I have heard authors lament again and again. They were working on a project until they saw or read a story with a nearly identical plot. That leaves them feeling that what they are working on is redundant, even useless. Many end up tossing their work in progress and beginning something else, all because they saw something similar.
Well, a few weeks ago I saw something similar. I watched the Disney Pixar animated film, Onward. I had never seen the story before, but I practically wrote it.
At least I felt like I did.
As the movie unfolded, I felt like I was watching an animated version of my 2019 novel, Courage. Fortunately, I could not have tossed my words even if I wanted to. And really, I’d never want to. What I can do is enjoy the similarities in character, plot and theme. Loving mother dealing with two sons who don’t understand how badly they need to reconnect to each other. And a dead father who’s loss makes both boys sad and desperate.
Both the movie and book have the same core, brotherhood at its worst, and at it’s finest. I am really thankful Onward did not come first. Otherwise I might have ignored the advice I give to others in a similar situation and tossed that manuscript. And that would have been a shame. Both stories deserve to exist and can be loved by any siblings who have ever lost a father and nearly lost each other.
There is no such thing as one and only one way to solve a problem or tell a story. Why else is there an endless stream of versions of Cinderella? Nothing an author can write is really unique. Just because your theme has been used once, or twice, or a thousand times doesn’t mean there isn’t room for your Voice to tell that story one more time.
3 comments:
I agree, Barbara. Even if we tried to tell the same story, we'd have unique ways of telling it. Your book Courage will make many readers happy, with or without Onward!
Barbara, I too have heard people say they tossed a story because someone else wrote something similar (or even stole it). I'm grateful I heard from agents, editors and writer friends just what you said. There is room for everyone to tell their story one more time in their Voice. So glad you are continuing to write your stories!
Really good example and advice to stick with it. In addition to no two stories being alike--even with similar themes or plotlines, I think authors forget that ideas are not copyrightable. They are out there for people to use in whatever way they want. Imagine what would happen if everytime a big event happened (e.g., a volcano blew) that only the first news organization to get there would be allowed to write a story. It is the fact that hundreds of news organizations right that story that we get lots of points-of-view, nuances, and different concepts about what was important to convey.
I too, like many writers, almost gave up on a story years ago. I had just finished the first draft of the first book in my Forest People fantasy series. That year Avatar was released (2009). In my mind, there were so many similarities. Environmental damage caused by humans, an unknown species impacted, the belief in the mother tree giving life and the forest having special gifts.
Of course, there were a lot of differences as well, but I was convinced people would speculate they'd I'd stole my ideas from Avatar. I held on to the book for four years and that series and worked on other things. I figured my fantasy novels were never to be released.
Fortunately, I went on to publish that book in 2013 and two others in that series subsequently. Once it was published I could see all the differences from Avatar--locations, characters, age of protagonists, and even the underlying world building and science. It was those universal themes that I feared. The same themes in thousands (if not millions of books). Good vs evil, community vs self, and of course a character's journey to know themself better and find what truly makes them whole.
Post a Comment