One of the tough lessons that an aspiring writer has to learn is that whenever he has a good idea, chances are somebody already came up with that same idea and already exploited it to its fullest extent.
Sometimes he won’t even figure out that he stole the idea until it’s too late. It’s a lot like having sex with a woman, and then realizing later that the woman was a man. Not that this ever happened to me, but I can imagine.
It is a shame and self-loathing that will not go away easily.
But there are certain stages that an aspiring writer must go through in order to rid themselves of the shame of accidental plagiarism, and continue writing.
First, there is self-denial. The writer will start telling himself that his idea is slightly different even though the wording is almost exactly the same.
This is the stage when a writer will gather his friends and ask them to compare the two pieces to see if there are any similarities. This puts the friends in a very awkward position, because the writer is obviously excited about his work but telling him it’s already been done might crush his fragile ego. Most writers have fragile egos.
The second stage is anger. Anger at the author of the original work for stealing the idea. This is a good time for a friend to tell the writer to quit it and let him know that he is in fact the one that stole the original idea.
If the writer grows even more frustrated upon hearing this, remind him that time flows forward and not backward.
This leads to the third stage, which I like to call the Time Machine Stage. The writer will actually begin to design and build a time machine to assassinate the original author, even though the writer has had no schooling in the field of engineering or quantum physics.
But most writers have a delusion of self-grandeur, so this is normal.
If someone you know is drawing up blueprints for a time machine and polishing his rifle every night while muttering angrily to himself, leave. This is beyond anybody’s control. Let him be and he’ll eventually come around.
As for the next stage, I’m not sure what happens. I’m still building my time machine and my rifle just isn’t shiny enough yet.
