, then submitting, then waiting, then waiting on acceptance, then your agent gets it into a few publishing houses, then you hear back, then you have edits, then you...
It'll have been at least a year and a half, that book will be old news. Write the story you feel drawn to write. Then worry about the rest later.
Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :
Back in 2003 I wrote a short story called "Third Life" in which the POV character discovers that she has been turned into a virtual simulation of herself and imprisoned in a computer simulation for nefarious reasons.
Good story, but I never submitted it for publication.
The following year Vernor Vinge published a very similar novella called "The Cookie Monster." For it, Vinge won a #&@$ Hugo award!
The sad thing is that my story was better that his but I'll never be able to publish "Third Life" now.
Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :
I think sometimes two authors will write similar books because they were inspired by the same authors. I had a situation where the similarity between my book and someone elses might have actually made in unsaleable (at least in the situation I was trying to sell it). I had written a book that I knew was in part inspired by Terry Goodkind, then being Australia I thought I would find an agent in Australia rather than the US (no small task for a Fantasy writer.) I found one and sent off my query and got rejected.
Not long after my brother and sister-in-law started talking to me about this book called The Magicians Guide, it was Fantasy by an Australian Author. I said I hadn't read it, and they replied didn't it inspire your book?
It took me only half an hour to realise not only had a written a book similar to someone I had never read, but I had then sent a query to HER agent. Will probably never know if it was passed off as a rip off or not, but my advice is: don't worry about having a similar premise, just don't try to sell it to the other person's agent.
Grant
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I did pick up a copy of the novel yesterday. From what I can gleam from the jacket copy, the idea is somewhat different enough---and, as I said, not exactly original with him or with me. (There's a movie out, right now, that also works from a similar idea.) Soon as I get a chance, I'll browse through the book.
I'm confident enough of my own development of the idea not to let anything in the book affect how I handle it---at least right now.
It would be more of a shock if it had characters and situations and settings similar to mine---it does not appear to, so I'm spared that. (Character names I can always change---I did so twice so far in the story up to this point.)
The story I'm working on is pretty much set in stone---beginning and half the middle written, the rest of the middle and the end still to come. I figure I'll finish it, let it cool off, and then see what comes.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Y'know, if the idea's old, and only my handling of it is new, as well as that of the other guy, why not name the book and writer here?
It's Saturn's Children, by Charles Stross. You guys can gleam the idea he and I are working on (separately) from his book, or even the ad copy, which was what tipped me off.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Did skim through it, more thoroughly...at first I was offput by its first person present tense narrative, but the detail work so far has been exquisite...I look forward to diving deeper into it and reading it cover to cover first chance I get.
As for my work...well, the idea is similar...but not so similar as to keep me from finishing mine. Plot and characters are drastically different---so far---so I'm not worried there.
Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :
One Thing that happens is that someone sees a story that is good but has as real stupid plot twist, or is dumb in exicution (see most quest movies), so one decides to rewrite it the way it is supposed to be. Make some other changes and one has a new story
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I did finish the book yesterday---its approach and handling are much different than mine, the plot is considerably more complicated than I generally care to write---but the detail work and background make fascinating reading and furnish things to philosophically speculate about.
As for similarities...one character does have some resemblance in technical terms to one of mine (I only have three)...but I'm confident I can conceal that. In any case it's important to my plot that my character "is what she is."
Worse come to worst, I finish the story and dump it in my files, never to be seen again. Wouldn't be the last time.
but I'll never be able to publish "Third Life" now.