With my stories originality is doubly important to me, which
is problematic when readers generally look for comparable works to group your
book with. When I gave a brief and basic
synopsis of my first novel to a friend he said, “So it’s like the Tennis Shoe
books?” I wanted to die. That is not to say that I don’t like the
Tennis Shoe books, on the contrary, but my story has next to nothing in common
with Mr. Heimerdinger’s stories and I set out to create something that I
believe is unique.
I would never wish to rehash something someone else had
done. I even shy away from repeating things
that I myself have created. To retread,
reinvent or reimagine a thing is fine and can be entertaining and in some ways
new and fresh, but it’s not something I want to do (I even removed ‘I myself’
from that sentence because I used it in the previous sentence #truestory).
Here in lies my problem.
I am currently working on my second novel, and have been since late last
year. It deals with our inner thoughts
and a heavenly bureau charged with cataloging them. Just after I had the idea for this story I heard
that Pixar would release a film in 2015 called Inside Out that dealt with our
inner emotions and I thought, “Uh oh.”
Still it sounded different enough, so I put that worry to the back of my
mind and began to work on my story.
Today I had the pleasure to go to the movies with my wife
and watch Inside Out. First, let me say
that I love love love loved this film. I
would recommend it to anyone. Matter of
fact, if you have not seen it you should go immediately (after you finish
reading this of course). Having said
that though, my heart sank from the opening frames as it was markedly similar
to the imagery I used in my story to frame an integral part of the plot. After that, thankfully, I am happy to report
that Mr. Docter and Mr. Del Carmen went in a wonderfully different direction
and there were very few parallels between their story and mine. However, I can already hear the comments when
I describe my next book, “So it’s like Inside Out”.
My own personal Sadness took control for a few minutes, and
a bit of Anger, as a contemplated how I could light the digital copy of my work
on fire. I really considered shelving
the whole thing because of two minutes of a movie. Upon further reflection I decided that this
is a story worth telling regardless of comparisons.
After some serious soul searching I have reached the conclusion
that a comparison doesn’t diminish your work but in many ways can help your
readers. While I still place a high
value on originality, and that is the bar I will continually try to surpass, if
someone finds similarities elsewhere from their experiences or influences I
will no longer look for the closest, biggest rock to crawl under (unless it’s
50 Shades of Anything, then you will find me with a cinderblock necktie looking
for the nearest neighborhood pool).
Disclaimer: I fully recognize the irony of starting a blog
on originality with a quote from someone else and ending it with a 2 Big Bald
Guys joke I borrowed from Jason Day.
#hypocrisy