When you come up with story ideas that already exist.

Fun fact: the part about Inception is based on a true story. I refused to watch that movie for years, precisely because I was afraid it was too similar to a book I was working on.
#booktube #writing

[@devonwilliams9576]

Sanderson says not to worry that your story has been done before. Every story has been told before, but it hasnt been told by you

[@genericallyentertaining]

Yeah, that's basically my philosophy on this as well. You can always do something unique in the execution! I've noticed, however, that people tend to be less forgiving about recycling ideas in sci-fi/fantasy compared to in other genres.

[@Alienrun]

@@genericallyentertaining Probably cause those genres are supposed to be "new" or "different" from irl lol

[@miguelbranquinho7235]

@@genericallyentertaining Genre fiction is marketed less on its themes and more on its plot.

[@Whatuphoswat]

This made me more calm now

[@NihongoWakannai]

Eh that's not true. "every story has been told" is only in a general sense, writing a story that is specifically similar to a modern tale that audiences are familiar with is not gonna be a great idea. Like the character said in the skit, just be aware of media history and put your own twist on things.

[@Florkl]

Tropes exist for a reason. People like them. There’s a reason Sanderon is not afraid to describe books in terms of what inspired them. Mistborn is, “Oceans 11 in a world where the Dark Lord won.”

[@BelindaShort]

Yep. I'm very likely to read the same kinds of stories especially if there are better characters

[@orion3253]

I liked the "Lost Roman Legion meets Pokemon" books written on a dare with strong doses of Starcraft and just a drop of Dune and Star Wars.

[@AddieCat792]

​@@orion3253Jim Butcher's Codex Alera! So good!

[@VTsiFanfic]

I love the Mistborn trilogy.

[@BeazerProductions]

...Crap. That sounds really cool. Maybe I finally have to read Mistborn like my brothers have been telling me to do.

[@jaytwokay3265]

"That's the story of Jonah! In the Bible!" That one really got me.

[@matityaloran9157]

So? Collodi could homage the story of Jonah so there’s no reason that this guy can’t

[@peterjordan9354]

Even the premise behind Inception was largely taken from the 2006 film "Paprika".

[@celisewillis]

Same with Looper and Akira. Or Elfen Lied and Stranger Things.

[@ivoryas1696]

@peterjordan9354 -Taken?-

[@kayzee3595]

Except Paprika actually showed what dreams look like while inception was about Matrix inside of people’s head for some reason that they called dreams for some reason.

[@Zack-xv2yc]

@@kayzee3595 I mean, the crew from Inception are literally the architectures (to some extent) of the target's dream that they want to extract legitimate memories from. The dreams are supposed to be more concrete and grounded since they are literally planning a whole heist mission for the target's memories that they had when they're awake, without making it obvious to the target's own subconscious that some other foreign identity/personality is invading it. If the target knows that they themselves are dreaming, the plan's basically over.

[@Yesica1993]

HEY! The story of a guy who was too afraid to write his book because he thought his ideas were already taken!

[@ethanalvi2187]

Glorious!

[@Ornamentmountain]

@mrdavros8908So what about the story of a guy who was worried about not being original but watched this sketch…

[@matityaloran9157]

@WillyFisher412Who cares? Daniel Thrasher made an entire series about accidentally writing songs that already exist. SpongeBob had an episode devoted to accidentally inventing things that already exist. None of these things are truly original.

[@matityaloran9157]

@WillyFisher412 And you’re right

[@Zestrayswede]

Isn't that Randy Writes a Novel

[@squirechronicles]

Oh man, the inception one . . . yeah I did that. I hadn't seen Inception when I started writing a pretty similar story, half way through I watched it and that was where that WIP ended . . . until I completely rewrote the plot into an entirely different story but using some of the same tech. Also the 'Well, I haven't even told you about the lion and the witch yet,' was brilliant!

[@genericallyentertaining]

Yeah, one of my early books also featured a similar premise - although when I finally did watch Inception it turned out not to be as similar as I had thought, so there probably wasn't anything to worry about. I still had to accept that dream-inspired sci-fi stories are less genre-breakingly original than I had once believed, though.

[@kayzee3595]

Then you must regret it! Watch Paprika.

[@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789]

I feel you! My first serious attempt at a novel (at like 11-12, it sucked obviously) was about a person discovering a way to enter a shared dream reality full of fantastic creatures and a weird temple people try to reach and it was going to end on an open note encouraging the reader to participate to the story. Then I got into H. P. Lovecraft later and read the Dream Quest for Unknown Kadath. Literally just that and Inception, which Christopher Nolan was probably writing stuff for when I was writing that.

[@phoenix9531]

Its like thousands of books are published every year and we've been doing this for hundreds of years.

