I’ve written before about finding my own work in someone else’s. I wrote about it recently upon discovering that one of the soldiers in David Finkle’s The Good Soldiers was seeing a little girl every time he closed his eyes and that I have a character that, though he predates my reading of the Good Soldiers, had a similar issue.
In February, I wrote the book that was then titled The Last Sunrise, about a special operations team trying to prevent the real Biblical Apocalypse. Great idea, right? Well, just rewrote the book and it has key players from the hosts of heaven as well as the fallen angels.
Jamming so far, right?
Then I pick up a fantastic book and go ‘oh shit’. Love the book. Will read the entire series when I get home and have book store access. But now, as I edit my draft, I’m looking for ways to differentiate my story from this one. It’s not even that similar, other than the fact that we’re both using names from religious history, such as Belial and Lillith.
But I worry about it. Just like I pitched a book to Joann Ross’s agent that had the same name and same central issue without knowing about her book, I’m worried now that I’m going to look like I’m biting off this other author.
I know there’s nothing new under the sun. I know that no works are created in a void, but why does this same thing seem to keep happening to me? Am I over worried about something that I truly cannot control, especially if I’m pulling from the collective unconscious of the world?
Because that’s truly what I feel I do. As a writer, I’m tapped into something that demands my fingers move on the keyboard. The characters become people in my head and I know them. I hear their dialogue and jot it down as fast as I can because if I don’t, it hounds me until I do.
Then I discover the same impulse has already established itself somewhere else. But just like Madagascar and The Wild came out at the same time, I don’t think anyone can say this is a copy, because I’m not. My books were written before I even knew about this series.
But I know that as I continue with my own books, I’m going to have to consciously differentiate my world from this other author’s world as opposed to trusting my impulse from the collective unconscious.
What about you? Have you discovered your story matches something similar to someone else’s? What did you do about it, if anything?