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When I wrote "Visitors" I had no recollection that it was so much like the movie, "The Beyond". How did that happen? I can't say.
It was not intentional copying.
Gwen
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Comments
there is nothing new under the sun
Most creative endeavours involve your mind pulling things it has experienced and recombining them in new and (hopefully) interesting ways
recreating a story like that might be a genuine accident, or it might be that the first version stuck with a part of your brain, or it might be that you're being hypercritical and seeing a bigger connection than anyone else sees
You could be drawing from something... or you might be drawing from what it drew from itself and unintentionally retreading the same path
Don't beat yourself up over it, that it's a surprise to you kinda indicates that you did it (if you actually did it) without intentional malice
there are
Only 3 story plot lines, everything we write is only a variation on those so it's inevitable that authors often end up writing clones. How many times do you see a rash of books/films with a similar theme released close to each other. And repeating the same plot over and over is typical of everything from Rockford to Dr Who - it's what the audience like after all. Now if you sat through Star Wars then penned Empire Battle with exactly the same characters and story line, well that would be plagiarism but you haven't done that, right?
I'm sure pretty much every author on BC has written something that with enough research you could say was the same or similar to someone else's book/film - let's face it how many jock to cheerleader or mistaken identity at work or hiding from thugs/ the law are on BC alone?
I once wrote several chapters of Gaby to find the exact scenario my story had was copied in RL the following day, no one had read my words but without any contact others came up with the same 'plot', almost to the letter!
Madeline Anafrid
Madeline Anafrid Bell
If...
two people can come up with the idea for the lightbulb [1] at the same time and in different places then pretty well everything is possible. The sad thing is that thinking outside the box and scriptwriters has become a thing of the past. There is so much formulaic bovine excrement coming out of US studios that it gets monotonously boring.
A similar argument can be made for a lot of the literature being churned out today. Far too many authors are playing it safe, middle of the road and yes formulaic. When very something different comes along then it often gets rejected as not being what the public wanted. I wonder how many publishers would reject Catch-22 if it was hawked around today?
We as writers have to make a decision. Do we go way out and dare to tread where others have feared to tread or do we be part of the herd? You choose...
Samantha
[1] Thomas Edison and Joseph Swann. Humphrey Davy and Warren de La Rue did a lot of the groundwork for them.
No worries
Everyone ends up incorporating familiar things, whether intentionally or not intentionally. Fan-fics, for instance is a perfect example. Many stories here, tv & movies & stories out there etc, have simularities. Like how many stories here alone are rather similar to a degree some could argue was a parody of anothers? Many especially here have the same context, which breeds simularities in anothers creativity. Roman mythology was a complete nock-off of greek mythology. Your a great writer, don't sell yourself short <3
With Love and Light, and Smiles so Bright!
Erin Amelia Fletcher