Hi everyone. I have just reached the 60,000 word count on my WIP (reaching for 120,000) and I am wondering if I have accidentally stole the idea from the keys to the kingdom series. I mean the characters, plot/scenes, personalities, structure, dialog, narrative style are different but I think the basic idea is the same. I know you can't “copyright an idea” but it still seems like it could be classified as stealing rather than being inspired by the work, even though I know for a fact I never heard of the KTTK series or read any of the books.
Basically, both my book and his books main idea is fighting physical forms of the seven sins and collecting an item from them. The basic premise, fighting henchmen to collect mystic items needed to fight the ultimate evil bad guy, is fairly standard fantasy stuff and in my book I also add fighting against physical forms of the seven virtues. The names, personalities (though influenced by the sin) physical design/species and locations of the physical forms of the sins are still completely different, but it still is what it is. I found out about his series just as I had finished the sins half from looking on wikipedia and I am at a lost for words, literally. I haven't written anything in the book for a week. This is the first writing of this magnitude I have attempted and I feel heartbroken that I may have to scrape everything I have wrote. I can't really change the whole sin/virtue theme because it ruins the main goal of my story.
Now my work is entirely humor based, so I think I could call it a parody. I don't have a problem mentioning his book series as an accidental influence at all, in fact it is kind of a funny situation though I don't think I could look back at it in ten years and laugh about it. If I was to do that, do you need the author/publishers permission to write a parody? I also heard it has to resemble the plot pretty similarly, like bored of the rings, and I still think there are still so many differences between our two stories. I really, really, really don't want to just scrape the book and consider it “a learning experience” but I don't want to get sued either. And I swear to god it was an accident. I know what books I have read in my life. At the most I would have seen it's cover at a bookstore while looking for something to read. Any feedback is appreciated as long as I'm not called a thieving hack. I do also plan to still post here instead of leaving once my question is answered, but I really can't stop thinking about this. Thanks for looking and sorry if this is in the wrong section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_Kingdom his thing
Basically, both my book and his books main idea is fighting physical forms of the seven sins and collecting an item from them. The basic premise, fighting henchmen to collect mystic items needed to fight the ultimate evil bad guy, is fairly standard fantasy stuff and in my book I also add fighting against physical forms of the seven virtues. The names, personalities (though influenced by the sin) physical design/species and locations of the physical forms of the sins are still completely different, but it still is what it is. I found out about his series just as I had finished the sins half from looking on wikipedia and I am at a lost for words, literally. I haven't written anything in the book for a week. This is the first writing of this magnitude I have attempted and I feel heartbroken that I may have to scrape everything I have wrote. I can't really change the whole sin/virtue theme because it ruins the main goal of my story.
Now my work is entirely humor based, so I think I could call it a parody. I don't have a problem mentioning his book series as an accidental influence at all, in fact it is kind of a funny situation though I don't think I could look back at it in ten years and laugh about it. If I was to do that, do you need the author/publishers permission to write a parody? I also heard it has to resemble the plot pretty similarly, like bored of the rings, and I still think there are still so many differences between our two stories. I really, really, really don't want to just scrape the book and consider it “a learning experience” but I don't want to get sued either. And I swear to god it was an accident. I know what books I have read in my life. At the most I would have seen it's cover at a bookstore while looking for something to read. Any feedback is appreciated as long as I'm not called a thieving hack. I do also plan to still post here instead of leaving once my question is answered, but I really can't stop thinking about this. Thanks for looking and sorry if this is in the wrong section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_Kingdom his thing
