So I've been working on my second novel for over a year now, and I'm just getting to the point where I'm beginning to redraft... ...and I've just discovered that a book has been released (trad published) in the intervening time that has a VERY similar setting to mine. The book in question is a children's book, whereas mine is very definitely an adult one. The plots and the political situations also seem to be very different - but the general aesthetic and concept are near identical. My "big unique setting" essentially already has another writer releasing books about it. I can't change my setting, since so much of the concept and plot are bound up in the specifics of the setting... ....so exactly how much of a problem is this similarity if I wanted to get my book traditionally published?
Since you're writing for a totally different audience and a totally different plot/storyline, I couldn't imagine it being a huge deal. Think of all the books out there that have similar settings to each other already. Yours will still be more unique than those it sounds like.
The trouble is, it's not as if both are "it's an accountancy firm.... For wizards!" or anything like that. Literally both of them start with the idea that the world's been submerged in toxic fumes for centuries and civilisation has built up on the mountaintops. They even both have airships and salvage divers. It's worrying me that I've basically wasted an entire year of work.
I can see why it's disconcerting but really, it's not a problem. I doubt this other story is the first one to include this setting/situation, and nobody's going to notice.
This is the book I'm talking about, for the record. Mine is nothing like it in terms of politics or storyline (mine is heavily influenced by napoleonic war naval campaigns and warring empires, and Dickensian street urchins, etc. rather than the apparent YA dystopiafest), but it still concerns me how similar it is.
I don't think I'm going to convince you but my honest comparison: A deadly white mist has cloaked the earth for hundreds of years. << Your book doesn't have a deadly white mist. Humanity clings to the highest mountain peaks << The Twists aren't mountains, even if they have the rough shape of a mountain. where the wealthy Five Families rule over the teeming lower slopes and rambling junkyards. << In yours, it's the poor scrambling for a living below, not ruling them. As the ruthless Lord Kodoc patrols the skies to enforce order, << Nothing like that in yours. thirteen-year-old Chess and his crew scavenge in the Fog-shrouded ruins for anything they can sell to survive. << Nothing like yours. If I'd read that book blurb I would never have thought of The Twist.
I did say this is my second book, not my first The Twist has next to no similarities with that! My second book (different universe) involves a deadly yellow mist which engulfs most of the world, with empires built on mountaintops waging war with one another while salvage divers scour the surface for ancient tech. ...which is pretty much exactly the same.
