When Great Minds Think Alike

[SlickTony]

Someone once said that William Shakespeare had all the plots, meaning, that there were just so many of them in existence. It seems to me that this is truer in this milieu than it is anywhere else.

Suppose you have a story that you're developing--say, for the sake of discussion (and also because that's what you're working on)--that centers on the theme of the wife who role-plays the part of a prostitute, with her husband as her client.

While you are working on another couple of stories, a loving-wife-as-whore story turns up. What do you do, wait until that story slips out of the New category, (which at my pace will probably happen anyway) or depend on the differences in character, motivation, and setting to carry yours off?

 

[sirhugs]

As a reader, I enjoy reading different versions of similar ideas, so I would definitely want yours posted sooner, not later.

With the lag between submission and posting, there will likely be several days (and "New" pages) gap anyway.

 

[Chicklet]

especially on literotica, everything seems to have been done. In my opinion, nothing would stop me from submitting a story.

1) make sure that the title is original. Titles that have been done over, and over, and over again don't get many reads because readers don't know which one to look at.

2) make sure your title is an exciting one! If it's clever, it'll pull the reader in without even a description. If the title is good, the reader will read, and then your story is going to get rated higher than the boring one that they didn't read.

3) submit it whenever you want. If you want to leave it with you, and look over it again and again and edit it as many times as possible before submitting, then do it! But if it's perfect, and you don't care if a similar story popped up, then submit it!

If we all let ourselves become discouraged when a story with similar plots to our own popped up, none of us would submit anything.

(BTW - this is coming from the girl who's third submission turned out to have the exact same title as another story about the same thing, and the main characters ended up having the same names, too...strange, huh?)

Chicklet

 

[SlickTony]

I know what you mean about the titles, Chicklet. Jeezus Pleezus! You'd think that there were just so many titles you could use. Also, I hate when the title comes right out and explains what the action is. You know the kind of thing I mean--My Slutwife Pammy, Chapters 1 through 20. To me this demonstrates a paucity of imagination. I do my best to give titles to my stuff the same as if they were "real" or "regular"--you know, mainstream stories.

I appreciate everyone's input. I'm not going to let a similar plot stop me. I don't think there's much danger of having my stories mistaken for someone else's anyway.

 

[ronde]

I would agree that there are a limited number of plots available, but a plot is rather like drawing a line between two cities on a map. It is usually not possible to get from one to the other along this line, and if it were, the trip would be pretty boring. A good story, like a scenic trip, has to explore the backroads and meet the locals. There are an infinite number of backroads and characters out there.