3/7/12

My Book, By Someone Else

Today while doing my agent research, I discovered something.

I discovered my book. Not the book I'm querying--thank goodness--but the book I am was writing.

It comes out in April. By someone else.

The summary was almost word-for-word what mine would have been, if it had gotten that far. Just a few name changes. Even the little subplots! So much was the same! I was more than a little freaked out.

Want to know what made it even weirder? I dreamnt mine. I don't dream stories often; in fact, I can only think of two that I've ever considered as story material. This being one of them.

How did the story I dreamed become a book?

It's strange. I get ideas from other movies, other TV shows {no, TWT was not inspired by White Collar}, other books...all the time. So often that I occasionally feel slightly guilty. And the one story I had that was so completely original...is already written. Already has a beautiful cover. Already is about to be published.

I'm really not kidding about the similarities. Everything. It's my book!

Will I continue writing my version? I don't know. I was having trouble with it already. I may give it a rest. I've got others I can work on. I should be trying to turn that TWT sequel into an actual plotline. That would probably be a good thing.

It's just...weird. Definitely on my top-5 list of weirdest things that have happened to me as an author.

Have you ever found your book...written by someone else?

4 comments:

Traci Kenworth said...

So sorry, that's got to hurt. No, I haven't experienced such but like you said, that's so weird.

Meredith said...

I think Maureen Johnson posted about that once on her tumblr. I wish I could find it for you, but I looked and couldn't find it. :(

I had a similar situation about 6 months ago. It was a novel I was in the process of writing and like you, while wandering around the internet I found another VERY SIMILAR novel. I stopped writing the novel, but that was mainly b/c I lost interest.

I think it would be up to you and what you want to do. I mean, there are no rules and it's your novel whether or not someone has written something similar or not.

Hope that helps! :)

-Meredith

Z said...

That's freaky. I'm always afraid I'll stumble across another book on the Amazon top 100 that'll be exactly like mine. I'd be ripping my hair out if that happened, especially with my current book.

rrr said...

If the novel is that similar to what you were writing, and you were publishing excerpts on your blog, it could be a case of plagiarism. Be aware that their are people that take advantage of other writer's work. It sucks but their are a lot of con (wo)men everywhere. I'd look into it if I were you, best of luck.