The Idea Pirates

I have more ideas than I would ever have time to write, even if it is what I did full time (though I will admit that most of them turn out either flawed or beyond my abilities once I do get around to them).  These ideas come from all kinds of places, but I never try to copy what someone else did.

However, I often find that as I develop an idea, I see parallels to other works and worry that it will be seen as unoriginal.  I have taken this paranoia as far as putting down a book when I saw themes or plots too similar to something I was writing.

During a recent daydreaming session where I was trying to sort out a direction for my latest work (something I thought was quite original at the time), I realized that the original component of the story most important to what I wanted to accomplished had already been done (I will not reveal the details or name of the other story here, as that makes me feel too "boxed in" at this point in the creative process).  I began to wonder if I should even bother going forward.  This led me to contemplate what an original work is and whether it is necessary to be original at all; I thought putting my thoughts down in writing might help sort this out and give a more raw view into my mental tangents to the readers I pretend follow this blog.

Examining this concern in a blog post also allows me to touch on the subject of inspiration and the auto-biographical elements of fiction - something I have been meaning to do and a good place to start:

Many friends (those who have read my novel and those who have just asked what it was about) have inquired about how much of the book is based on my life and how much the main character is based on me (and who the other characters represent).

To answer the second question first, he is somewhat based on me, but so are all the others.  We are many people: the ones we are inside our heads, the ones we are around people we know well (or around people we want to impress or are intimidated by or dislike...), the ones we have been at various points in our lives, the ones we want to become, the ones we would like to be for a little while and many more.  Within each of these are elements: emotions, actions, thoughts, attitudes, strengths and weaknesses.  As even the longest novels don't have the time to fully develop every aspect of every character (Tolstoy tried, but I would argue that his strength in doing so led to his weakness in taking it too far), when deciding what a character might do or how they might feel, it is easy enough to put ourselves in their place without making every character a carbon copy of the others.  Of course, there were parts of each of them inspired by people I have known, but rather than being an allegory, these real life people were resources and in some instances, one person may have influenced two characters, while two people influenced one.  And even when trying to use someone as an inspiration, the best we can do to empathize with how they would feel in a given situation involves a good deal of asking how we would feel.  Going a little further with this, there were a couple of characters I needed names for and grabbed from random friends in my past; in the beginning, they were heavily influenced by these names, but as the story went on, they developed into very unique people, quite different from their namesakes (one of the few events in the story that may have been directly influenced by my life experience involved one of the two, but the person inspiring the event had little in common with the original inspiration and came from a different time and place in my life; I may eventually fill in the vague references given here, but not any time soon...).  In any case, I had no intention of making anyone represent anyone else, myself included, when I began the story.

Answering the first story: no.  The novel was not based on my life.  Just as empathy is based on putting ourselves in someone else's place, we make a story real because we have lived and experienced something we can use for perspective.  When a character is in love, I know what that is like; when he hurts, I know that too.  I grew up (sort of), I had (have) fears, I have been jealous at times, selfless at others, hopeful, happy, depressed and a range of other experiences.  But, much like the characters being amalgams of many people modified by the events that occurred in the story, the plot and events are impossible to nail down in a simple manner.  A single event might have been totally based on the need to have it happen to move the story in the right direction, while one character's actions could be based on something someone in my life did, the response of another character based on something I experienced in a completely different circumstance and the words of a third based on something I wish I had said during a third distinct life experience.

There is one kind of/sort of exception in the most general sense.  I will get to that.

