Everyone is telling me my story is a rip off of Karate Kid/Cobra Kai :(

This is exactly it. Don't get into a fight you can avoid and if you can't avoid it, do pretty much this.

 

My real life is practically a parody on every Manga ever written. How did I go from a Yandere who talked about killing herself if I left her, to an Asian nurse/maid/teacher/singer who's father is a famous master chef, and just fell into my life after stalking me online for years? It all sounds like a bad joke. I guess those books were actually based on someone's life at some point.

 

That might work. Any of those countries you just mentioned he could've been a special ops soldier from there. Not to mention he had a heavy and sort of broken accent in real life. Or should I say he's from a Slavic country like Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia or Ukraine? In rap life he has darker/tan skin so would it make more sense if his background was Egyptian or Jordanian, Lebanese or Syrian? Oh and you're right about Krav Maga.

I'd use a fake name for him, resemblance wise in terms of similar appearance can be alike and probably not be Israeli special ops cause that's what he was in real life or at least says he was. Though him being a kung fu/martial arts teacher that was in the military before who's very persuasive about his scions may sound like the real him, but if I can add some slightly different alters here and there I can work it out correct? He smoked ciggs in real life, I can just a cigarette brand lol. I could say in the military he used to also work for a bad Black Operation X or Viper or Cobra Squad group which could be like some private military gun for hires that I make up. He also had tattoos but I can make up my own version and make them snake tattoos like vipers or something.

Good only thing is if I had the MC team up with a rival from school that was a bullied nerd who now became a bit of a jerk as an adult but a rich big shot now? Or better if the MC teams up with a female character who used to work for the bad military guy or bad kung fu owner, was their employee for quite some time and an enemy to the MC but after overthrown by the bad guys she now teams up with the MC? Which one sounds like a they'd make a better pair/rival team up together match?

There's this new series called Cobra Kai which features more about these characters stories fleshed out more, especially Johnny' who's more the anti-hero now and can be related to in some ways. The MC from Karate Kid original movies has become the jerk now in some ways lol. Oh and that guy Kreese is still the arrogant jerk but hot more sneaky about it I think lol.

So if I use similar concepts and tropes from the Cobra Kai series, would that be a good start?

There could be a way I have the plot take a turn like this where the and martial arts/military guy would appear as some bad@** but ends up being a fraud but when given in the hands of power he takes this to his advantage to literally cause destruction and be very manipulative. It's like how in some cults how someone like a cult leader could be discovered as a fake or a fraud and get called out for it but manage to brainwash quite a few crowds. This may work for this bad guy, I might go with that he learned both the non lethal version because just because you're in the military does;t mean you will get to learn all the real lethal version. Some can use military training as gimmick or money maker to get others excited because they say they were spec ops and learned some commando no holds barred tactical style. He could've bribed a CIA agent or SWAT member that had lethal krav maga training? Or from a trained krav maga fighter from his distant relatives in his Israeli side of the family that had business connections with his Egyptian side of the family so he got to learn it somehow?

 

I understand! This will take me some time, I'l try and see what happened when I blend this all together.

I feel the same way, now I know I'm not the only one

 

I was once afraid to rewrite my work and it never improved. I know better now and am always looking for ways to improve the book.

 

I'm working on it

 

However, never be afraid to improve your characters, either. I have a character that was based off of a friend. At first he was identical but then he didn't really meld with the rest of the story. he stuck out like a sore thumb and dumped the reader out of the story whenever he appeared. I sat down and had a QnA with this character and just wrote whatever popped into my head.

He told me how he was never in the elite royal guard and became shot to the Captain of the guard due to excelling in everything.

Instead he became the last warrior of Bowtown, a town renown for raising their children from the time they could walk as warriors. However, his training was incomplete because the town was wiped off the map, leaving his brother and father as the sole survivors. His father died half way through his training but he enlisted in the guard anyway. Later on, his brother died.

Trent's magic talent was so useful and he was so incompetent that a turncoat sent him over to the other kingdom as a spy, expecting the king to pick him up and brainwash him. However, the young MC found him while he was on his way to Thoria and delayed him by insisting that he joins them for dinner so he missed his contact. He wound up settling in the human part of town and kept his head down, learning how to be a Thorian, choosing to portray a common brute and tried to gather all the information he could, all the while looking for a way back to Spectra.

