I got this idea from a prompt on wake up writing again. Two kids, best friends, go out into private woods in the dead of night, because as they were exploring that day, they saw a hole in the ground, with like shiny stuff dotted in it. The boy is doing all the digging, and the girl's really scared and they find a mini goldmine in these private woods. These two men found the goldmine first, and becasue they don't want the owners of the woods to find out about the goldmine, they kidnap the children, and steal all the gold. So what do you think about the plot. Please tell me if it has been done before as I hate copying people, but I did think it up so please don't accuse me of copying. Any suggestions for the end of the book or anything in the book are very very welcome, tell me what you think. Katy
A story concept means nothing. I can tell you now, it has been done before. What matters is how you write it, the characterization, the flow, the imagery, all of it. There's no point to asking what other people think of the concept! They'll either say,"Sounds great," or, "it sounds like a ripoff of..." If the idea stirs you, write it. Then ask people what they think of the final story. After they tell you what they don't like about it, revise it, usually several times, until you're happy with it or until you throw up your hands and say the hell with it. Please read this thread about What is Plot Creation and Development? (and yes, this is a template post, which should give you an idea of how often this comes up.)
Get over that. No matter what we write, it's safe to assume that we're copying someone. Originality is not important. The best you can really do is to take an idea that everyone has used, and to put it into a context that only a few people know.
Sounds kinda Enid Blytonian to me. I don't know about the gold mine, to be honest. It sounds pretty implausible, but at the same time not very interesting, and that's a poor combination. If they are going to randomly find something, have them find something really intriguing, like a mysterious artifact or a clue to a treasure map. Something you can build up a plot around. If it's just gold, you can't raise the stakes; the kids escape, the cops get the bad guys and the gold goes to whoever owns the land. Let's be fair, though: Indiana Jones is awesome.
When you've read enough or seen enough you realize that most art in the entire human experience is repetitive. The world in which we live in is repetitive and predictable. Gravity, daylight, weather, plants, animals, speech - all of it is pretty much a guarantee. These things are so obvious that they are transparent to us. Funny people, stupid people, mean people - these are also so incredibly common that they are transparent to us. So what is interesting to a human being? The exact moment you are occupying. Tension and conflict. I'm sure there are thousands of instances of someone about to be killed at gunpoint (or knifepoint or swordpoint) in countless novels in most languages - but this doesn't stop you from feeling the emotional strain when you are emotionally involved in reading that one particular passage. And yes, Indiana Jones is awesome. Except for Crystal Skull
I don't know, if you researched it enough you could write almost anything and make it good. Word of caution is gold mines aren't what you think, although brave(and expert) prospectors do venture into old 19th century shafts on occasion looking for remaining nuggets. This is a very dangerous way of doing that hobby, anyone going into a mine environment should have the proper safety gear and training, not a couple of kids. A more fascinating situation might be one where the kids learn about the old mine shaft in the process of studying the history of their town, and stake it out. Find out why it was abandoned with wealth still inside, uncover a feud between influential people, etc. If you have an interest in old westerns or things like that and did your homework you could be on to something.
Something that I would find more plausible/interesting is if the kids saw something they were not supposed to and were then kidnapped, like a crime of some sort and then you would possibly work the story around them trying to escape. It's been done before, but you can make your story unique in some aspects.
