How much inspiration is it okay to take from other works?

This sounds all right to me. I have two suggestions. First, make sure you don't have too many superficial similarities to the Jedi. For example, it would be a bad idea to have the swords glow. You might also want to use words different than "force" and "knights." Second, give your own warriors one or two substantial features that are very different from the Jedi. Maybe how they're recruited, maybe how they fight, maybe how they govern themselves--I'm sure you can think of something. People may still recognize your inspiration, but they won't mind so much if they can see you're capable of adding your own original ideas.

Sometimes I love an idea (of someone else's) so much I want to steal it outright. I played with that when I was young, thought I was being all crafty and slick... and was outed every time. Now, though this rarely happens, if and when it does, I'll instead just sit on it a bit and let it germinate. Never usually takes that long for it to evolve or just completely grow into something else entirely. Some of my best ideas were born of others' stuff, but after decades of practice and a sort of zen approach to creating, its rarely if ever noticed. I used to fight 'losing' or changing the concept I loved so much, but now I just let shit happen and every time it evolves into something utterly different, and in my opinion, better.

On the other hand, 'Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.'

Now, there probably isn't a person in the civilized world that doesn't know what a Jedi is, so maybe not a great idea in this case. But in music at least, I cant remember how many amazing songs I've come across that were outright ripped in part from other bands. Thing is, their version is so superior I (and most others) forget about the original artist entirely. How many times have you heard 'Yeah, they totally stole that...' and then 'Yeah, but the original sucked... so who cares?' Just dont get too close I guess...

Inspiration should never mean copying. I love the idea of the Jedi, too, but someone already created those characters, and made them famous. If readers can look at your character and see a Jedi with a couple of parts missing, you've gone too far.

To make it work as it should, your character needs to be better than a Jedi, needs to be very different in some way, and needs to be original. "Inspired by" should never mean so close that readers see a Jedi when they look at your character.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and can only echo the sentiments of everyone else. I found this to be quite a good explanation.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...rism intertextuality too intertextual&f=false

I have something similar going on in my book. The "Jedi" element are Shard Knights and the "Force" is generated through crystals that interact with the body's natural life force/consciousness.

From how you described it, you are in the clear. A lot of works, written or otherwise, have elements from other stories. The key is to take it and make it "efreysson's"!

I think you're absolutely fine - it's not like they're in space or anything.

Read Dune then read Wheel of Time. If you don't notice that the Aes Sedai are Bene Gesserit and the Aiel are Fremen then you're asleep, but it certainly didn't do Jordan any harm. Then read Brent Weeks and see Jordan's stuff re-expied all over again. Sure people will point it out, but it certainly doesn't seem to hurt.

PeteMC said:

I think you're absolutely fine - it's not like they're in space or anything.

Read Dune then read Wheel of Time. If you don't notice that the Aes Sedai are Bene Gesserit and the Aiel are Fremen then you're asleep, but it certainly didn't do Jordan any harm. Then read Brent Weeks and see Jordan's stuff re-expied all over again. Sure people will point it out, but it certainly doesn't seem to hurt.

Click to expand...

I guess I'm asleep because I see very few similarities. But it's not about whether it hurts. If that's your guideline, just drop the word "creative", and stick to writing. Too many do copy, and, no, it doesn't usually harm sales, but it it's still just copying, and it's still being anything but a good writer.

Oh come on, how many original ideas are there left? It's what you do *with* the ideas that makes it creative, surely?

Remember Jedi are not original in that there have been previous stories of samurai with mystical powers. It is pretty easy to find a Hong Kong movie from the 50s or 60s that show this. Also George Lucas completely copied specific scenes from other movies to use in Star Wars. In particular the scene when the millennium falcon escapes from the death star in a dog fight with a few tie-fighters. The unique part is the combination of things together and placing it all in space. Borrow what you want and give things a unique twist. Yesterday my wife was watching the movie Warm Bodies, which is only Romeo and Juliette with zombies. Neither are original separate, but together it's new.

One of the things that stuck with me from my university days was from one of my favorite professor's lecture in a literature class. "There is nothing new under the sun," she said with a rap of the fist on the podium. She was basically telling us that we're all copying someone to some extent and that we should not worry about it.

My MC in my WIP is a counter-intelligence operative encountering over-the-top villains in snowy European locales. I have no problem saying my WIP is directly influenced by the likes of Ian Fleming and Hammond Innes.

I agree with all of the responses so far. As long as you can put a relatively new spin on the characters and don't make the light sabers glow, I say forge ahead . . .

Ever hear the saying "Everything that is worth writing about has already been done"? (Or something like that). It's kinda true...just about everything has been done before. The real question is, how unique is YOUR spin on the subject matter?

I struggle with this as well. As i'm writing the overall story for my book, I realize that I am (subconsciously) taking ideas from other sources. I can tell I've been inspired by certain stories/books based on what I am coming up with. I sit back and think to myself how I should not do this or that because it's too similar. In reality though, the author that I *am* taking ideas from in-turn took *their* ideas from another source as well.

I guess my point is...everyone borrows from everybody, and we cannot be too worried about getting caught up in it. Naturally, you can't completely rip off anothers story (like light sabers), but you can create similar items.

Everything has been done, but you also don't want to write what are basically reskinned Jedis.

The concept of Jedis isn't really unique - warriors with mystical powers have been around for a long time. Go with that as your base. But now, what's going to make them uniquely yours? If it's something like France, and you have a religion similar to Christianity, how would that alter their behaviour and powers? Do prayer and celibacy matter to them? What if they're more European pagan? Do they get their life powers from standing stones?

There's a lot of fun things you can do that will make your characters more than "Jedis in all but name".

