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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/17362
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Instead of wasting your time trying to understand how much you can take from other works and get away with it, you might want to rather invest that time into coming up with your own ideas and fleshing them out.

Every idea anyone has ever had on this Earth is influences by everything that the person having that idea has read, seen and experienced. So, in essence, there are no completely new ideas, and trying to be totally original is a waste of energy and would result in uninteresing, because unrelated to anyting, stuff anyway.

So just relax and allow those influences to feed your imagination, but then turn away from them and look into yourself and create something from the core of your being, instead of constantly turning back to your sources and copying them.

Most beginners feel that they want to write another Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, because they can so clearly see the shortcomings of their own creations. But that should not hinder you, instead you need to understand that writing a masterwork needs the writing of many failed works to come before it. You don't learn to walk without falling countless times, and you would never learn to walk if you tried to emulate a dancer instead of trying to crawl first. Writing is like any other ability, it needs a modest beginning, a lot of training, and patience and perseverance. If you approach writing like you have approached walking (and speaking and whatever else you have mastered in your life), you'll find that you'll outgrow the direct and visible influences of your favourite works and begin to create something original.

So forget this question, and write.

Original score: 2