: Is my story too similar to an existing published work? This is meant to be a canonical question, to which particular cases can be referred. We've had several particular instances of this question

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Great question. I wouldn’t worry about it. One of my favorite series is called the Tapestry series and on so many levels the first book is a carbon copy of Harry Potter. The truth is, when someone likes a story, they want to hear it again. History has shown that some of the best stories get retold over and over again adapting every time with the flair of the story teller.

Tell your story. If it feels too much like the other stories you’ve read, ask yourself why you’re writing it? If the why isn’t meaningful to you, that’s where you should worry, but if why you were writing it in the first place feeds your passion of storytelling, you’re stay the course, the similarities will be indistinguishable when readers see you on paper.

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There is a theory that all stories basically boil down to either the same 6-7 things*, or all stories are retellings of the Hero's Journey.

*E.g. Man vs man, man vs nature, man vs himself, going somewhere and returning (etc.)

Which doesn't really mean anything, except that if your categories are broad enough eventually you can cram everything into them.

Also remember that 50 Shades of Grey started out as fan-fiction for Twilight.

So if something is too similar, the serial numbers can be filed off later.

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Many stories share similarities. If one story is about a school, it doesn't mean that no story ever again can be about a school. If one story is about magic, it doesn't mean that other stories can't also be about magic. Michael Ende had a story about a school of magic before Rowling did. Both are perfectly fine.

There are multiple stories about dragons, there are multiple stories about Napoleon, there are multiple stories about forbidden love. What makes each story unique is the particular way in which all the elements combine: the character traits of the characters, the situations they find themselves in, they ways they react, the particular ways everything goes wrong around them. In a way, story elements are ingredients, like flour, butter and eggs. The story, and its originality, reside in how those elements are combined, what they make in the end.

If my characters act and respond always the same as the characters of another story, if they find themselves in situations that are the same, if all the story beats are the same, then perhaps I should reconsider what I'm writing. (Or perhaps not - one can write a retelling of an older story that's in the public domain, but one should not pretend otherwise in such a case. West Side Story makes no claims of story originality, but admits freely it is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet.)

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