Okay, so I had this story idea that was based on the idea of gemstones. Birthstones, to be specific. I've had this idea for years now, but I've been writing a lot of things, plus having to deal with jobs and college, so the story at this point is incomplete -- it's a series of 12 books, naturally. However, there's a problem. When I was talking to someone about my idea, they said, "you mean like Steven Universe?" No. I don't mean like Steven Universe. At that point, I hadn't even heard of the show. I've seen reviews of it (apparently it's horribly overrated) and a bit of one episode where the main character's fingers turn into cats. Frankly my story is nothing like the show. SU is a comedy, mine is drama. Theirs has to do with aliens, mine with superheroes. Their characters are literally stones, mine simply reference theirs sometimes (as well as having some inspiration that I don't want to spoil). Essentially the two have nothing in common, but once I mention gemstones, people instantly seem to think of SU. Not only was I not inspired by it, but my idea predates it. So what do I do? I want to write these stories, but frankly, I don't want people to associate my work with that show, and I'm a bit offended that an idea that I'm subtle about is so...not in the show. Lol, I recognise that my feelings are mostly unfair, but I want my story to stand on its own, and due to the show's popularity people will be tempted to compare the two, even though there's nothing really to compare. How do I handle this?
Remember how everybody kept saying Hunger Games was just a ripoff of (whatever the Asian movie was called that it bears some similarities to)? Maybe it was even based partially on it, I don't know and it doesn't matter, because Hunger Games was a huge success anyway, and at least in the West has eclipsed whatever that was called. If your story is good, it won't matter.
Gemstones? You mean like the Jumi from Legend of Mana? A video game that came out in 1999, about 14 years before Steven Universe. Point is, most everything has been done in some fashion. Yes it sucks to have to follow the footsteps of a popular franchise that you had no knowledge was doing something similar to your story. But it doesn't mean that your story is not worth doing. And yes, people will compare them. It happens. It's ultimately not important, and not something worth stressing about. At least not to the point it hinders your ability to write. (I know I like to stress out about pointless stuff, so I can't tell others not to stress when they feel so inclined.)
I would not let it bother you, and just keep going. I think this is one of those things where it either has happened to you as a writer (my hand is up), or is going to happen to you.
No matter what you write or publish, a busy-body with no respect for the integrity of an author's own work will compare what you do to something else. "Ooh, just like that! Ooh, it reminds me of this!" Quite frankly, it's tiresome behaviour that contributes nothing to the creative process and can be ignored. It's one thing to plagiarise, another to constantly be compared, however tenuously, to a plethora of subjects, themes and ideas that have been explored before. Guess where all your favourite authors and writers got their ideas from? They were inspired by something else. Whether that's a book they remember from childhood, a niche Soviet movie or a folk tale. It's an oft-quoted axiom now that there's nothing original out there. Somebody above me has probably pointed this out already. Your idea is good. Keep going with it. See where it takes you. Sorry if I'm rambling. I'm quite drunk.
I don't know what SU is tbh so it wouldn't be something id associate with birthstones... So it would stand to reason that a lot of other people wouldnt either. Besides everything has the smell of something else anyway. Somewhere something has been done. Like: The video game DOOM ripped off some aspects of D&D because the creater played it... D&D is basically a role play Lord of the Rings... (fight me on that) Tolkien has stated he got his inspiration from Norse mythology and others.... And so on and so forth. You can do it with anything Write the books!
There is no such thing as an original idea. Everything has been done before. Stop looking for originality and go for quality. That's really all that matters.
That's it. But it doesn't matter if it was better, Hunger Games stands as it's own entity and is extremely successful.
My brother-in-law does this to me all the time. No matter how insignificant the detail, he acts like just because someone else used it, it must be the same story. Me: “So the vampire in my boo--” Him: “There’s a vampire in your book? Didn’t Buffy already do vampires?” In my humble opinion, there’s nothing wrong with using elements that have similarities to something that’s been done. It’s more about the story you’re telling. Vampires have been done, but you can still create something wholly original and interesting with it. A dystopian future where society is ruled by a repressive, totalitarian regime? It’s been done...but throw in a few “Districts”, a love story, and some action, and you got the Hunger Games. A magic school? It’s been done. But that doesn’t mean it’s off-limits. So long as you’re not completely ripping off the idea of houses, points, ghosts, and so on, you’re still okay. I can’t remember who said it, but one author commented “J.K. wasn’t the first to write about a magic school...she was just the first to get rich off it.” So long as you don’t have another author’s book cracked open next to your work-space, in all likelihood, your story is going to be original. Unless you’re writing “Jerry Jotter and the Wizard’s Rock” I wouldn’t get too concerned, lol.