[@rebeccahicks2392]

Once I was sitting by the window as a teenager, contemplating the spiders that lived in our window sill, and had the brilliant idea for a story about a superhero who's powers are related to spiders. It was going to be a comedy because the idea was so inherently ridiculous.

[@i_do_stuff_ig]

Write it! No one will ever think you plagiarized that story!

[@Horizon99100]

I love how you managed to put some genuine advice into the middle of a comedy sketch

[@xinarin7]

God this is accurate. I had silent like 3 years working on a trilogy of books. Set them down for a couple years for some personal reasons. Started to get back to writing. Was watching TV one night, saw a new (kinda) show. An angel torturing a demon, but another angel let the demon out, and all of them played the human. Found Supernatural. Literally could have been ripped from my books. Such a frustrating feeling.

[@shorttoons4762]

I honestly feel so sad for you. Luckily my concepts are so bizarre unimaginable and unique that my ideas can I be created by me.

[@drnanard9605]

I once accidentally wrote Star Wars in a high fantasy universe, so yeah, I feel that.

[@G0RSHK0V]

It's almost like authors write their stories drawing inspiration from the same world we live in...

[@RelativelyBest]

See, the irony is that the best way to come up with new ideas it to consume as many stories as possible. The more raw material you have to draw influence from, the more likely you are to combine different elements into an original concept.

[@A_WeirdGrl_09]

Wise words

[@mcspazatron240]

Sad how Christopher Nolan stole the idea for Inception from Spongebob Squarepants season 1 episode 15 titled "Sleepy time", and he just got away with it!

[@reaganmonkey8]

This reminds me of Daniel Thrasher's, "When you Accidentally Write Songs that Already Exits."

[@MisterA744]

Alternatively, you could find yourself invested in a piece of fiction that grabs you with its general (set of) concepts, but bungles in the execution to a startling high degree where the exploration of those ideas is so shallow and incoherent that you can't help come up with so many notebooks worth of ideas for how to make it cohesive and much, much deeper that you've essentially brainstormed/outlined a very, very different story already by that point. Then you get overwhelmed by the overambitious intricacies of the story you've plotted and procrastinate finishing/writing it forever. ...[clears throat]

[@LordCrate-du8zm]

Listen, man. As a wordbuilder and writer, I can safely say that it doesn't matter if an idea you made already exists. What DOES matter is _what you do with it._

[@whetshu2641]

You cannot seriously tell me that this man has NOT read Herodotus' Histories?! Its a childhood classic!

[@kimberlycasey5957]

Yes, the way to add something new to a conversation is to listen to what everyone else has said and then responding or refining. Otherwise you are likely to "reinvent the wheel," and just develop the premise in a similar way that's been done, without adding anything. So many people have told me they avoid work that might be similar to theirs, and it's the opposite from what they should do.

[@bobafettjr85]

I've got a great idea for a story about a King wandering for 10 years after coming home from a war.

[@matityaloran9157]

1:04, on the contrary. In that situation you would avoid watching it until you were finished the book to keep yourself being influenced by it

[@eriya181]

This is so relatable. People frequently say my story sounds similar to Dragon Ball and One Piece

[@griffinoconnor1523]

I have this sketch idea about a guy who’s telling his friend about all his story ideas but the friend keeps pointing out they are extremely similar to existing works

[@DaLiJeIOvoImeZauzeto]

In the postscriptum of The name of the rose, Umberto Eco mentions a group of writers who tried compiling all the different synopses in detective novels and concluded that the only truly untold story was the one in which the reader would turn out to be the killer.

[@Yesica1993]

This made me laugh. But in reality, this is one of the reasons why I never wrote a book even though I always wanted to! I have no imagination in the first place. But even if I did, I was always afraid I'd copy someone else's idea. (I know that's stupid. I mean, there's always going to be some similarities. Only God is fully original!)

[@genericallyentertaining]

I think that raw ideas are one of the least important, if not THE least important, elements of story-telling. Execution, themes, and characters are what get readers really invested. Just my own take, but I'd say, if you really want to write a book, don't let fears about originality hold you back!

[@YouCallThataKnife253]

I call it _'Billy and the Cloneasaurus'!_

[@trop3848]

"Herodotus" made me laugh but on such a delayed fuse that I don't even know if I was laughing at the joke or how long it took me to register it.

[@sarahbeardsley]

this video presented by Joseph Campbell

[@chrismantonuk]

This is basically my nightmare.. 😮

[@magzieart]

I had a great story since long ago, then some people releced something similar soon after that. And many copied or took inspire from it. After years of keeping my story alive, I've now given up on it unwillingy. 😢

[@armie4172]

This is super relatable! 😅 I had worked really hard on creating a book about a boy with magical powers who ekes out a living with misfit children in the city storm sewers, ultimately taking on the powers that be at the top. Then I started reading *Mordew* and I’m like…son of a b- That’s my story! 😭 I can only hope my new idea isn’t too close to something else…

[@nrgentertainmentartist8668]

It's not just what you're telling in your story that matters, but also how you tell it. You can always change things up enough in order to come up with something that people can consider original.

