What To Do When Part of Your Book Resembles Something Already Written?

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Originally Posted by cacian

About the Bible Adolescent you do make a good point. The bible could not or never be original because what is written it is taken from real life event according to the bible. In effect if one transfers reality into a book then it could not be original. It is just a diary of a sequence of events that happened. Originall means there no like it in real life. Ie for something to be original it has to be entirely different to life that nothing in the story has a tiny weeny reflection of reality. That is an impossible task to achieve but yeah that is my interpretation of original.

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So you interpret original as something that doesn't resemble anything in reality? That seems a rather unhandy definition though. Since it's literally impossible. Just from a pragmatic point of view, isn't it kind of a worthless definition? If nothing has or can ever have the properties of what you're defining, isn't it useless? Plus depending on how far you're willing to take the idea of not reflecting anything in reality (simply not reflecting any real world events, or not reflecting events and not reflecting human psychology, or not even reflecting physical laws, etc.) would it even be desirable? Isn't the whole point of writing a story, aside from things like entertainment value, that it reflects things that exist, existed or could exist? I mean the whole reason for writing books is really just an examination of reality and what it means to be human. If a book has no basis in reality, then it can't say anything about reality, so then it can't have anything useful to say.

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Originally Posted by OneOnOne1162

Yeah, I realise that. But this isn't so much about any fear I have of lawsuits or copyright issues, but rather about me not wanting to write a story that's already been written or for it to seem as if I stole their stuff (just seem like to "the public", not necessarily anything involving lawsuits or anything).

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Your question regarding that aspect has already been answered very appropriately by Hillwalker as well as Hawkman. You are misreading, still stubbornly putting your focus on the same old song with which you started. The main idea here is not avoiding the lawsuits. The main idea is that you have nothing to worry about being a thief of ideas. The lawsuits would be consequences of that thiefing if it were possible to genuinely steal. But it is impossible. So why would you care about the gossip of idiocy.

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Originally Posted by OneOnOne1162

So you interpret original as something that doesn't resemble anything in reality? That seems a rather unhandy definition though. Since it's literally impossible. Just from a pragmatic point of view, isn't it kind of a worthless definition? If nothing has or can ever have the properties of what you're defining, isn't it useless? Plus depending on how far you're willing to take the idea of not reflecting anything in reality (simply not reflecting any real world events, or not reflecting events and not reflecting human psychology, or not even reflecting physical laws, etc.) would it even be desirable? Isn't the whole point of writing a story, aside from things like entertainment value, that it reflects things that exist, existed or could exist? I mean the whole reason for writing books is really just an examination of reality and what it means to be human. If a book has no basis in reality, then it can't say anything about reality, so then it can't have anything useful to say.

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Well I am just thinking hypothetically I am speculating and of course nothing I say is final it is just me thinking out loud. An original means there is no thing like it and if there is it is a copy which takes the original away from its origin because it is not longer one and only.
To write a book is to say it different to reality. One cannot be hundred percent away from it but if we took one bit of reality and turned it on its head in a story ie take one piece of reality and write up in its total opposite/parallel then that is one snipet of originality.
For example if the week starts on a Monday then let's in a story start it on a Friday instead. That one story different from reality.
If there are four seasons in a year then let's have two seasons only in a year instead. It is a book so we are allowed to perform.
I am suggesting that we write with the natural and what is according to us and let's write everything else such as the the orders of things/the appearances of things/ the intellectual side of humans and so on with a new different image ideal shorten it or give it length.
Let's prolongue what we enjoy in stories and what we don't we shorten. This is to intercept routine and give an impression of boost in stories. Stories must help rid off routine
The differences with which we write are to be subtle and in harmony with reality and not against as to not distract from it.
The reason I suggest such changes if for writers and readers to experience a new style of existence to away from the routines of life.
Routine is what grinds a human being to becoming less challenged. The same of the same in books is after a while unchallenging to the human spirit.
Exaggeration of what is natural and real can also be unruly unattainable and down right disheartening to the human mind. If and when the mind cannot trace back unrealism to reality then one becomes deflated and depressed because what one is reading is unachievable. Humans thrive on challenges and achievement let's not the stories take that away from them.
So originality is simply to try and work around what is natural and real by performance of harmony with it but never against it.
It is the little details that make a huge different to a book a story. They do say the devil is in the detail.

