The same thing happens to me all the time with my writing and the works of Stephen King. I love Stephen King, but the man is so prolific, and my reading time so limited, that I haven’t come anywhere close to reading all his books. Whenever I can, I add his audiobooks to my Overdrive queue.
At least a dozen times, I’ve written a scene or a short story, closed my laptop, and gone for a jog with my headphones, only to hear that Stephen King has beaten me to the punch. This is because I’m hyper sensitive to what I’ve just written, seeing it reflected everywhere I look, making me paranoid that I just inadvertently committed an act of plagiarism.
Nearly every story you care to name has bits and pieces or elements from other stories. It’s unavoidable, since we’ve been telling stories from the dawn of human existence. Most of your story ideas are going to resemble existing stories in some way.
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article showing you six ways to do it, and today I’ll share six more. I’ll refer to a lot of movies in my examples, because chances are good you’ve seen it, or at least heard about it.
1. Spin a story idea another way
2. Put a unique twist on an old story idea
3. Contrast your characters
4. Contrast character with environment
5. Use combinations and hyperbole.
6. Create an irresistible inciting incident
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