Bleah! It's been done!

[elfs]

Okay, so: how come nobody told me that the essential basis of Caprice Starr is exactly the same as MacLeod's The Cassini Division? I mean, grief, right down to Caprice being part of a Sol-based interplanetary trans-governmental agency, a branch of which is armed with nukes and more, the entire stated purpose of which is to save the Earth from the posthumans?

Admittedly, I think Caprice is a little more neurotic, and working for a much more corrupt agency, than Ellen and her band of pure-hearted stalwarts, and the plotline's a little different, but... frack.

Comments

[jenk]

Madeleine L'Engle wrote that her husband's reaction to a draft of The Arm of the Starfish was "It's all been said before." She pointed out that if she was going to let that stop her she couldn't write at all.

More practically, how similar are the plots? I someone who's read Cassini going to know the ending of Caprice Starr? If so, yes, problem. Solvable, but problem. Or is someone who's read Cassini more likely to grab onto a particular red herring? That might not be bad at all :)

If it helps, remember: Ender's Game and Starship Troopers both involve wars with insect-like alien races...

[jenk]

Oh, and: Scooped, in Piled Higher & Deeper

MacLeod stole that plot from Shakespeare

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

Nobody's going to accuse you of plagiarism, and after all you've written, nobody's going to accuse you of a lack of imagination, either, so don't worry about it. :-)

Anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_Already_Did_It

. png

[mouser.livejournal.com]

The classic is "Didn't Shakespeare write that?" "Nah - he stole it from..."

[xengar.livejournal.com]

My father had to toss out a manuscript because it was apparently too similar to one of "The Dresden Files," which he hasn't read until after his agent pointed out the similarity. It really helps to remember the "there are only X basic plots" (http://www.ipl.org/div/farq/plotFARQ.html) theory when this sort of thing happens. Throw in a few similar set pieces and a familiar character or two, and you've got trouble if that is what you're looking for.

The question becomes, as jenk said, are the similarities such that a reader of one has no need of reading the other? Or contra-wise, are the similarities superficial enough that you merely need to distract the reader from them until they are involved enough in the story to not care about it?