So my story (and I think I might use it for NaNoWriMo) is about a woman named Crystal Petrotti who goes and writes letters to her therapist and stalks his house ready to kill him in the hour of when he finishes reading the letters she sends him. I was wondering if this concept has been done before? I hope it hasn't because I really like this idea and want to flesh it out further with characters and scenes before this novel is finished. Thanks all who give me their thoughts on this matter! I appreciate it.
I've never read the book or seen the movie so... do you think I should change the idea to make it more unique?
Watch the movie, see if it feels too similar to what's in your head. If it does, then read the book for all the nuamces not in the film. As they said in another section here, it's not about rehashing a plot, but about each individual's abilty to execute it into someting unique. If you really like your idea, then stay with it, and find the best way to present it.
this from another thread ... https://www.writingforums.org/threads/overused-plots-and-twists.59136/ Cogito says ... How can any of them be overused when they are still generating fresh, exciting novels? Certainly there are are also plenty of dull, flat, pedestrian books hitting the shelves, but that isn't the fault of the story line. It's a failure of execution. Don't blame the story line. Blame the author who fails to breathe life into it.
Your concept is so vague at this point that it really doesn't matter if it's been done before. What matters is how you do it. That sounds like useless tagline type of advice but it's true. Personally I don't see what makes this idea interesting though.
Would you like more information about it? Or does it even matter? I think that my concept though may need some work but that is how I wrote it.
It doesn't matter. The point is the question was "has this been done before?" and the answer is" it doesn't matter."
Forget what anyone else has done. It's all in the execution. Stephen King's Needful Things is more or less the same idea as Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, but both can stand in their own right.
This would be like Stephen King pondering his next novel and asking, "Mmm, has anyone ever written horror before?" Every idea you could possibly imagine is simply a variation on an already exiting theme. Yes, your story has been done a million times over, but just make it your own and you'll be fine.
What everyone else said - the originality of a plot is microscopically important compared to the execution of the writing. I'm pretty sure every one of the plot of my books has been done before a bunch of times and will be done even more in subsequent months/years - it hasn't kept me from selling them to readers.
But doesn't it bother you that your idea but have been done before? Don't you want to write an original idea?
No, it doesn't bother me at all, because what I do with the story and the characters will always be original and unique to me. The journey you take your readers on is far and away more important than the initial idea.
Realistically, if the fact that the idea's been done before bothers you, you'll never get round to writing anything. You'll find something that resembles your plot idea no matter what it is.
Anything you write will end up having some form of originality--as long as you put some of yourself into it. That's what makes an individual's writing so special. Each and every one of us has our own experiences, our own feelings, our own thoughts and beliefs on the world--we see the same things, but different parts are important to us: uniquely, intimately, preciously important to us. You don't see a park or a zoo or the ocean or a treehouse the same way I do. But you know what nostalgia feels like. You know what faraway comfort feels like--the distant warmth of old memories and long-gone days. We can bond over that--your experiences and mine--and we can connect on a very deep, very emotional level. When you write about YOUR vision, your emotion, your memories, it helps me connect to you with mine. Something that you experienced might scare you and not me, but we might be able to bond over the feeling of being scared. That's what you have to put into a story, that's why I want to read your work: because even though it's the same world, the way you see it is new to me. It's a shame how often threads worrying about 'originality' or 'what's right' pop up. It seems to me that kind of stuff is missing the point entirely. You don't need to worry about being 'original', or 'doing the right thing': you need to tell me how you see the world: how you hate it, and love it, your secret prejudices and what drives you up a wall. Because I've never heard that before. I've never, in my life, known how you, the individual, see the world. And I'd really, really like to.
Good points Infel! I thought maybe my ideas were interesting but not executed well, (at least sometimes) so thanks for your thoughts!
I once read that there are only (7) plots that exist in the world, that is when you boil them all down to their basic elements. That being said, think of stories and novels like a rock and roll song. Yeah, they got the same repetitive rifts, and the same topics of sex, relationships, and drugs... ..but they are still new rock songs being made. Maybe country music songs would be a better example: they are just about lost loves, using a slide guitar to do so! Yep, they are still being made...or so I am told. Myself, I would rather listen to static!
In six thousand years since the development of writing, it is crazy to think your idea has never been thought of before and written down. Even this sentiment has been expressed several times in this very thread.
I heard that too, and those seven plots can be characterized by seven ancient Greek plays. I first noticed one of them when I was in high school, and watched some TV show who I thought was ripping off another. This was the plot where people have to carry out an elaborate ruse to prevent a visitor from discovering an embarrassing secret, as was done brilliantly in The Birdcage.
