It's like you already said - there is no 100% original idea.

I'm currently messing around with a novel where a man moves to a new town, buys a small coffeeshop, and falls in love with a slightly eccentric professor.... oh and the man can see ghosts. There are countless stories of people who can see ghosts across so many genres and I'm sure there are similarities in what I'm writing to some of those stories.

It's not about how unique and original you can be. It's about how you take what sounds like a fun idea and make it your own. No one would write the same novel as me. You can give 100 people the same prompt and you'll get 100 very different stories. You just have to decide what sounds like the most fun to actually sit down and do

Read your favorite stories. Watch your favorite movies and tv shows. Go find a writing prompt. There's a million and one ways to get an idea, you just have to try a bunch until you find what works for you

(Edit - sorry for the double post! It said error the first time!)

ALL of my ideas are rehashes of my old idea albiet updated with my new skills. Really ideas just come from.. I read or watch something I like and I go.

"I wanna do that but with___"

And over time it meshes with my old ideas and I create something completely different.

In my opinion. Im not saying this to be mean. You seem to want to guided every step of the way. From outlining to actual character conception. That kinda makes the whole process slower and might sour you to the ideas you previously thought was good. Im a planner who outlines all to hell but I have my doubts occasionally with some part..Usually I just put in something I like from another piece of media as a place holder and it usually over time meshes and becomes its own thing due to new context.

IE
I use media I love to create things I want

Frequcny Overload started as more or less persona 4 middle school edition blended with my old high school idea for a comic. Character design and all.

Smoke and Murders was fanfiction of a fanfic of a danganRompa mixed with my old ideas for a parady of Otome game until it became something else.

This just happens on its own. Nothing really can help you except yourself

Let's change this to you should "stop worrying altogether" and just create. You gotta commit from where you are. I don't care how original or big it is. Right now, you're not sharing your voice (which is what I care about) or putting yourself out there (what inspiration cares about). Inspiration has nothing to offer, because you don't either. The world is waiting... life is not.

What @LCT_m_a_d just said.

Really. A friend of mine says her ideas are like planes circling LaGuardia, she just has to pluck one to use but....

It really isn't the ideas... it's the execution.

You can retell every story plot there is, but if you've got an exceptional way of telling it, no one will care.

Go for a basic story line (I won't use the word trope because its becoming its own trope) but go for a basic overused storyline and make the telling of the story 1000% different.

.

I like @LCT_m_a_d's comment. Stop worrying about "original" or "unique" and create something that makes you happy. If you are in love with your work, someone else will too. If you spend more time creating instead of worrying, you'll find inspiration all around you. One of Harvey Korman's (legendary comedian) trademark characters was a caricature of his Jewish mother. The show "Gravity Falls" was inspired by summers Alex Hirsch spent with his sister and grandpa. Trust yourself.

But taking that leap is the only way to reap the rewards. It took a lot of guts for me to start posting my work online. I had a lot of those same fears you're dealing with. As long as you try to be respectful and are adult enough to correct your mistakes if you hurt someone's feelings, you'll be fine. Even if you just write flash fiction or flash comics just for yourself, that's enough to start building yourself up to bigger and better ideas. You're not under any obligation to post stuff online until you are ready to.

You could try to "pants" a small project. For instance, find a prompt and just jump off of the first idea you get. No planning, just start making things up on the fly and getting words down. You don't have to post or share it with anyone, but it's a pretty great way to get your creative juices flowing again without judging yourself about what you make.

I like to look up vague story prompts and spiral from there. My current story that I'm super excited about spawned from the prompt "A thief finds a book by the river," found on Reedsy.

With that, I made a list of ideas that now have spawned my current story "A depressed artist finds a journal that writes back" I kept some aspects like finding a book but it's since spiraled into a story that's so close to my heart now.

No one can be completely original.

Best advice I can give is to brainstorm characteristics for the main characters/events.
And is okay to get inspiration from any source, as long as you don't plagiarize or do a "Butch Hartman".

Play with designs, colors, take inspiration from real life too, experiences you had, stuff you know or want to investigate about, make character sheets to give them more personality and make them feel different from already existing characters that might share some traits with them.

It will take time, but it works.

