Ever discover that another writer had your idea first?

KCathy · Apr 11, 2007

A couple of months after starting work on my book proposal, I found the same idea in almost the same words...in a book description at Amazon. (It was due to come out a month later, which explained why I hadn't seen it when doing my preliminary research.) Luckily my book incorporated a significant element that this book didn't, so I felt that it enhanced my Competition section instead of cornering my potential market.

I've also sent out a magazine article query in the past, only to get a copy of the same magazine later that week with almost the exact same article I was proposing. It's just creepy.

I assume this happens with fiction, too, since a friend of mine wrote a short story about keeping humans in pods, playing virtual RPG's while computers used them as organic batteries. This was a couple of years before The Matrix came out.

So, want to share examples of this happening to you? Did you find it discouraging ("That was the best idea I've ever had and now I can't use it!") or encouraging ("I'm obviously on the right wavelength if a publisher liked an idea just like mine; on to something else!")?

giftedrhonda · Apr 11, 2007

Absolutely it happens. They say ideas float out there, waiting to be grabbed...so it makes sense that multiple people would grab at the same idea.

lfraser · Apr 11, 2007

Oh, sure. I read a lot, and every now and then I'll see a theme in my WIP come up in another novel.

In a way, I find that encouraging, because I'm obviously picking up on some of the deeper themes that run through the genre (fantasy) without being conscious that I'm doing it.

It's also discouraging as hell, because writers like Sherri Tepper are just so darned good, and I'm so darned mediocre. Comparing their treatment of a theme with my treatment of it is like comparing apples to sour old cheese stored in somebody's dirty sock for a month.

Aprylwriter · Apr 11, 2007

Sure, that's happened to me, too. I wrote a novel about a girl with psychic abilities, and there are some novels already out there with the same general idea even though I didn't know about those books until after I wrote the novel. There are six billion people in the world, & some of them like to write and want to be published authors. However, no matter who you are or where you're from, you still have your own uniquness, your own voice, to contribute to the literary world.

Here's a good example: a few months ago, I entered a contest where you had to write a story based on a picture posted on a web site. To me, the picture looked like an angel with a sunset behind it. I wrote the story, sent it in. A few days later, all the contest entries were posted on the web site.

Many of the writers came to the conclusion that the picture was about an angel, & wrote something about angels or the supernatural, even though the contestants never spoke to each other. Each story was different, and had its own uniqueness, even if the subject matter was still the same.

I hope I'm making some sense LOL.

Apryl

P.S.-By the way, I won third place in the contest.

Tachyon · Apr 11, 2007

Wait, you mean, there are original ideas?! What? :e2faint:

When did this happen?

Human literature has been around for such a long time that most stories are unoriginal if you look at them in a certain light. The reason that pieces of literature remain prominent years--even centuries--after publication is because the themes are universal; they still apply even today. Why do they keep on remaking movies?

I know that the original incarnation of my novel turned out to have similar aspects to The Matrix in the sense that the majority of the plot would take place in a "dream world" created in a person's mind, etc. But eventually I drifted away from that concept as I actually started writing it and it turned out quite differently. Now it's coming to resemble Dune in some ways with the protagonist's conflicts and the scope of the politics--Dune certainly influenced, and continues to influence, how I write, just because I consider it such a darn good book.

Birol · Apr 11, 2007

I've had that happen with magazine queries. I've received responses that stated basically, "Great ideas. Other writers are already working on similar things for us."

I know fiction writers have the whole "there are no new ideas" axiom. Does that apply to other types of writing, too?

Shadow_Ferret · Apr 11, 2007

KCathy said:
A couple of months after starting work on my book proposal, I found the same idea in almost the same words...in a book description at Amazon. (It was due to come out a month later, which explained why I hadn't seen it when doing my preliminary research.)

Huh? You research your ideas before you write them?

Are you talking non-fiction? Because I don't do preliminary research on my fiction. At least I don't look up... what exactly were you looking up that you found an "idea?"

I guess I'm really confused here.

maestrowork · Apr 11, 2007

I think it happens all the time -- sometimes it's just bad timing. With fiction, at least you can sell your own variation and uniqueness. With nonfiction, especially in a niche market, sometimes you do feel like you're running out of ideas. How many "single mom with a career" article can a women's magazine take? Or "how to write a query" for a writers' magazine? So it will either have to a very personal piece or something that is really "different."

LloydBrown · Apr 11, 2007

It's happened to me often.

On the other hand, sometimes it works in my favor. I've had an article printed in a magazine only to see a competing magazine run an article on the same topic the next month. In a side-by-side comparison, I think my article beat the pants off the other one. In addition to being first, I did it better.

It felt good to see it happen the other way around.

KCathy · Apr 11, 2007

Shadow_Ferret said:
Are you talking non-fiction?

Yes.

Shadow_Ferret said:
I guess I'm really confused here.

Sorry; I thought it would be apparent from the fact that I was discussing a proposal and then mentioned that these coincidences seemed to happen in "fiction, too."

NTG · Apr 12, 2007

Ever discover that another writer had your idea first?

