A great article for you roleplayers and writers!

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Diana

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National Novel Writing Month - What to Do When Someone’s Already Written Your...

Have you ever been in a situation where someone else came up with the same basic idea as you? I see it happen ALL THE TIME. Roleplay plots, character backgrounds, their novel ideas, etc. And almost every time I see them freak out and think "OH NO! NOW I CAN'T DO MY IDEA!", they get discouraged and then they end up not doing it at all. D:

But that's silly! Even when people share an idea, the execution will always be unique to you. So what if two people are both playing the sweet and shy girl? They are still going to end up two different people! And you know, there's hundreds of Multi Genre Roleplay Forums out there. But every single one of them runs in a different way and has a different kind of community. So why NOT try making one yourself if you are ambitious enough? And just because the I AM YOUR FATHER trope has been done a million times, it doesn't mean your story isn't also something fantastic to read.


What have been some of your instances or moments where you and someone else ended up with the same ideas? How did you handle it?
 
Honestly can't recall any times when ideas have matched with someone on anything other than plotting details and the like. A few instances of "I was thinking the same thing!" Then trying to figure out what the other meant..
Too many unique ideas, I guess?

Also, cliches, tropes, references, etcetc are hella fun!

Actually, there was one person a while ago that told me "this idea is basically the idea behind X:the movie, you shouldn't do it". They couldn't really give me a good reason why I shouldn't other than it had been done. Wished they'd tell that to the generic pairing piles that most partner request threads are.

Even if we shared a near perfect idea it's gonna end up different. Roleplay nurture vs roleplay nature!
 
I got a few DX nothing story wise, but character ideas.

I have a character named Aki. But his ability is super similar to Naruto's deidera. Except Aki uses a type of metal he generates from his body instead of Deidera's clay, and Aki doesn't have hand mouths... And Aki wasn't born with his powers.
Point is, both create and control explosives, and my friend who's a deidera fanboy always gets at me about it -.-

Personally, I don't care much they're similar. Perhaps one day there will be a screwattack death battle between them ^^

Another similar one is general grievous and his similarities to my J6. Both white armored cyborgs and very similar personalities though J6 is more pissed off all the time. And his machine army of Drakane's reminds my friend of grievous body guards as both use a variety of those staff things (though Drakane's use elemental rods that change elements, also elemental armor which switches elements for defense) and the general class cyborgs called Ghor which apperently shares the name with Grievous's pet -.-

Sooooo much bad luck DX But he's a bit too important in terms of back story from thousands of years ago to change much.

My character Corruption ended up using Kratos's weapons... Kinda, she uses twin voodoo daggers and during part 3, she attaches chains to them. Though I think copying weapon types is as redicules as going after FF for using oversized swords like berserk.

So yeah, there's a few ^^ none are outright copies, but close enough for people to mention to me. When you have 100+ characters, it's impossible for them all to be 100% original/unique as SOMETHING will be compared.
 
Easy; I joined forces by roleplaying with them because they had a similar idea.
 
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I posted about it in my blog and the lovely @Diana gave me the same advise as what's in the OP

afterward I felt very silly because of how many times people have asked me if they can post in the content boards about a topic that's already been covered and I've always said 'yes, of course, because your post will be different in some way and maybe it will connect with people who didn't really 'get' the first one'!
 
What have been some of your instances or moments where you and someone else ended up with the same ideas? How did you handle it?
Outperform them.

There is no such thing as original ideas; instead you should aim for execution, a layer of paint and combining different old ideas to make something new. In that order. Whatever you do, someone probably already did it before you anyway. Rather than caring about that, focus on doing the same concept better, different or give it some kind of uncommon twist. It's never about how unique your story is, it's about how it feels.
 
Years and years ago, almost 10 years, I came up with a certain book idea. I thought I was brilliant. Never worked on it a lot, but I was fleshing out the setting and world.

Then Mistborn came out, by Brandon Sanderson.


MOTHERFUCKER!!
 
I keep trying to tell my players this. @Seba @Snakey but they always aim to be unique and change their characters over and over until they are unique. :ferret:
 
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Totaly came up with the idea for a One Piece devil fruit for a fan fic I'm writing with a power of bringing drawings to life, only to read about the samari with that ability in the manga about three months later. And neither character could draw so we apparently had the same joke too.

I celebrated. I KNEW IT WAS A FUN ABILITY!

but since I like to keep my fanfics in the cannon I have some tweaking to do.
 
I've had this happen with art too. It was freaky, everything down to the poses, placement, and a few colors were the same. So I ended up not uploading my picture. Now its been swallowed by the expanse of my room. x.x;

I don't think I've seen any of my plots being mirrored though there has been some close calls in Doctor Who.
 
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