Why is it that every time I start writing a new project, it turns out that there's a TV show/movie/book with virtually the same theme coming out at the same time? I constantly look like I'm plagiarizing!
Yes, Crickets, I have recently learned that my new project, Not Named, features certain elements that also feature prominently in some new TV series (I'm not even sure what network it's on) called Lost Girl. To say that I am annoyed by yet again managing to play Cosmic Coincidence is an understatement.
I choose to believe that this means I have my finger on the pulse of public interest, rather than that my muse is two-timing me with people who have better connections. It makes me feel marginally better.
Granted, some of these same elements have been part of Western European and Christian mythology (yes, I used that word) for the better part of a thousand years, so maybe I'm getting irritated by nothing, but still... it's irksome.
To once again quote Commodus from Gladiator, it vexes me. I'm very vexed.
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Lost Girl is on the Showcase cable channel in Canada, and so far nowhere else, FWIW. And I don't know what you're thinking of specifically, but I can't think of much in it that hasn't been out there in urban fantasy for a while. (I know several people who refer to it as "probably the closest we'll get to a TV version of War For the Oaks." Not having read said book myself, I don't know how true that is, or which elements it refers to.)
ReplyDeleteAnd I really think that "finger on the pulse" thing is what's really in operation here. There are only so many themes, only so many stories. It's how we tell them that makes them our own.
Nobody (with half a brain, anyway) is seriously going to think you're plagiarizing. Write what you feel like writing.
I've got Lost Girl if you're interested. (wicked grin) It's charming and entertaining, and I suspect far off of what you were planning to write. I'm confident your charming and entertaining will have a different spin.
ReplyDeleteWhen Supernatural started, my players were searching my living room for the hidden mics that Supernatural's writers had to be using, as my stories would show up on SPN shortly after I ran them. Of course, that's because I was using classic horror tropes, and I agree with Valerie - you're probably just anticipating a trope whose time has come 'round again.