[@feelswriter]

This time I'm really torn between which is the antagonist...

[@ilregiallo4151]

Ok, let's create a story: -Some astronauts find a mysterious artifacts on the moon and discover that it allows to enter other people dreams. It is discovered that since the dawn of mankind all the dreams of people have been influenced by this alien artifact. The artifact has also influenced humanity's immagination and that's the reason why so many narrative tropes are repeated in story. Add some Carl Jung and Joseph Campell references, make the aliens looks like Neil Gaiman, possibly in a "Alien Mr Bean" scenario, and ta-daa! You have a story. Add a talking pie to make it more emotionally deep.

[@chansesturm7103]

Call it "Hero with A Thousand Phases".

[@theadaptationstationmaster]

In Twelfth Night, it's only the girl twin who's disguised as someone of the opposite sex, so having both twins do that is technically original.

[@kayzee3595]

Somebody, show this poor hippie Paprika. I pity this guy

[@The_Blazelighter]

To be fair, even Inception is riffing off of other movies

[@genericallyentertaining]

Oh, absolutely. But I think it's a good example of taking lots of familiar concepts/set-pieces, etc. and blending them up with an interesting premise to make something totally original.

[@The_Blazelighter]

@@genericallyentertaining Oh absolutely. I was specifically referring to the animated film Paprika, which has a similar premise. In fact, there are some scenes in Inception that seem to be direct nods to it.

[@adrianfedot6552]

@@The_Blazelighter Paprika does have a similar premise, but the way the two films execute that premise is wildly different. Paprika leans more into surrealism and has a different plot, whereas Inception leans more into the science. Both are great, but it's very unfair to say one riffs off of the other (and I get very mad when people even claim that Inception is a rip-off of Paprika, which thankfully you didn't because it very clearly isn't), because they're very different films that just happen to have a similar premise.

[@The_Blazelighter]

@@adrianfedot6552Sorry, when I say riffing, I just mean that it's playing off a similar idea. I didn't mean to be derogatory, nor did I mean to imply that Inception isn't original. Just that Paprika may have served as inspiration for parts of it.

[@adrianfedot6552]

@@The_Blazelighter That's fair and I agree with you. Thanks for the clarification! :)

[@HaonProductions]

Reminds me of my favorite book, Billy and the Cloneasaurus

[@serialzero1979]

This is oddly inspiring. I had this happen to me recently, so I went into my idea notebook and wrote, "Welp. Looks like this idea's been done before, so I'll either have to scrap it or think of a way to make it extra weird/horrifying." And then I thought of a way to make it weird and horrifying. lol

[@Draugo]

Don't worry. Inception is basically a rehashed Don Rosa story about Scrooge McDuck.

[@Rachel.Books.Reading]

This is exactly how I feel. 😂

[@thiagodeandrade7081]

Billy and the Cloneassaurs.

[@electricelf-music]

I had an idea that was just Demolition Man but was just extra Art-Deco and Neon. I might revisit it one day

[@thegeekinpink6135]

That makes sense I'm writing a sci-fi story for my English degree and I have to write an introduction that puts my work in conversation with other stories I've read

[@BelindaShort]

I'm having this issue right now with a huge project. I had been working on it for years and years and I found a story with parts of a similar plot, but I think sometimes you just can't get away from it :/ Concepts can be similar without the plot being the same though, and good characters and writing will trump sameness. I've avoided a specific community because I don't want to accidentally borrow ideas.

[@EmilynWood]

That's where retellings come in handy! Just say it's a retelling and it'll be fine. Jkjk If it's public domain you can do that.

[@Melon-ALL-Free]

Currently i trying to think of a story based of certain manga that inspired me but i love this manga very much i am afraid to do the exact same story with nothing "original" to add then i found across this video like some divine intervention. Don't know how to feel bout that but thanks for englightment.

[@YamisRandom]

My biggest fear 😭

[@damaris5228]

i actually did this once, but in drawing form, i was creating an oc and accidentally drew nami from one piece (from the hair color to the tatoo on the arm) knowing absolutely nothing about one piece, which i know seems unlikely, but it's true

[@ThisAdamGuy]

And then there's the inverse, where people find out your story shares a single plot point with another famous story and immediately assume you're ripping it off. "Im writing a fantasy story about pirates." "So it's One Piece." "No?" "But One Piece is a fsntasy story about pirates." "One Piecr doesn't have the concept of pirates copyrighted." "You're writing One Piece fanfiction."

