The Simpsons Already Did It

Yzabel / January 19, 2006

I know that what matters is the execution, not only the basis idea, but isn’t it very frustrating when you’ve come up with an idea, either for a novel or a short story, only to realize, a few days, weeks or even months later, that someone already worked along the same theme in a book or a movie you weren’t aware of?

Sure, it won’t prevent me from writing, it won’t make me give up my story if I believe in it (and if I didn’t believe in my own stories, wouldn’t this be sad?), but it keeps on irking me, to know that ‘someone else thought of it before I did’.

Fate has a twisted sense of irony.

FILED UNDER : Writing & Stories

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Comments

  • Fredcq

    Most ideas have been done already. You just have to bring your own twist to it.Was the South Park reference intentional?

  • Benjamin Solah

    I’ve got this feeling too. And sometimes there is a fear that you might be writing this story for nothing, because it already exists. ugh!

  • Yzabel

    Fredcq: Yes, it was 😉

  • Yzabel

    Benjamin: That, too. Of course, our own versions of an existing theme always have the potential to be good/better than something else (else we wouldn’t even try to do anything, since legends of old have already told everything there is to tell anyway), but I know that kind of fear. It remains here nonetheless.

  • Karen Lee Field

    Ten people can start out with the same basic idea, but the ten novels will all be quite different in the reading.This was proved at a workshop I went to. The same idea was twisted in so many ways, that I was astonished. And…they all sounded great!I no longer worry about my story being exactly the same as someone else’s.

  • fredcq

    It depends on what you mean by having the same idea as someone else.Example:Are you writing a story about a writer who goes to a secluded place to finish his/her novel and it turns out to be haunted. This idea has been the subject of numerous works of fiction.orAre you writing a novel about a writer who takes his family to an empty hotel to finish his novel. His son has psychic powers and the place is haunted.If you are doing the first story, then it would be okay. If you are writing the second then you had better have a good lawyer. The difference lies in the details.

  • melly

    “I know that what matters is the execution” – people keep telling me that, but it doesn’t help the feeling. We want to be original and we hardly can anymore.I hear you loud and clear.

  • Yzabel

    Karen — That must have been a very interesting exercise/experiment in writing. It looks like there’s likely less to worry about than it appears.

  • Yzabel

    Fredcq — Wow, that was freaky, your comment gave me such a feeling of déjà-vu that for a minute, I thought it had already been posted here 😀

  • Yzabel

    Melly — Yep, it doesn’t help the feeling. I guess we just need to suck it up? 😀

  • Fredcq

    I am not sure if you are kidding or not about the Deja Vu. Did someone already post something similar to what I wrote?

  • Chris H

    Originality. The drive of the creative spirit. We all want to come up with a totally original idea. Or even just an original twist on an old theme.

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