I know this is a lot of vague, general rambling, so out of guilt, I will get down to the actual inspiration and development of the book, while trying not to have any spoilers (I have shared this before in various forums):
I had tried several times to write a novel and failed, usually when I realized I had gone somewhere I didn't know how to recover from (one of these attempts was over 40000 words when I quit it).  But, encouraged by friends, I decided to give it a go one more time and press through, even if the end result was not worth saving.  I wrote three intros and bounced back and forth between them until one of them caught.  Don't was the winner.
Backing up a bit, I wrote the short story, "Interaction" about a strong, bold young woman and inexperienced young man (and also about music - a recurring theme), but felt it didn't develop what I was trying to get at in the relational dynamic as well as I had wanted (the use of water and sensual experience was based on someone I knew who had nothing else to do with any of my stories).  The desire to explore this dynamic stuck with me and I made a very short effort at tackling a story where a character much like the one in "Interaction" had a younger sister; the naive young man was in love with the elder sister, while she could take or leave him, as was convenient.  The younger was interested in him and always there as a friend, but while he was taken by the one sister's strength and confidence, he put little value in the younger's faithfulness and dependability.  I didn't get too far before discarding it, but the story stuck with me and I wondered if he ever came to see the light.
Backing up a bit more, I once dated a girl and had a dream that I had gone out with her two nights in a row, but realized on the second night that the one I had been with on the first was the girlfriend I knew at first and the second was her current self; I felt unfaithful, but also torn over whether I should.  They were the same girl, but as I knew them at different times (mostly due to the lens with which I seen her at those times and the exchanges of preconceived notions for the real person).  I never forgot that dream and have often thought of all the meanings it had for relationships and people.
The opening lines of Don't (Chapter 0) were very much written with the intent of revisiting the discarded story.  By the time I had written a few more pages, the older and younger sisters were twins, much to my surprise.  A few more pages in and I realized how convenient it was for them to be the same age and as I wrote, I saw the potential for a lot more examination of the real person vs the one perceived from the outside, as the protagonist learns to see differences he assumed did not exist in the two, as well as seeing each one as they are rather than how he wants them or needs them to be.  I also could not miss the parallel between the dream and the twins and since I felt something there, I was able to draw on it to handle the complexities of these difficult character elements.
This is the exception I mentioned.  In no ways is the story an allegory (in fact, most of the inspiration for the story came from elsewhere at first), but either the dream drove me to go further into the character of the twins and the main character's views of them or maybe it was subconsciously the basis for my desire to write the discarded story in the first place.
From there, I had perhaps 3 or 4 very late scenes pop into my head early on that I felt were where the story was going (not based on anything other than my belief that they were interesting or invoked some feeling) and I let the story take me there.  A fair amount of what came out surprised me along the way, but in the end, it was not a throwaway and I am glad I saw it through.

So, back to the question of originality.
I think I have already established that nothing can be truly original, as all of it has some basis in our own experiences and those we have observed.  In fact, if someone were to write a story that was in no way related to anything they had known or felt and do it very well (how?), perhaps through telepathy with an alien race, it would mean little to the reader who can only relate to normal human experience.  And since there are only so many possible human experiences and a large number of stories out there, there is probably nothing original.  Since most writers are also enthusiastic readers (and especially readers of the kind of stories they would like to write), there is a good chance that anything a writer puts on paper is similar to something they have read.
Is this bad?  Should the writer intentionally avoid reading stories too similar to what they want to write and not write similar to those they read?  I ask this not as rhetoric, but because I asked myself.
Stephen King (one of the all time greats) admits that Earth Abides* inspired The Stand.  Having read both, I can see this to be true; they deal with the same kind of plague and same kind of world left behind**, but I also see them as two excellent, but very different stories and am glad that King did not put The Stand aside to avoid pirating George Stewart.
But what about stories that are not just based in a concept?  Fan fiction books abound and many people buy them (even if the average person looks down on the genre).  Parodies, like Android Karenina, also have popped up on shelves and taken hold with a decent sized audience.  So again, does originality matter?  When are we just ripping off another's work?
My conclusion on this matter is two-fold: first, if it offers something new or a renewed chance to go somewhere familiar in a well told story, great.  If it is an old story with better characters or an interesting plot twist, great.  Basically, if it offers something to a reader that they want, give it to them.  That is what the art is all about.  If a new take on things didn't matter, we would have no need for more books on the Civil War or Thomas Jefferson.  Second, if credit might be due, give it.  This goes beyond what the law might require (which also matters) and into giving props to deserving authors and recommendations to your readers.  If another work was not the inspiration, but is another well written look at the same thing, put it out there - the reader will appreciate it.
But don't fear it.  Nothing is original and it doesn't have to be.  It just has to be worth doing.

* - Earth Abides was written by George R. Stewart, an underappreciated author who was not only one of the pioneers of post-apocalyptic writing, but also a man of insight who worried about the details behind the story, which made his books all the more real.  Storm, his other famous work, dealt with meteorology in a way not seen before and treated a storm like a thing unto itself.  I plan to put together a "must read" list here on the blog and both of these will be there.

** - I wrote on the subject of the zombie apocalypse last year when I was contemplating writing my own story containing the walking dead (though with a twist; this story is back-burnered, but may still happen).  Primarily, I was interested in the inconsistencies of  many movies/books on the subject.  But getting into what is realistic (consistent might be a better word) and what is not takes us into what a world where the dead reanimate and eat brains WOULD be like.  Having read a number of different scenarios of how the world might end or change dramatically, I have thought much on the subject of the pro's and con's of nuclear war vs disease and decided rather than just post on zombies, I would cover them all.  I still plan to do so and hope to have it done soon enough.