Well... there you go? Aside from that one specific aspect, your story is completely different. So, what are you worried about? Look, my background is mainly fanfiction, which is a field where you see a lot of competition because we've never had especially high standards compared to professional writing. Now, once in a while I'd come across a fanfic with a premise virtually identical to my own. Like, if you boiled it down to the basics, they had essentially the exact same premise. And I'm pretty sure those were purely coincidental - one of them was for a story I never bothered to write and hadn't talked about on any relevant message board. Sometimes writers just have pretty much the same idea, that's all. And yet when I took a closer look at them, it turns out they had very little in common with my ideas, aside from the basic premise. See, the premise isn't that important. What matters is your own style, the message you're trying to get across, your personal preferences and method of storytelling. It works the other way around as well: I could read the basic synopsis of a story and suddenly have this whole elaborate vision of how I would write it. Then I'd actually read the story and find that it wasn't in any way similar to my own idea, and usually not to my personal taste for that matter. It's all in the execution. What makes your writing unique isn't that you are the only one who had a particular idea, but rather that you are the only one who can tell your story, your way. It's a part of you, a product of your values and perspective. Hell, go ahead and watch Stephen Universe. Then watch Hozeki no Kuni, for good measure. If those shows weren't direct inspirations for you, then I can pretty much guarantee you'll find more differences than similarities, and it will tell you a lot more about why your idea is your original creation as opposed to why it's not. If anything I will probably give your more insight into why your story isn't Stephen Universe. Superficial similarities are part of the job, because we're all part of the same system with the same influences, and statistically we're bound to have similar ideas once in a while. Don't shy away from that, accept it, and focus on what makes your idea special to you.
I know technically I should watch it, but it looks awful and I don't want my writing to be affected by it.
How is it superior? I loved Hunger Games, and I really wanted to read Battle Royale, but honestly, Japanese things have the ability to disturb me so deeply that I actually just didn't want to read it. I expected Battle Royale to be good, and I'm not surprised it might be superior, but I can't bring myself to read it because I expect it to move me too deeply, or probably upset me far too much. Anyway, I'd be quite interested in what Battle Royale's like without having to read it!
I am amused. As soon as I read you mention gemstones, I was like *gasp* because yeah I have a gemstone idea too. I wouldn't stress about it. You have many differences between your idea and that show I've never heard of. I know that feeling though. I read a lot of books, and I generally only read fantasy which is the genre I write in, so I have had a few instances where I was like DAMNIT, but then it all turned out okay because, while they did have gemstones involved, it's never the same as my idea.
My oldest daughter would literally fight you on that point. And, speaking as one who generally hates everything he sees on the idiot box, even I have to say that SU has a shocking amount of depth for a children's show. Steven Universe doesn't really have a big enough fan base for this to be so much of a concern, IMO. I mean, heck, you had never even heard of it before. And if it was really big, and if you're afraid of being overshadowed by it, then just hold off for a few years until the hype dies down. For what it's worth, the entire cyberpunk genre as we know came very close to not existing because William Gibson feared that everything worth seeing in his first book had already been presented to the world, in the form of Blade Runner.
Hey, you two are in good company—our own Wreybies is also writing a gemstone story. The idea must be in the air.
Handle it by doing it anyway. As stated, at this point every word has been written before. There's always going to be some overlap with something else. Now, before I go on to write about a guy that's sold his soul to the Devil, which I say without a hint of a joke, I would like to refer you to Taurus and/or Davy Graham at 1'03". Good luck writing your book, sounds like you have a best seller on your hands. ;o)
I tend to dilute my stories with ideas from my own experiences and from historical events that aren't well-known. Then people won't notice which books or movies inspired me. There's one story that I'm writing. It's inspired by the Lord of the Rings series. Although it would look like Lord of the Rings at a glance if it was made into a movie, because the characters and the story are so different, nobody mentioned that film over what I wrote so far.
That one South Park episode comes to mind, 'Simpsons Already Did it'. I haven't read Battle Royale, but the film is pretty tame by Japanese horror standards. If we're talking about influence, that's where Fortnight, Player Unknown's Battlegrounds and Warzone got their inspiration (well, one of them)! It goes on.
I had a book prospect snatched out from under me ... a non-fiction prospect. I'd been planning to do a study of John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, driving the same roads fifty years later, tracing his steps, and seeing how the landscape has changed. Then I found out that there were two other people who'd had the same idea. The first was a writer who went to the same cities Steinbeck had traveled, but using interstates instead of the original roads. She even had a dog. But the real killer was a journalist in Pennsylvania. He'd gotten a copy of not only the manuscript of the book itself, but a first draft that was radically different from the finished manuscript, along with Steinbeck's journal and notes. Traveling as many of the same roads as Steinbeck did, he found that Steinbeck couldn't have done what he said he'd done... the cities were too far away to have been traveled in the amount of time he'd described. Moreover, he found that the image of a guy driving across the country with no companion but his dog, and sleeping in the camper all the time, was all a myth. About a third of the route, he was accompanied by either his wife or a close friend. And he probably slept less than seven days in the camper. The rest of the time, he stayed with friends or in luxury hotels along the way, as befitted a Nobel Prize winner. So Travels might have been based on a factual trip, but the details were largely fictional. That book was a far better job than I could have done, so I let the project die. But as I was discussing that decision with a friend of mine, I found out that the friend had been an acquaintance of John Steinbeck's son, and the son confirmed that the dialog in the book was bogus, and that his father was too painfully shy to have struck up conversations like that.
Yeah, I can imagine that for nonfiction it's way worse. In fiction you can always find ways to be unique, but people only need so many books for a given real-world subject. I'm sorry that happened to you, although that guy's book sounds interesting.
The more a person or a past event is well-known, the more there'll be people who'd want to write about them. And in most cases, these topics were already covered a long time ago. I think the safest way is to cover a topic that's not well-known, and then find information that would fascinate the readers.
There was actually a court case early on that said Rowling got her ideas from The Adventures of Willy the Wizard, which ultimately went nowhere. These things don't just appear out of the blue. Much of the idea came from a train ride she took and from there came the idea of the Hogwarts Express, etc. Ideas mean nothing. It's how you combine them and how you write the book that does.
