I had my proof reader go over my story and plot and his answer was "Its a little like Game of Thrones" in this sense he meant a horde of people to the north (no wall in mine) and large battles to the south with a female queen involved. The question I pose is that is where all the similarities end, my story is very different and is actually based on some old folklore stories from Ancient Britain. Essentially he came back and said I should tweak it slightly to take that Game of Thrones feel away, he did say that it probably wouldnt matter if it wasnt for the huge success of these books as its clear Im not copying...but many might think Game of Thrones was the inspiration...which it was not. My feeling is that I dont want to change the plot of my book as I have worked hard on the plot and the similarities he mentions are actually about the story of Ancient Britain so cant be construed as being taken from the book...but should I listen to him?
And GRRM is constantly compared to JRRT - though the similarity is practically nonexistent... I wouldn't worry about it. It's impossible to write a story that doesn't share elements with some other story, or a whole lot of other stories... It's what you do with those elements that matters. Just be sure to give them your own unique twist. And the most important thing is: you're writing! You're working! That in itself is the real ticket. Keep at it.
get it proof read by some other people, if they all mention games of thrones, maybe you should consider changing something, if they don't then your good i guess. but don't beat your self with this as you said, your firend said ''it's a little like...'' if it's just a little i don't see a problem really. should people stop writing books about magical schools because of harry potter? i don't think so,
Thanks Mr. Crawford I was a little deflated after the conversation as I was thinking....how can you make something truly unique that doesnt include some plot similarities.
You know, whenever you hear someone say, "It sounds like X," or "It sounds like a cross between X and Y," you can pretty much ignore it. Everything sounds like something else, especially if "something else" is very popular. People hammer all kinds of shapes in to that square hole. In any case, it's the fine details that make all the difference.
Thanks Cogito, you always put forward valuable words of wisdom. I am going to keep striving on and if needed I can tweak on the review of the first draft. Its took me a long time to plot out the story, entwine the characters and how they interact so I was more than a little deflated by what he said!
It's funny, I just recently wrote some flash fiction and when a classmate read it, he said it was a lot like a scene from a Saw movie. I hadn't even thought of Saw once when I had written it. Other people will find similarities with your stories in just about any way they can. On the back of The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes, just about every bit of praise was linked with an allusion to another author's work. That's a bit different of an example, but I think the point remains the same; people just compare and contrast and find similarities because it's just what humans do. The human brain is an ultra-specialist at finding patterns, so it's pretty much impossible to make something nobody has seen before.
Don't worry about it. When Suzanne Collins handed in The Hunger Games, her publisher told her, "you know, this is almost identical to Battle Royale." Now all she does in interviews is deny all knowledge of the Japanese book's existence and rakes in the money. Given that yours only sounds vaguely similar, I would not worry even a little, just write what you want to write. Also, try not to have a badass dwarf character who whores around, drinks, but turns out to be awesome. That might be stretching it.
It funny because in mine a king dies and the conquerer he has given allegiance too takes over the kingdom because he does not believe a female can rule...this female raises and army, get routed and dies...he took this as the story of Daenerys...but I have never even read the Game of Thrones book and only watched a couple of episodes of the tv program, yet even I know this is nothing like the story of Daenerys (as much of it I know). I think you are all right, many will try and find similarities and will do, even if they are vague, if there at all. Ill continue plodding on, although it raises the question on whether to ask this friend to proof read it again. I only asked him because he is a big fantasy style book reader.
All books have a counterpart, so of course some people will stop and say, "Hey, that sounds like John Smickety's book How to Wear Pants." Of course the author of whatever they're reading has probably never even heard of John Smickety. The similarity can be drawn between something as miniscule as a heroine who likes to wear her mother's wedding dress around the house, or a word like "exsanguinate" that seems to be a part of the author's personal lexicon. It's not so bad to resemble another person's work, just so long as people don't start to point fingers and scream "Plagiarist!" Here's a wacky story for ya: I was conducting some research for a minor project of mine(a stand-alone novel) when I crossed paths with a link to a wiki page for a video game. I thought, Oh, what the hell, I have time. Turns out...my story was almost toe to toe with the video game's. I had never seen or heard of that video game before that day. The conflict was almost exactly the same. The locations, characters, etc, ALL the same. It was as if I had relayed that story and erased the producer's name in place of my own. <--- In that case, it's more than alright to start revising. If I had published that novel, the chances of a lawsuit would be pretty high. I'm still in awe to how twin-tastic the story lines were, and how the subject itself isn't very common so conclusions weren't very hard to draw. It would have been more than cake to shout "Plagiarism!" on that one. So, if the only thing you see is a few similar aspects(wall, direction, person) than you're fine. I myself have never seen Game of Thrones, so your book would look entirely new to me. If it bothers you that much, look to spruce things up. Deepen conflicts and heighten stakes. Make it so unbelievably better than G.O.T. that absolutely no one will stop to think, "Hey, that reminds me of—" No it doesn't! Happy writing!
Better than Game of Thrones? No such thing. But to the OP, don't worry. Every story idea ever has been done at some point in some form, so similarities are bound to pop up. Even if your work is quite similar, well you've never read Game of Thrones so therefore you haven't ripped it off and there's no problem. If someone accuses you of ripping it off, tell them so and if they don't believe you they're not the type of people you want reading your books.
