What if my story seems too similar to a particular movie?

There are no original plots left. There are no myths that have not been mined and exploited a hundred times over. And coming up with a new mythos is nigh impossible because the elements of myth are elemental -- they speak very deeply to basic human hopes and fears and so even the ancient myths we have from all over the world are broadly similar to each other.

The success of a story lies not in the plot, or the myth is borrows from, but in the telling. The old stories need to be constantly retold for a new audience, an audience whose minds are stocked with different experiences, education, and prejudices from their parents. You tell the old stories, explore the old myths, but you do it for a new generation.

Neither JRR Tolkien of J.K. Rowling created a new mythos. They gleaned, sorted, and retold old ones. If they seemed original to millions, it was because it was the first time they had encountered them. Tolkien and Rowling tool old myths and old tropes and retold them for a new generation of readers to whom the older tellings would have been much less accessible.

posted about 7 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

4351 reputation 12 1104 742 58

I'll approach this from a different angle than the two great answers already here. Let's assume that yes, your story is too similar to an existing, fairly well-known property. How do you fix that?

1) Address the root cause. Figure out the story you're trying to tell, and how your similar aspects tell that story. Do you like the idea of balancing pairs of forces? The idea that nature exists in sets of four? Playing with the four ancient elements? Figure out what part appeals to you — get down to the nub of the thing. Could you instead use the Four Humours? The four winds? Name your power aspects after the four suits in a deck of cards? (and not everyone uses the same deck. French and American decks are hearts/diamonds/clubs/spades, Italian and Spanish decks are cups/coins/cudgels/swords, Swiss-German decks are roses/bells/acorns/shields.) Invent your own suits from an in-universe deck and have the characters use the suits as nicknames for the powers? Use Tarot cards with major and minor houses?

2) Rework the problem symptoms. If your problem is that you have four Powers, and one person has All Four Powers, well, why? What's the story you're trying to tell about this person? Does it have to be one person with all four powers? Could you have a gang of four or a Five-Person Band (WARNING: TV TROPES LINK) working in tandem? Could the powers be in artifacts and the character has to collect a series of MacGuffins instead of having innate abilities?

This can obviously be altered to fit whatever your specific issues are. My point is, if your reader radar is redlining into Fanfic, and you don't want to write fanfic, you need to find the heart of your story first and then work outward from that. If your story is so closely bound up with the original property that you can't separate it, then go ahead and write the fanfic, or the pastiche. The writing will be practice and you can tell some other story once this one is out of your system.

posted about 7 years ago

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Lauren Ipsum‭

2098 reputation 13 1143 397 1

If you're story exceeds genre, becomes more than the sum of its parts, then it is original, regardless of how similar it may be.

When I'm reading a story, I'm not comparing it to all the stories I've ever read: I'm reading your story.

The "plot" that you say is similar is barely relevant. There will be thousands of stories written similar to it before 2100. Just focus on making your story the best it can be.

If you do justice to your world, and aren't just pinching convenient plot points from similar media and hobbling them amateurely together, then I think you'll be pleased with the result and others will be too.

posted about 7 years ago

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Loser Like You‭

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