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Originally Posted by cafolini

Your question regarding that aspect has already been answered very appropriately by Hillwalker as well as Hawkman. You are misreading, still stubbornly putting your focus on the same old song with which you started. The main idea here is not avoiding the lawsuits. The main idea is that you have nothing to worry about being a thief of ideas. The lawsuits would be consequences of that thiefing if it were possible to genuinely steal. But it is impossible. So why would you care about the gossip of idiocy.

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Has it been answered by them? Yes. But I'm here because I want to hear many different viewpoints on what I should do, to then be able to select the one I think is best or even select the best things from all of the answers I've received after weighing the validity of their arguments. That I've already received multiple answers to that particular question doesn't mean I don't want to receive more of them. There may be a better answer, or an answer that contains information that wasn’t in the previous ones. In any case even if no other answers have any new information they’ll still either confirm or dispute what the previous people have said, thus making my conclusion more likely to be the best possible conclusion.
I assure you, I didn’t misread anything. I understood the point of what you were saying, however I asked this question for a particular reason and what you were saying didn’t answer my actual question. I thus clarified that what I was asking had nothing to do with legal issues or a fear of stealing something according to the legal definition or being a thief of ideas according in the eyes of the law but rather with it seeming stolen (to the public or to me) so that you’d have a chance to answer what I was actually trying to ask. In addition I already knew what you told me.
I know the main focus here isn’t on avoiding the lawsuits, however the only reason to bring up the legal point of view, it seems to me, is concerning lawsuits and copyright issues. Other than in relation to issues like that the legal definition of something isn’t necessarily valuable. You can for example still think you’ve done something wrong even when there’s no law against it. In other words legal issues or definitions, aren’t relevant to what I was actually trying to ask.
Considering that the people I refer to as “the public” are the ones that will be reading what I write, I care plenty. But more importantly I care about what I think of it, and even though it may not be legally considered stealing that doesn’t mean I necessarily feel good about it or feel that I should continue writing it. Because once again the main idea behind my question is that I don’t want to write something that’s already been written.

I think Hawkman had a good point, in that you're talking about similarities in two backstories. Your responded that "I believe that having the same framing here will cause it to run along similar lines too much", to which my reply would be: Then make sure it doesn't. Background is background, but the flow of the current story is what's most important, since that's what people will be engaged with.

Still, you know what you've created better than anyone here would. If the similarities are enough to bother you, then maybe you need to bite the bullet and make whatever alterations are necessary to make you more comfortable with it. Every writer understands not wanting to make wholesale changes to work already done, but every writer has done it at some point. How many finished works bear more than a passing resemblance to the original thoughts that birthed them? That's how development works. Look at it as construction, not destruction.

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Originally Posted by cacian

Well I am just thinking hypothetically I am speculating and of course nothing I say is final it is just me thinking out loud.

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Don't we know it!

It would be so much more useful if you spent a little more time thinking in silence before sharing your thoughts on here instead of typing every single idea your brain comes up with as soon as it enters your head.

H

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Originally Posted by hillwalker

Don't we know it!

It would be so much more useful if you spent a little more time thinking in silence before sharing your thoughts on here instead of typing every single idea your brain comes up with as soon as it enters your head.

H

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It would be nice if you kept your thoughts to yourself too. As far as I can recall the post was not addressed to you.
I am sure you are not OneOneOne 1162 unless you are telling me you are confusing you.~
If you do not like what I write I suggest you keep your snappy remarks quietly to yourself.

If Cacian didn't have a kind heart and went everywhere with bad intentions, poisoning dinners, banging down castles, etc., we couldn't hesitate in sending seal team 6 to eliminate the terrorist.
But as it is, she gets you so pissed off that you run the risk of thinking about marrying her. And even make spaghetti with meat balls for her.

