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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33098
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33098
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

This does answer the OP's question: As I said in my answer, and added P.S. and P.P.S, and comments later, the only requirement is that something (significant) be original, which can include characters, plot, setting, etc.

Superficial generalities of Rowling's work versus others does not change the fact that she DID have original characters, her own plot, and writing accessible to an adolescent market. There is a reason she has sold more than all that went before her, literally billions of dollars worth of entertainment, and that is not luck: The ones to which she is "similar" obviously failed to captivate a billion dollar audience, they published years before her (she worked on her novel for five years).

As I explained in the earlier answer, you cannot market your way to selling on the order of half a billion copies of anything; 85% of that market **will not buy** just because an ad tells them too if critics and other readers are saying the work is crap. The only way to sell 450 million copies is if they are reliably pleasing to the intended audience, in her case both adolescents AND their parents as suitable reading material.

The fact that Narnia did not do the same is all the proof you need that Rowling did not just rip off Narnia and do it again, she may have been inspired by Narnia, or mythology, or history, but she simply must have done something **original** with that inspiration that made her work **better** in the eyes of the audience than Narnia. To think otherwise is ludicrously implausible.

The answer is, yes, you can be inspired by Star Wars, or Rowling, or Stephen King, or Dan Brown, but you need to bring something original and compelling to the story in order to not be reviewed as a pale imitation of the master. You need original characters, OR setting, OR a connection to current social issues, OR a plot the original has not used, OR just plain better and more immersive portrayals than the original.

Because few publishers will purchase a novel, and few people will buy, a book that is routinely panned as virtually identical to The Da Vinci Code with different names for the characters.

My answer, with the P.S. and PPS and comments, stands as written.

Original score: 2