Just please, no midichlorians.

Take all the inspiration you want. Unless you're just outright cookie-cuttering a story for the express purpose of gaining money and/or recognition on someone else's work, it's unlikely to cross moral lines or hurt your writing success.

On the other hand, be careful what you perpetuate, especially when the stuff you're inspired by is from an earlier time or a less accessible place. The more mindful you are of diversity, the better your work will do among readers, and the less it will be compared to the original in an unflattering light.

For example, the degree of sexism and racial stereotyping present in the James Bond novels and movies means that if someone just tells me they're writing something a lot like that, I'll probably pass over that work for something less likely to make me feel left out of the boys' club. Conversely, if they tell me it's a lot like James Bond except the main character is a trans man who hides spy gear in his binder, I'm gonna be like "I LOVE YOU NOW JUST TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY".

Preserve the stories you love... Update them... Reclaim them.

I'm going to have to disagree with some others that changing details like the space setting and glowing swords is enough, especially with something as well-known as Jedi. I made the same mistake when I was newer to writing, thinking I could take inspiration from something I loved and change enough details to make it "original", and people saw through it every time. I realize now that I was unintentionally copying additional elements from the source of inspiration, like tone and specific tropes, because the source was so much in the front of my mind. In short, as long as you're thinking of your characters as Jedi with the serial numbers filed off, they're going to read like Jedi with the serial numbers filed off.

Now, eight years later, I'm completely reworking that series which was too similar to its source. The first thing I did was identify the one thing that made me love the inspiration source so much in the first place. For me, it was the utter rejection of authority which pirates (at least in fiction) represent. Once I understood that, it was easy to see other ways the basic theme could be expanded on, most of which have nothing to do with piracy. There's probably some specific theme like that which has attracted you to the Jedi too, and once you identify it, letting go of the Jedi aspects which don't actually matter to you so much will be a lot easier, as well as finding ways to expand the concept. You may still have knights running around (I still have some pirates) but you'll be thinking of them as knights who embody X concept, instead of as Jedi.

The last thing is that it's important to take inspiration from more than one source. It's absolutely true that there's nothing new under the sun. Every individual concept, trope, and event has been used before. Where originality happens is in how you combine all these elements. I look at it being like mixing paints. You can create any color by starting with the three primary colors plus black and white simply by mixing them differently, but if you only start with one color, you're stuck reproducing that single color in different shapes, and even a couple of starting colors still limit your options. So find a bunch of things you love other than Star Wars and find inspiration in them as well.

Of course, there have been some very successful stories which were pure rip-offs of other works, so if you want to take that route, be my guest. I think you'll be more satisfied with your end product if you put a higher level of thought into it all, though.

My second novel is heavily inspired by the likes of Torchwood and Men In Black. Basically, it started out as a Torchwood fan-fiction. Then I asked myself some pretty serious questions about why I wanted to write, what my goals were, etc., and I realized that I didn't want to languish forever as an anonymous fic-writer. I wanted to get published, and that meant creating something original. Granted, there's nothing new under the sun--as others have mentioned, everything we write is inspired by something else, which in turn was inspired by something else. The key is to give it your own unique spin. To make it undeniably yours.

I took my Torchwood fic and completely rewrote it, altering every identifiable detail that I could change without losing the essence of the story. I wove in new storylines, rearranging the plot. I changed the characters, giving them their own personalities and histories. I did everything I could to make the novel MINE, rather than a Torchwood spinoff. A few details were vital to the story, but I adjusted them to be more reminiscent of MIB, rather than Torchwood.

Is it possible someone will point at my novel and say, "She likes Torchwood!"? Sure, it's possible. Will anyone be able to say that I ripped off Torchwood's characters, settings, or themes? Not likely! I think I did a good enough job of making it my own.

So, as others have mentioned, you need to strip down your idea, removing everything that makes your characters identifiable as Jedi Knights. Figure out what the important "core" is, the one thing that you identify with, the one detail that makes you want to use Jedi Knights as your inspiration. Then purge everything but that concept. Add new details back on, building the characters back up. Maybe take inspiration from a few other sources, so your characters will be an amalgamation of various other characters.

Mixing and matching is the key. We all take inspiration from those who've gone before us, but it's how we mix those inspirational details that makes our own work unique. Maybe your knights have a hidden source of power, like the Holy Grail that Indiana Jones found. (And that way, you'd have a link to Star Wars, at least in a roundabout way, via Harrison Ford. Like a hidden Easter egg!) Maybe they live in the catacombs beneath Paris, rather than in enormous temples, like the Jedi had on Coruscant. Maybe. . . .

Ask yourself "What if. . . ?"

And when you're done, you can be proud of yourself, since you won't have to worry about your characters being stolen or knock-offs. You'll know without a doubt that they're unique and special.

Be honest with yourself. Are you taking the idea because you see how you can put your own spin of it or are you copying it just because you like it? If it's the latter, tweaking is unlikely to disguise it.

Two classic novels immediately come to mind for this topic: Wide Sargasso Sea and Rebecca. Wide Sargasso Sea takes the character of Bertha Rochester from Jane Eyre and puts the sympathy onto her; it's inspired by Jane Eyre but motivated by a desire to put her own spin on it. Rebecca is much more similar but it goes farther with the moral ambiguity of the Rochester figure and there's no tragic background for the Jane figure. It's very like Jane Eyre but it has its own feel to it.

You can take a lot of inspiration from other works and with your own ideas make it different. Or like me you could take a lot of inspiration from your own ideas or items that you have. The fact that I have a rubiks cube is what inspired me to write Rubiks World. In the same way an idea about being on an earth-like planet is what inspired me to write a series of novels that I call New Earth.