A really great teacher I had once told me "everything's been done before, but not by you" which is a quote I don't remember the original author of--but something I think about A LOT. I think there's a lot of pressure on us when we're young to be new and groundbreaking, but the older I get, the more I just want to make things I want to make, vs what everyone else expects me to make.

Learning what I want to make vs what everyone else expects of me has been a life-long discovery. It's not an overnight realization.

I remember seeing a post a while back that talked about reframing artist's block as a time to recharge that really hit home for me. That after a big creative outpouring it's important to just take some time to take stuff in for a while. So my recommendation would be that instead of forcing it take a week or two and don't think about it. Consume media outside of your comfort zone (I find documentaries in particular are really good at triggering creativity for me) and come back to it once it is no longer stressing you out.

I think it's way too early to try and come up with a new big idea so soon. You just dropped your big project and obviously it's still hurting you.

Perhaps...look into other things. Comics might be cool and all...but there's more to life than just that. By continuing to engage in this cycle, you're hurting yourself. That alone should be an indicator to keep taking a break.

Find a job you want to do, look for purpose in something else besides comics.

Am I saying stop drawing or creating characters? No I'm not. Keep drawing, but maybe stop trying to force a comic story out of the blue.

But it's ultimately up to you. You're only gonna get fractured opinions from the people who want to help.

Keep an idea file/book/notepad. Write down all the ideas you like (even the ones that do not work for your story).

Occasionally create something out your main story with those ideas. It stimulates creativity.

Big agree on this point! Luck is always a factor but it should, ideally, never be the factor as it's not actionable. There are a lot of other aspects that creators can and should be trying to "course correct" towards a higher success probability, for lack of a better word, between projects to give the next one even better odds

People have room in their hearts for more than one story (and often seek out more stories with similarities to their favorites) - it's not one project vs. others . Good luck!!

This The people on this site are our peers, not our competition

you need to know what you are doing.....it's your story. If you dont know, nobody else will. Instead of just adding things because "it worked for that author" figure WHY it worked under that specific situation. When you understand the reasoning behind storytelling you will be better at telling stories.

Any idea is a combination of sources of inspirations. Not all said combinations have been done, so mathematicaly speaking there is an endless world of posibilities.

And about sources.....ANYTHING can be a source.....yes ANYTHING.

i once got an idea for a monster for my game by watching some grapes and imagining them as eyes.

Great discussion and great ideas, thanks!

Oh yeah! I totally agree with your entire response. I pulled that line because I think the phrase "I can do it again" is sooooo important! I agreed with that part extra and wanted to expand on it because it's so key.

Edit: Honestly my life changed the second I realized I was going to go for it with all I've got on something I know isn't going to be a whopping success. But getting to that took years of being unsatisfied and fumbling around with trying safe things. I think the thing that makes it worthwhile and exciting for me is what you said about it making an impact for someone.

Ironically, i found new ideas by watching and reading old stuff.
To be clear, there's no thing like "Original" everything is inspired. Of course, there are the ripoffs, but those are the ones when you took too much elements from something.
So just see how things are made and try to incorporate to your narrative. after all, these days we have patterns that were created by old stuff as well. There are still elements they didn't recreated too much(or at all) yet. So give a try.

Research!

One thing I love to do is try to find a "bibliography" of fictional stories to consume, study, and then use to inspire myself for stories that I am working on or planning. Sometimes the stories aren't actually that related to what I'm working on, but the little things can catch my eye and give me ideas. On example is a bunch of movies I watched in order to help inspire me on my novel The Gay Gatsby: here's the Letterboxd list. Some of these movies are vastly different from one another, but they all inspired me in one way or another.

Research through inspirational fiction, or actual research on science/art/history/etc., can be a powerful tool.

find something you really hate and try to write a story about it in a way that you will like it
It's tough but if u can do it, the idea you come up with will be interesting cuz u have to make your brain work hard to make you like something that u hate

Agreed, look how many times Miss Marple is produced. Each production a little different, yet the same and it feels like your favorite fuzzy sweater on a cold winter's day and is so very satisfying.. Agatha Christie stories are "redone" in France and you have to hunt but at the end of the story you realize which story and which character it's from.

I find that driving and listening to lyrics of different music can inspire different ideas and stories in my mind. Sometimes when I hit a roadblock, I take a drive and listen to music for some inspiration.