Not yet, but I think I invented cable radio (and, by implication, television) about 35 years ago in a short story that I never submitted for publication. Too bad I didn't get a patent on the idea before they actually starting burying the cables.

jnesvold · Apr 12, 2007

When I was in junior high, I poured my heart and soul into creating a bunch of superheroes and villains only to find them less than a year later, some virtually identical down to costume design and color, making their debuts in my local comic book shop.

Rich · Apr 12, 2007

The value of a "writing" idea is only as good as the writer. If you sling a few words together that works well and fits on a T shirt, the idea has more value than the writing. If you go beyond the number of words that the T shirt expresses, the value is more in the writing than the idea.

xanthalanari · Apr 12, 2007

I've had it happen to me. I came up with the idea of getting a prisoner released early to crew a spaceship about three years before Star Trek: Voyager ever aired. I've also found a lot of names I'm using cropping up in new books or published books I haven't read yet.

My mum invented Crispy Pancakes before Bird's Eye (or whoever) started making them.

The person I feel sorry for is the one who also invented Harry Potter.

JPLangsdorf · Apr 12, 2007

Insert talk over no new ideas, everything stemming from somewhere, etc etc right here.

That said, I've often thought there's some kind of mysterious, paranormal influence on people that makes similar ideas roll around at the same damn moment. Or maybe that's just my imagination, but it seems like a particular concept or plotline will roll in from about 4 or 5 different places at once. It's bizarre.

Parkinsonsd · Apr 12, 2007

Yes! i have a YA novel outlined sitting on my computer and I suspect its just going to sit there because it is about Dragon Riders and it was written before I even heard of the other. Good story too.

zahra · Apr 12, 2007

Gosh, yes. I sometimes look at my 'ideas' file and panic like hell in case someone else gets the same ones out there while I'm doing something else. One particular idea IS so damn particular, and other films have come out which skate so near it, I'm holding my breath.

NTG · Apr 12, 2007

xanthalanari said:
The person I feel sorry for is the one who also invented Harry Potter.

Oo! Oo! I know who that is! I can show you!

Go rent a copy of It's a Wonderful Life. Watch carefully when Old Man Potter, the evil banker, is discussing things at his office. Study the signs on the doors. One of them belongs to his nephew or son.
Harry.

Who knew?

Legionsynch · Apr 17, 2007

I started a novel in high school - I wanted to do a series of books, murder mysteries, that started with one specific class of students, and throughout the course of the year, someone started killing them off, for some particular agenda.

And as I went out to lunch with my best friend, we stopped into Borders and I saw the first book in a series about high school seniors by RL Stine.

RTH · Apr 18, 2007

Stephen King ended his Dark Tower series (not the epilogue) with pretty much the exact same sentence I used to end my last novel.

I had penned the last sentence of the 1st draft, then two weeks later went out to buy the newly released King book.

I was very happy about my purchase until I got to the last page.

But in the end I completely rewrote the last part of the novel for other reasons, so it turned out to be a non-issue....

WerenCole · Apr 18, 2007

Ever discover another writer had my idea?

All the time. It is like the Jungian collective consciousness and I do not think it just applies to creative ideas. Scientific exploration, social and psychological thought. Yeah. The whole big wheel or interconnectednes or some wacky tacky stuff.

Yeah. That is why I write really strange things in mis-matched languages that often have Bridget the Midget as my main character. Rock on Bridget!

Novelust · Apr 18, 2007

I told a friend of mine that I was writing about a psychic who works in a diner. Urban fantasy, set in the South (USA).

My friend said, "What, like the Southern Vampire books?"

I ran out on my lunch break, bought the first in the series, and bit my nails until I read a few chapters into the book - mine is set in Atlanta, is seriously light on vampires (though they are mentioned), my character is clairvoyant (no mind-reading, just future-seeing), and there isn't much of a romantic subplot.

Then I told the basic idea to someone else. They said, "What, like the 'Odd Thomas' series?"

*headdesk*

C.bronco · Apr 18, 2007

When I saw the movie Fallen I wanted to kick myself for not trying to do anything with a short story I wrote in college which had the same premise. I don't worry anymore. I know my novel has enough of me and my perspective in it to make it unlike other books with which it might be compared. But if anyone had my same plot I'd be very upset.

thethinker42 · Apr 18, 2007

YES. I wrote a story in 8th grade, and about 3 months later, "Species" came out in theatres.

I said a LOT of bad words that day...

blacbird · Apr 18, 2007

Damn that Herman Melville and his stupid whale, anyway. If not for him . . .

caw

Ever discover that another writer had your idea first?

KCathy

Writer when I grow up

giftedrhonda

Gifted Goofball

lfraser

Bored and Frantic

Aprylwriter

i am dragon. roar.

Tachyon

Birol

Around and About

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

LloydBrown

KCathy

Writer when I grow up

NTG

jnesvold

Rich

xanthalanari

JPLangsdorf

Parkinsonsd

zahra

Was Zahra; lost profile - REBORN!

NTG

Legionsynch

RTH

Call me Ishmael

WerenCole

Funny what? Do I amuse you?

Novelust

*Does not molest books.

C.bronco

I have plans...

thethinker42

Abnormal Romance Author

blacbird