1. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Three seperate books with the same theme: Redundant?

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Link the Writer, Oct 3, 2011.

    Here's my problem: I have three stories that follow the same theme of "Adult finds child. Adult protects child and takes child away from whoever is trying to hurt him/her."

    One of them is set in WWI in the Eastern front from the perspective of Vasily. The child he must protect? A German orphan who's parents had been murdered. (They had moved to Russia shortly before the outbreak of WWI.)

    The other two are Westerns. One is from the perspective of an outlaw named Mike Wolfletter, and another is a semi-illiterate farmer turned gunslinger. The child of the former story? A crippled Irish boy. The child of the latter story? A Native American girl who escaped the reservation.

    They all sound very intriguing to me, and I know they'll have to be three seperate books. I actually do want to write all three of them.

    My worry is that they all sound exactly the same just with a few minor details tweaked. Even if I made the protector a female, the theme's still the same.

    Is this a case of "pick the one you want to write the most and do it"?
     
  2. LaurenM

    LaurenM Member

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    It probably is. You can do all three, but it reminds me of Dan Brown. All of his books have the exact same plot with different settings and characters. It gets rather redundant. I don't know what everyone else will say, though. That's just my opinion.
     
  3. agentkirb

    agentkirb New Member

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    Eh... if the plot flows differently, I think you could pull it off. And you could change the personality of the protagonist/antagonist and a few details here and there and perhaps add in a subplot based off of those details and the story will be significantly different enough from the others. If the way the main character goes about settling the plot is exactly the same though... then yeah, it would be redundant.
     
  4. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    write and see if you can sell the first one, before you start worrying about the others...
     
  5. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    I agree with you three. I think this is a case where I should pick one that sounds the most interesting to me; write that and forget the other two.
     
  6. dave_c

    dave_c Active Member

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    at saying that Dan Brown is quite successful :)

    i do agree though, pick one, do that. You'll probably have a million ideas for variations throughout the first story, keep note of them. Potentially you could make those into the other 2 books, assuming you decide to continue with them.
     
  7. Jhunter

    Jhunter Mmm, bacon. Contributor

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    I you are worried about being redundant you could always use a different a different pen name for each book.
     
  8. Steve T

    Steve T New Member

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    I think you should pick one but this is totally up to you. This is your story and so write it.
     
  9. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    I think you should figure out what it is about this theme that attracts you. You can do this by writing one of these stories. My guess is that once you've written one of them, and really explored the theme in it, you won't feel that it's necessary to write the other ones. You'll have learned what you needed to learn.
     

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