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Originally Posted by cacian

It would be nice if you kept your thoughts to yourself too. As far as I can recall the post was not addressed to you.

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This is a public forum so any post is addressed to whoever chooses to read it. If you wish to restrict your thoughts to a select few then PM them.

It's not a case of not 'liking' what you write. It's a case of either watching in mute desperation as you single-handedly clutter a site, supposedly intended for intelligent discussion about writing and writers, with your daily dose of claptrap - or asking you to think before you type.

Since you obviously have no intention of changing your ways I'll leave you to continue your wrecking spree.

H

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Originally Posted by Calidore

I think Hawkman had a good point, in that you're talking about similarities in two backstories. Your responded that "I believe that having the same framing here will cause it to run along similar lines too much", to which my reply would be: Then make sure it doesn't. Background is background, but the flow of the current story is what's most important, since that's what people will be engaged with.

Still, you know what you've created better than anyone here would. If the similarities are enough to bother you, then maybe you need to bite the bullet and make whatever alterations are necessary to make you more comfortable with it. Every writer understands not wanting to make wholesale changes to work already done, but every writer has done it at some point. How many finished works bear more than a passing resemblance to the original thoughts that birthed them? That's how development works. Look at it as construction, not destruction.

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Well, it mainly bothers me because it’s a full sequence of events (such as the rebellion and cataclysmic event) and concepts (a second more advanced human race) that interact in a similar way, occur in a similar order and perhaps most importantly that are the basis for the overarching plot in the present. The main plot in Assassin’s Creed can be reduced at its most basic to “this advanced human civilization was there that evolved on earth, it created humans, it enslaved humans, it created hybrids, a human rebellion happened, the cataclysmic event happened and then hundreds of years later the cataclysmic event threatens to happen again and the end goal of the plot in present day is stopping it which may require the release of one of the members of that civilization.” If I copy-pasted what I just said there and applied it to the basis for my overarching plot I’d have to change almost nothing aside from the “creates humans” part and the fact that for me it’s “multiple members” instead of one that threaten to be released. In both there’s also a particularly charismatic leader that’s part of that advanced civilization that had a plan in all this that plays into the plot in the current day. Plus I place a great importance on this back-story and it’s consequences for my setting concerning the themes I treat in the story. So when I put it like this, do you think there are too many similarities or do you still think it’s not that important?

Well, certainly. And the story I have now already barely resembles the original ideas that created it, I generally have no problem with this. I have thought about changing it and I’m trying to make any changes I can. However the problem is that all similarities happen to be integral to my overarching plot, if I take away one of those things then my entire plot falls apart and I have yet to figure out a way that I can change them without losing my entire plot. If I can’t do this then every event driven by this plot falls apart as well and obviously I lose my entire story (including the characters, since they were shaped by these events, and the themes brought forward in the story), so at that point I have to drop pretty much every single thing I wrote which would be the same thing as just dropping my story, which is exactly what I’m trying to avoid doing. I mean large changes I can deal with, but a change like this would leave absolutely nothing because these events are at the core of my story. And the only other options are either leaving it as it is and trying to somehow put less emphasis on the similarities (which would also be problematic considering how important it is but perhaps do-able) or just dropping it (which after all of my work I really want to avoid). So you see my problem here.

Nevertheless, I thank you for your help and I’ll definitely take into account the importance of current day plot over background and possibly just making whatever changes I must even if they essentially leave nothing. After all even that is better than writing what's already been written.

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Originally Posted by hillwalker

This is a public forum so any post is addressed to whoever chooses to read it. If you wish to restrict your thoughts to a select few then PM them.

It's not a case of not 'liking' what you write. It's a case of either watching in mute desperation as you single-handedly clutter a site, supposedly intended for intelligent discussion about writing and writers, with your daily dose of claptrap - or asking you to think before you type.

Since you obviously have no intention of changing your ways I'll leave you to continue your wrecking spree.

H

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Kudos for trying.