[@kaizenarias]

Man, this. Would show off my ideas and then my friend lists out movie names and everything that has similar concepts and the she'd watch me digging my grave.

[@matityaloran9157]

1:40, really? I in no way got the impression that his protagonist would turn into a space god at the end of the book.

[@appidydafoo]

Cryptomnesia has a long and documented history

[@VTsiFanfic]

Dude I wrote a short story about trying to solve a murder and finding out it was a split personality all along. Then I saw three movies with that exact premise plus a Stephen King book.

[@vidushiuniyal958]

and remember if your story if from a single book it is plagiarism and if it is from 12 different book, it is a inspired by the writing style of preceding authors

[@KateKolate]

That one dislike is form the author who doesn't read other books.

[@purplecobra52]

Haha when you start working on a supernatural murder mystery novel that takes place in a country fair and you actually want it to be published eventually but then TADC is announced and comes out and it's literally the most popular indie show in recent history and your idea doesn't seem original anymore and even your protagonist feels like a knockoff and you start panicking

[@rochav6357]

Paprika (2006)

[@Kanezeran]

I pretty much had this conversation with a game developer who would tell me that he should not read or experience other media "to maintain the authenticity of his ideas"

[@AzemZuberov]

I come up a revolutionary idea that what if a certain percentage of the world's population had unique abilities! And then like a week maybe i discovered my her academia....😶‍🌫️

[@notArtVideo]

The button should have been catching him out on the monkeys on typewriters bit.

[@lancergt1000]

What if your novel is just an existing novel.... but in reverse order 😮

[@kennycooper294]

there have been a lot of going in dreams stories like dreamscape, the cell and a tv show about dream walkers

[@fireandbombs12]

There's a South Park episode that has the same plot of this video.

[@adamnielson42]

I haven't watch this video yet, but I just thought up a GREAT original idea for a skit...

[@soffren]

I usually just respond with "how can I shift my universe so it seems more like a parody or a retort of the main themes?" I accidentally copied Fallout New Vegas, but switched the ideologies around and it turned into XCOM really quick.

[@ftlbaby]

Herodotus! Of course...

[@whom382]

Sure, I had heard of Oscar Wilde and the name of Dorian Grey. However, I had no idea they were related - much less the plot. I've read thousands of books too......

[@mirael96]

Jeez, that hits close to home 😄🙈

[@pippintooks6553]

Back in the day I reinveted Bucky the winter Soilder but martian, still very mad about it

[@rev6215]

Notification squad!

[@ananyarai3050]

Okay, a story in which a man say, a struggling writer is writing working on multiple wips and through them he accidently shapes major events in other alternate universes. Some universes are just have very boring because their story hasnt started while in some universes epic wars are raging. A lot of absurd and unpredictable things also happen because he is just not that great of a writer. Then one day he decides to give up writing and a universe in which a battle was happening gets stuck. There is just continuous and never ending carnage all around. Then an all knowing mage tells them about their predicament and they travel inter dimensionally to find this writer and ask him to finish his story but he can't know that these are his own characters because he will be overwhelmed and scared. There can be a lot of wacky shenanigans along the way. Alright, I realized while writing this that it's a bit like the new movie Argylle. But Imma make it my wip anyway

[@Summyer]

Damn.. everytime I told people about my story idea I ended up abandoning it because I grew bored with it lol.

[@michaelmartin9022]

I don't have this problem. I just set out to rip off other stories but change them round a little bit.

[@MidoriMushrooms]

nah I don't bother reading other stuff because I'm lazy and don't care.

[@pavelskrylnikov9658]

How about this: an aspiring yet clueless author finds out that all of his ideas were already done, down to the minor details, starts digging and realized that he is a biologically engineered genetic library that gained consciousness by accident, escaped the lab and erased its memory to go into hiding, but now he must do it all again because now he can be traced?

[@alphasaith8349]

Yeah, this is fairly accurate, but that was not the plot of the Picture of Dorian Gray.

[@matityaloran9157]

I’m not supposed to disagree with the Author here am I? Since writing stories with similar premises to existing ones isn’t a bad thing and there isn’t even anything wrong with consciously avoiding similar works to avoid unconscious influences.

[@aklok_cz]

I guess that there is nothing like a website with database of already existing stories, does it?

[@Josue_S_6411]

Wikipedia, Tv Tropes, IMDB.. Ok, perhaps if you just look up your idea on Google you might find out if it already exists.

[@lor108avi]

Didn’t Inception copy Paprika? So it’s a funny example to use in this video.

[@Taracinablue]

bummer

[@narivek]

Is this guy's name "Pierre Menard"?

[@kennycooper294]

lol there are no new stories only new spins on them. fight clubs spin was so original though