Disorienting experience

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

It really is disconcerting when someone points out to you a published book that appears to have an awful lot in common with one of your works in progress.

Fortunately, when I sat down and read the thing*, the similarities do not seem so worrisome after all.  I figure that a plot that opens "person is called back into service to solve the death of former professional colleague in a complex and alien political situation and has conflict between that and staying with much-loved family she has built since retiring" and a plot that opens "person in service is trying to solve some murders in a complex and alien political situation and has conflict arising from having to work with former family with whom she broke up messily and by whom she feels devastatingly betrayed" are sufficiently distinct, even if in both cases the complex and alien political situation is quite a bit like the contemporary West and the protagonist is coming from somewhere very different, so her reactions are illuminating more about her and the place she comes from than about the world she is investigating.  

Also, a couple of things that were Big Twists at the end of the published work are potential issues that my protagonist grasps, worries about and engages with pretty much immediately.  I'm not sure how to feel about that.   It would be nice to be able to think my book is more complex; I like complex.

On its own merits, so far as I can see it independently, the published book in question struck me as neither notably good nor notably bad in any way worth remarking; it's a great relief that it wasn't a brilliant work of genius that's likely to sweep major awards and be the thing to which my WiP, if it ever got published, would be compared by every reviewer by default in the way that epic fantasy gets compared to Tolkien.  The couple of things about it that strongly did not work for my personal tastes are things I was already not doing in my own book.

Has anyone else had an experience like this ?

*Metaphorically. It was short, and I have had a lot of running around to do this past few days, so I read most of it walking along or standing on public transport.

[Beefstew]

Yup.

Nothing I've actually written, since I've never actually sat down and written anything longer then a few pages.  But I've seen magic systems and plot lines very similar to mine in published works.  It worried me at first, but I don't care anymore.  I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to come up with something that's absolutely 100% original.  Someone somewhere will have thought of something similar.  As long as you do it and do it well I don't think many people will mind.  I mean heck, look at every romance novel out there. 

There is even some blatant rip-offs out there that have done very well.  I don't remember the series, but one of Terry Brooks' series is Lord of the Rings with a few things changed.  I actually had a friend that wrote and self-published a book filled with things that he stole from his favorite video games.

[OZ]

I have, as I have written elsewhere, a problem with putting things on paper but I have several stories and even a couple of series that I have mapped out in great detail in my head. I don't share the details with many people but I sometimes will bounce plot or character ideas off my daughter. She is the only other member of my family that enjoys fantasy as much as I do and her background in religions both ancient and modern sometimes gives me a new twist on some monster,or religion or magic system that I am developing. More than once she has come up to me in the bookstore holding a book and saying, " Look here's another one of your ideas that someone else is using because you never wrote the book." It always leaves me with an odd feeling. A "disorienting experience" is probably as good a term for it as any.

[meg_evonne]

One good thing is being able to say, "I've never read it. I've never even heard it discussed."

What it might say to me though, is--"If I wrote something similar to someone else's, then I'm not thinking out of the box far enough." What's frustrating would be if my idea was better and the other person's was published. Thus, I also feel your pain when you see your premise published under another's name. LOL

Carrie Vaughn reported a few years ago at MileHi that she was appalled when she found out that one of her favorite authors was writing a series that sounded just like the one that she sold around the same time frame. She was quite relieved when she was able to read the other author's and found out that they were quite different from each other.

Premises are just premises and tons of stories can share the same premise---none will be the same story. Well, unless someone really is a cheating idiot or a complete fool. And on those hackers--'a pox on their house!'

You and I have both been around long enough to see our favorite series bastardized by next generation authors. I don't think they even know they've borrowed from works they read as kids. Those folks, I give more leeway, I guess.  Still Eragon to me is no McCaffry book.

[teamlash]

There is even some blatant rip-offs out there that have done very well.  I don't remember the series, but one of Terry Brooks' series is Lord of the Rings with a few things changed.  I actually had a friend that wrote and self-published a book filled with things that he stole from his favorite video games.

I have no idea why, but I find this incredibly amusing 

[Quantus]

The terry brooks you are thinking of was his Sword of Shanara series.  Got all kinds of press for being a just a fellowship with a sword...  Granted he kept running with the world and made it quite different, but the first book definitely had some parallels