Then, instead of being a minor character that the MC casually rescued, Trent got caught up in Aden's mission and became an essential part of the story. I would never trade old Trent for new Trent. He evolved into his own character with wants, needs and desires.

He's now a bumbling warrior that needs taken under someone's wing to become the best that he can be. Remember, improving a character could the best thing that ever happened to your entire story.

It's funny, I never understood how a character could insist upon something until Trent demanded to have more screen time. I just hope other characters don't insist on the same thing.

 

Interesting how your character evolved

I have the same principle, I would plan on doing the same with my characters, the ones based on real life counterparts, they will flesh out overtime and develop some of their own personas that stick out from the real ones who they are based on. That's where my creativity will come into play.

 

yeah, Trent is my favorite character, besides Aden himself and later on Vincent, who is in the second book that needs tons of work.

 

But everything sounds like premise, not plot. You said "Now the MC must fix this" in your final paragraph (I paraphrased) - THAT's when the story starts. All that stuff you wrote is back story.

So how does your MC fix things and reveal Mitch and Joe's true colours to the world? That's your story.

 

The nerd, but if they're a bit of a jerk you have to consider their growth into a nice human being or your MC possibly not putting up with mean people for long periods of time. It could just be an alliance of convenience for the both of them, so they only team up for the time it takes to beat the antagonist but if you want them to be friends then you have to work out what your MC is willing to put up with.

Only if it fits your story. Don't change it to something similar just because people will connect to the subject. If the concepts and tropes are relevant to your story and your story is about those things then go for it but don't change it on purpose just to fit those things because then you can say that it will be a copy.

Just write what you want to write.

 

I was going to start the story when he was young and the fixing part would lead to the stories continuation.

I'd probably have them team up when it's convenient to taking down the main antagonist, but other than that they'd go back ad rivals or maybe they can become more friendly rivals like Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter?

Do you like that friendly rival bid more? Or them remaining enemies but on and off they may share the same set of goals and work together, then go back to being enemies?

I'll see what I can do. There may be slight similarities but that's why I plan to add more to it.

 

Readers won't know that so they'll just assume I'm copying off of the Karate Kid series and the new one.

 

You could always add a page that says "The following story is based on my real life experiences. Any similarities to other works, fictional or real is purely coincidental." I've seen that a few times in professional works, movies do that all the time.

 

Both have their merits. But if they're generally in disagreement it will have to be a serious situation that equally effects both of them to warrant them working together. If you have them as friendly rivals then it gives you a bit more room for end goal deviation with your characters, so they won't be forced to have the exact same end goals.

But if they do have the same goals anyway, the occasional friends but mostly enemies dynamic is always fun and complicated. This, however, is more a question of how you want to write them and which dynamic fits your story better than it could be determined by an outside opinion.

 

Going to be going like in your last thread. It's not like it's pretty similar or there are a few characters based off of it. It's literally all of your characters and your plot are EXACTLY the same as Cobra Kai/Karate Kid.

Similarities happen. Parallel thinking does. But every little detail is copy and pasted from KK. Even on reddit posts, you've mentioned using snake names, including cobras.

I mean, c'mon . . .

Edit: Oh, and now an old, bullied school rival is a big shot rich jerk? C'mon .

 

That's a possibly. But this is still a fiction piece of work as it will have a lot of fictional elements to the mix, so long as I can still do that.

I think I'm going with them as occasional friends but mostly enemies as it may be a nice contrast between them. Normally I'm not a huge fan of rivalry characters anyway but this just might work to keep the story going and fresh.

I wouldn't call it exactly the same but they are similar, hence the responses from others above. All can be coincidental and you can compare it to anyone else's ideas, which they may all sound similar. More than one individuals can have the similar or same kind of premise but tell the story differently.

As I've stated, a lot that I'm writing off of is based on my own real life experiences and so are the characters. I can't help that it may share some close similarities to a movie series or someone elses ideas.
Someone who was a victim of bullying and controlled under someone else's dishonest influences, that really happened. Learned from a bad kung fu/sensei/master who was harsh, descriminative against race, against gays, abusive to women, different appearances and weaker victims and used his ptsd wars and military past as his excuse to take it out on anyone. That happened for real. The martial art school ended up being bad. Was for real. The military martial art teacher showed a snake emblem to others that represented special ops. Thst was real. The thing about the old bullied rival from school was what I added but there really were some guys like this in real life so it is still similar.

