Different to familiar cycle (sometimes known as "I came up with that!")

[WOSTR]

Surely we're all familiar with the phrase
"there's nothing new under the sun"

Has anyone worked hard on something only to find something else a little/very similar has just come out or has been about a while?

Has anyone built something up and not realised the similarities it holds to something they've enjoyed previously, that's shelved in their mind?

Does anybody just embrace inspiration when they see it?

I ask these questions as based on my own experiences.
When I was a lot younger, if something I was unfamiliar with happened to be similar to my work, I would start again, trying so hard to make something that would stand out as 'original', yet I found it impossible. There's constantly something, I came to this realisation when an excellent, very enthusiastic English literature teacher could instantly name an ancient story that held similarities to any story you could describe.

I've written characters, only to realise that they hold some or many similarities to know characters I like.
E.g. in my current work, the character sihana is a spirit, he's well respected, worshipped and has his own festival, yet his mood is only lifted when he gets to experience 'life' rushing about the place in a body, experiencing the senses. I can't tell you how many times I've watched 'Nightmare before Xmas, one of my favourite films since early childhood.
I embrace this as inspiration, along with a bunch of Tim Burton films, I've just realized a character is going on a journey based on her grandma's tall tales.

Lastly, I recently watched a documentary series called 'The Tiger King'. The Joe/Carol back and forth really perked my writing interest, they were rather similar to my two main characters, a sea monster and a land monster who share the same goal.
In Tiger King, there actions, pettiness and personalities (one seems a frazzled person who tries to hard whilst the other has everything look easy) same industry, their change in stance over the years and the rivalry looking one sided where it arguably isn't.
I embrace this as inspiration.

Long post over, my first topic, hope you made it to the end, understood my waffling and apologise.

There's a poll, if anything applies to you, know this is multiple choices as things often aren't straightforward.
How do you feel when you see something that's so much like something you worked hard on?
p.s. Typo in the poll (auto correct)

• I'm disappointing.
• I feel it'll benefit me.
• Just a coincidence.
• I don't mind.
• It's nice to find something right up my street.
• I hadn't realised I may have been inspired by it in the first place.
• I was inspired by something else (maybe what's in question) in the first place.

Vote now!Show results

[WOSTR]

Mine, what I spoke of a few times in the post

Seaing Beeing | Tapas

[joannekwan]

If it's an IP that I haven't ever heard of or I know very little about, then I just brush off any similar details as coincidence. It's like convergent evolution: both birds and bats have evolved to fly, but they evolved independently of each other.

Though there was a case where I didn't realize a piece of media influenced the relationship between two of my characters. It wasn't until I rewatched Kill la Kill that I noticed how much Ryuko and Senketsu's dynamic informed what I wrote for Patience and Anax in my webnovel Secunda. Guess I liked the series so much it fed into my subconscious!

[AWFrasier]

Having similar work to something else can actually work in your benefit! They can be what is called comp-titles or "comparable titles" which can be great for pitching your work to publishers (also often required) or serialisation platforms, like Tapas!

Tropes are beloved. Plots are redone and reused all the time. A lot of people actually like things that are like other things. Like dance films? Pretty much all of them follow the same structure. Protag has to achieve something, which can only be achieved through dance (usually they need to win a contest for the prize money or they need to get into that prestigious school) They meet a love interest from a different economical or social class than them, they learn new dance moves and wooptidue you've got Step Up, Save the Last Dance and that new Netflix dance film I can't remember the title of.

So, for me, I don't mind if my work is similar to something else. Especially not if that thing happened to be super popular. It might mean I and the other creator have a cross-over audience. (Of course none of this applies to straight-up rip-offs)

[WOSTR]

@AWFrasier I've likely spent days of my life on TVtropes.
Back in the day I use to be petrified of cliches being present in my work or someone telling me I ripped off something I'd not heard of, or listing a bibliography then being threatened with a lawsuit.
I swear that writing course I took as a teen damaged me.

[MoseyP]

This is really interesting. I remember when was a teenager, I would hate it if the novel I was writing was too similar to another one. It would put me off reading for ages. Nowadays, it doesn't bother me too much if my story is similar to another.

It's like what AWFraiser said above - people love to read stories involving tropes they love.

[AWFrasier]

Oh yeah, I used to the same - until I started actually looking into how books are sold. It's often "Hunger Games meets Pride and Prejudice!" or something like that. And when you read it, you can see how the work was inspired by both and are actually a mash-up. And if I was a person who enjoyed both, there's a bigger chance of me picking this one up too, simply because those titles were dropped in the marketing.

Not to mention, I've noticed with my readers they do really enjoy dropping comments about this or that reminding them of this or that work. (Which also makes my own pitches much easier because now my readers have said what the work reminds them of and I can use it for comp-titles )

So, my advice is: Own it. Own the similarities and use them for your marketing and promo.

[WOSTR]

Now, if someone compared one of my works to something they enjoyed, I would be happy.

I remember watching Hunger Games and thinking 'this is so much like Battle Royal and this goosebumps book I read as a child', I saw plenty of Battle Royal comparisons online.

When watching a film it's really apparent that it's a business with a target audience in mind and a bit of many alleged outside things thrown in to reach more people, they constantly deviate from source material in order to be more 'viewer friendly'.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Actually having something to compare your work to can be nice, in terms of marketing and for the series' development itself.

One of my struggle with my own is thinking what is it similar with, and try to set my own standard up to it.

[AWFrasier]

@uselessgoddess Oh never compare your work to other's if it doesn't inspire you to improve your craft and it bums you out. It's not the same because you wrote/created it. That doesn't make it worse, it just makes it different.

There is nothing wrong with high standards, but the most important thing when doing anything creatively is having fun. Also, if we're talking novels, all traditionally published novels have gone through vigorous editing with a professional editor. What we end up seeing, has been in the works with a team and not one single author. That's not to take away from the author's craft, but my point is, they don't do it alone.

If we're talking comics - same thing. Traditionally published comics often don't even have one person doing the writing and the art. Or even the line-art, the shading and the panelling.

Please keep those things in mind, when you're comparing. Especially if you're a novelist and working on your first draft. The vast majority of first drafts aren't what we end up reading. (Lmao more like fourth or fifth)

[MEGAMAMMU]

There's always something similar in all stories, its about and made by humans after all. I try my best to make something unique tho, usually by combining traits/inspiring from different sources. Like a fusion of two or more characters, or a world/setting inspired by multiple ideas. Similarity doesn't detract from our work, if anything it shows that your idea can be done, and done well, and succeed. So keep creating!

[WOSTR]

There's a popular recent anime called 'My Hero Academia' that executes this quite well. On top of clear homages to well known comics/films such as Alien and Deadpool, it embraces common 'types' and expands on them. We have a nice, underdog main character type who is literally the chosen one as, cherry picked by a famous hero to be the understudy. We have the typical formal, glasses wearing class president who's robotic/wooden in his gestures yet he's also the big athlete kid. We have an abrasive class bully who's also smart, doesn't underestimate anyone and is a leading character the author actually invests in.

[Freemints30]

I have learnt there is nothing wrong with that, your work just has to be good. Like I had a friend of mine compared my comic to gravity falls but I know I haven't seen that show so I just brushed it off. I also had the quirky tone compared to earthbound, and style to 90's and early 20's cartoons. This is something I embraced because those are admittedly my inspiration and there's no harm in something like that, because those aforementioned things had theirs own inspirations to something from the past as well.

Really when it comes to specific things similar like Adam and his hat has is very similar to another work, that only now looking back on it I realize, Wait a minuet....I just pulled that from x(to avoid spoilers). Yeah snuck into my subconcious.