Here’s a question-
So, Writer X is tooling along revising the manuscript she’s been working on for a year.
She hopes to begin submitting this summer.
She daydreams about how rocking it will be to work with a great editor, and see her book on the shelves in a couple of years.
She’s had good feedback, and she thinks this manuscript probably has potential.
Writer X takes a break from writing on Saturday to peruse a few publisher’s fall lists, when an upcoming autumn release catches her eye. There is a very similar protagonist, subplot, and secondary character to her own work in progress. It appears to be probably too similar. Not in any kind of plagiarism way, just in a crappy luck kind of way. If the book is a success, Writer X’s manuscript will be seen as a cheap imitation. If the book is a flop, Writer X’s manuscript will be seen as even more of an unmarketable cheap imitation.
Does Writer X-
A) Roast marshmallows over the glowing embers of a wasted year?
B) Submit her manuscript anyway and make a reputation for herself as an unoriginal hack?
C) Revise to the point of starting from scratch, replacing the characters, changing the plot, and ignoring the vision for the piece?
D) Or start fresh with one of those new ideas always swimming around. What’s another year or two? Draft or ten?
Please advise, dear reader, so that I may guide Writer X out from the pile of wet tissues, empty wine bottles, and despair.
8 comments
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June 8, 2009 at 9:46 am
CocoaStomp
Is Writer X a complete paranoid? Wouldn’t Writer X agree that most children’s books have fairly similar protagonists: they are all freaking children with problems they must solve themselves?
Will Writer X email me this other title offline so that I might come to my own opinion about whether the manuscripts are truly similar?
Or where is choice E) Everything’s been done before. Get over it. Keep working on your manuscript?
June 8, 2009 at 10:04 am
karen ann
there are, according to the the fabulous book THE SEVEN BASIC PLOTS, by christopher booker, seven basic plots!
there may be a similar protagonist, subplot, and secondary character in another book. do not despair. do not prepare the marshmallows.
your book is still a wip. it may resemble another work at first glance, but what is below the surface? your book is still evolving, and even you don’t know what it’s going to turn out to be. so try and suspend judgment for now and keep working. what distinguishes any work is VOICE, and no one but you can have yours.
June 8, 2009 at 11:03 am
CocoaStomp
Um, yes.
What Karen said nicely instead of devolving to using the word ‘freaking.’
June 8, 2009 at 11:52 am
Martha
I’m with Cocoastomp and Karen. Don’t fret based on CATALOG copy, for cryin’ out loud!
June 8, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Kerri
I could see how Writer X’s discovery could be disheartening but I 100% agree with the other comments. If I were you, I mean, if I were Writer X, I would want to read this book when it comes out. Even if the catalog copy sounds similar to your project I would be willing to bet you will find a very different story. Well, maybe not if you are writing a non-fiction piece, in which case, I’ll bring over the graham crackers and chocolate.
Keep at it!
June 9, 2009 at 9:33 am
Jolie
YES…what they said.
Seriously!
June 9, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Kjersten
I have had a similar feeling to writer x once. I had just received a few extremely promising critiques on a pb dummy that I had already been working on for almost a year. I had just started a big revision when I went to the bookstore to catch up on my new-release reading and saw a book with a title and cover that immediately made my heart sink. It could have been a title and cover for my book. I read the book. I felt confused and upset. My unique-idea was kind-of there. It at least didn’t feel very unique anymore. I had that same crappy luck feeling.
I thought that was it for that manuscript. I put it away.
But after a while some people who had critiqued it asked about it. I got it out. I re-read both my dummy and the book from the bookstore (which I had purchased in a moment of self-torture after I read it for the first time). Hmm… Time had helped me see things a little more clearly. The books had many important differences. They were not the same. Definitely not the same. How could have I abandoned something so close to my heart just because another book had a kindred spirit?
I think writer x should give it some time. And also read the other book when it comes out. Catalog copy! That’s hardly anything.
Also please see Laini Taylor’s blog post from May 3, 2009. Same basic surface-level elements does not mean same book.
October 30, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Where I’ll be and maybe I’ll see you there. « Wagging Tales
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