Who knows maybe the real life martial art teacher I'm describing happened to watch Karate Kid back in the 80's and thought "gee I wanna be just like that bad sensei" it happens.

If you don't like it you dont have to read it, but I understand where you're coming from with there being some very close similarities. I apologize for it.

 

That would be parallel thinking. And there's nothing wrong with that. Also nothing wrong with taking a large influence from a work. Hell, the novel I'm working on is unapologetically similar to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But it's not exactly the same. My characters are different. Their backstories are different. My actual plot points are different.

Re-read the quoted text in my last post. You can't read that and honestly say it's not exactly the same as Karate Kid.

But here's the thing: I'm not being harsh because I'm a dick, I just don't like what I see as dishonesty. Let's call this what it is: your own adaptation of Karate Kid/Cobra Kai. If you just came out and said that, I don't think anyone would have an issue with it. But as it stands right now, there are just too many similarities.

 

Which is what I'm trying make sure doesn't happen with mine. As it stands characters sound similar and I can't help that they are almost identical to the actual characters from the movies. But this is why I ask questions do I can make these minor adjustments. All will be changed when I have it in my final draft.

I'm not denying it. I've been told that it's almost very much the same. And I'm planning to fix it which I'm doing now. I can easily change the old bullied guy dynamic, hevdiesnt even have to be someone that was bullied from school that the MC knew. There's other ways around it. I just have to improvise a little more. Like he was the MC's replacement that the bad guy chose to go fight after the MC which made them become rivals or something.

I could still change it. I don't think you are being one, I know you're just trying to give me feedback. But I could call it my own adaptation of the series. Or I can just happen to have similarities, which the people in real life happen to counterpart those characters but I'd still need to do a lot more to change it so it's not too similar to the Karate Kid/Cobra Kai series. In fact the Cobra Kai series is very similar to Rocky IV. Johnny is basically Rocky who's fallen down and trying to get back up for his losses. Ivan Drago is kind of like Larusso who took something away from the MC causing him to crash and was now the champion in the spotlight. Johnny and Rocky even both have the same driving scene montage, reflecting their good memories to when it all came crashing down by their enemy/rival. Even Johnny eventually rising back his dojo and Johnny's student beats Daniels own student, making Cobra Kai the champions again. Similar to how Rocky risen back up from defeat and beat the current Russian champion.

 

There's difference between inspiration and rip off don't mind the critics and naysayers

 

But they keep complaining about it and one is calling me dishonest for doing so. Does it really sound that much like a rip-off?

 

To be honest, from all your threads and posts, I think it all boils down to:

Are you writing a Biography? Or are you writing Original fiction?

Because anytime someone even kindly points out something sounding like an existing work and subtle ways in which you could differentiate your idea of a story, you come back at them saying this actually happened with people you actually know and it was exactly in this way. . .

You quite honestly counter suggestions of being unoriginal by doubling down that it is in fact not your original creation: it is all 100% true, based on real people, and you won’t deviate from the precise details of their life or history on the premise that that is the truth of it.

If it’s a biography: great. Done. Doesn’t matter how much it resembles or mirrors an existing fictionally story because you’re writing a nonfiction that is corroborated by facts and figures.

If you’re trying to write original fiction: write original fiction. Doesn’t matter if your inspiration are real people and events, or films & a youtube series—make the story uniquely yours. The beauty of fiction is that you are not beholden to anything beside your own creativity; the only limits are what you set. To argue against kind comments & helpful suggestions to differentiate your story by saying you must ruggedly adhere to minute factual details of real people or situations is frankly absurd.

You ask for people’s honest opinion, people give you a variety of stances, to which you then state that they are complaining of dishonesty and being a rip-off, and then ask the same question—to which you’ll get all the same spectrum of answers.


To me, the question is only: are you writing original fiction or aren’t you?


If yes, then be bold and write. And write whatever it is so that it is yours, be it Cobra Kai fanfiction with the names changed or the real life story you nicked from someone you knew.

And if you’re not, then why worry?