Let’s talk about that cringy moment when you are watching a movie or reading a book and an big idea you had for one of your stories shows up. Ugggghhhh… I had thought of that already! In fact, I was writing a story about this well before I ever saw this. But now? People are going to think I stole the idea from this other story.

This is a classic problem. It goes hand in hand with the belief that there are no original ideas to be had. And to some extent the old adage that “there’s nothing new under the sun” is true. This doesn’t mean that your idea won’t be unique, though! Think of how popular Eragon was, even though it was just fantasy Star Wars: A New Hope, or how Avatar is just Dances with Wolves in space. Hell, even Taken is just a gritty, adult version of Finding Nemo!

In my English classes, I often use the Hero’s Journey as a way to analyze literature, and this is only one example of how stories can repeat again and again but still feel entirely unique. The Hunger Games doesn’t feel like Harry Potter, which certainly doesn’t feel like the Hobbit, even though they all follow the Hero’s Journey pretty tightly.

There are so many similarities with stories because stories are a phenomenon of human nature, something we all share, despite how unique our experiences are. We experience ups and downs, challenges and victories, and a lot of it aligns with other stories.

But maybe it isn’t the plot, maybe it’s the premise that someone else had first. For instance, a brooding, handsome figure who uses dark magic and romantically mentors a young woman with light magic sounds like Shadow and Bone, right? Well, it is also in the Soul Child, which I started writing well before I even heard of the book/TV show.

Tropes become tropes for a reason because people keep writing them over and over again. Enemies to lovers has been a premise in so many book and I still love reading and writing about it. And people seem to be OBSESSED with young girls fallen in love with fae men lately. So whether it is plot or premise that someone else has written a story about, don’t think you can’t write it, too.

You are your own unique person and writer, so you will write a story unique to yourself, even if in a summary it might sound just like this other thing. The only thing you have to worry about is if its word for word the same because, well then. that’s just plagerism, which is typically frowned upon in our society.