Question for my fellow writers

[wheelchair27]

Hi I have a question for my fellow writers. Have any of you ever gotten an idea for a story or written a story but you found out someone else already wrote the same story or had the same idea and wrote it and submitted it?

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Yeah, all the time.

There are three main problems that go with the territory of creating anything:

1. Ideas do get stolen - and lot more often than people suppose who make observations such as 'it's all just conspiracy theory.' It happens. And it happens a lot. It happens a REAL lot in the music industry.

2. The modern world is dominated by the same basic 'news and views' stream of media output, and so, sometimes it's also just unavoidable that people accidentally have similar ideas.

3. You might be psychic and/or others might be and you are all 'picking up' the same ideas at the same time.

The recent exposition by the Tom Watson inquiry in the United Kingdom, demonstrates that there is unfortunately, good grounds to suppose that many media and entertainment organisations go to - you might have thought - absurdly extreme lengths to steal ideas, information, knowledge, and intercept private conversations. The commercial exploitation of other people's ideas is a business.

You really do have to have a strategy to stake out your own unique position, somehow...!

 

[MatthewVett]

Sometimes, but you can always put a fresh twist on it. And if they had the exact same idea as you, and wrote it better than you, then just read their story and enjoy.

 

[TxRad]

There are only so many ideas and all of them have been used over and over again. Coming up with something fresh takes a lot of thinking and work. All any of us can do is put a new twist on an old idea.

Don't worry about what others have wrote. Write from your own view and perspective and do the best you can.

 

[lovecraft68]

Sometimes, but you can always put a fresh twist on it. And if they had the exact same idea as you, and wrote it better than you, then just read their story and enjoy.

This is the way I see it. Porn is full of cliches and similar situations.

But a good writer can take a overused premise and put their "stamp" on it. I pride myself on making my incest stories more than "sis was hot, so why not?" and trying for different angles to justify the taboo attraction. Whether I succeed or not is up to the readers, but I feel good that I make the effort.

 

[HeyAll]

No.

But I've written a story a story and a week before I post it, someone else comes out with a very similar theme or plot line before. Or I put out a story and I realize that someone had a similar point a month or so previously.

 

[Scheherazade73]

This is the way I see it. Porn is full of cliches and similar situations.

But a good writer can take a overused premise and put their "stamp" on it. I pride myself on making my incest stories more than "sis was hot, so why not?" and trying for different angles to justify the taboo attraction. Whether I succeed or not is up to the readers, but I feel good that I make the effort.

Agreed.

You are my favorite author on Lit, btw. Very hot stuff. It inspired me and gave me lots to read on my vacation this year, so thanks!

 

[lovecraft68]

Agreed.

You are my favorite author on Lit, btw. Very hot stuff. It inspired me and gave me lots to read on my vacation this year, so thanks!

Thank you!

See, that right there, makes it worth the effort.

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

Sometimes, but you can always put a fresh twist on it. And if they had the exact same idea as you, and wrote it better than you, then just read their story and enjoy.

My thoughts exactly. I just did this in the last contest, taking a common enough plot, good enough that the previous author's stories were both in the top 35 of all time. I like the originals, just wanted to do it my way.

I even stated so in the introduction, that I was doing a rework with a different point of view and my own (somewhat wordy) style. Good enough for second place, three additional chapters, and still going.

If you like it, write it.

I would say that if you're going to borrow ideas, or even if it came to you independently but you see a similar one, go ahead and acknowledge it.

 

[DG Hear]

Hi I have a question for my fellow writers. Have any of you ever gotten an idea for a story or written a story but you found out someone else already wrote the same story or had the same idea and wrote it and submitted it?

With thousands upon thousands of stories written every year there will always be similar ideas. We also get ideas when we read stories by other authors and they feter in our subconscious minds. Then we write a story that is probably similar to the ones we remember because of the ideas in our heads.

Just write what you feel and do your best. That way it will at least be your thoughts and your words. I often wonder about the actual fucking and/or making love. To me there are just so many ways to write it. You are bound to have used an idea that was written before.

Best of luck in your writing.
DG

 

[MSTarot]

I found a story idea from another writer one night that I thought he didn't do justice with... story wise.

My story will be taking the same basic story idea, but with whole new characters as far as the way the interact with one another. Different names and settings as far a where they are.

Am I stealing his story?

To a point, Yes I guess I am.

But i'm not copying his story. Just the idea.

George Lucas made a fortune doing the same thing. A farm boy with a special sword off to rescue a princess?

Not even close to an original story idea.

M.S.Tarot

 

[SamScribble]

Somewhere - I can't remember where (mind you, there are lots of things I can't remember these days) - I read an analysis of all the really successful short story themes from the past couple of hundred years. From memory, there were just seven of them. Maybe nine. After that, it came down to characterisation, settings, and the way in which the author told the story. As one of my editors is wont to say: it's not the story you tell, it's how you tell the story.

 

[PennLady]

I found a story idea from another writer one night that I thought he didn't do justice with... story wise.

I've done this twice. I wrote "Pretending," a story about best friends who fall in love (or realize they are in love) with each other. I'd read another story on that theme, but it was written in first person from the woman's POV. I wanted to know what the man was thinking. So I wrote my story on this theme in third person. It wasn't the same story, just my variation on that theme.

A second one was when I wrote a nonhuman story called "The Hunted Key." Again, just one thing in another story got me started. I'd read a story on here where one woman in a group of four was singled out by the alpha male of the local werewolf pack. What got me was how this strong woman just melted for the guy. I wanted one where the woman didn't do that. So I wrote it.

There's going to be a lot of similarity. The differences are mostly in the detail.

 

[sr71plt]

This is one reason I don't read many stories by others here. It may be that my story ideas have already been done, but it's not because I've read them here before. I've occasionally edited a story and thought, "Oh, shit, I was thinking of doing that myself," and then either I drop the idea or doing it myself and start thinking what different use I can make of that element.