Can a Story Be Original Even if It’s Based on Something Else?

Click here to read Part 1 of my series on whether there are truly no new ideas under the sun.

Is it true that all ideas have been done before, so nothing is new?

And what about stories that use similar plots, character types, and settings, but are still unique?

Let’s dive deeper and dig into some examples.

Stories that openly “copy” a pre-existing story, but still end up looking very different from the original

Stephenie Meyer actually said that her books were based on some classical stories: Twilight was based on Pride and Prejudice, New Moon on Romeo and Juliet, Eclipse on Wuthering Heights, and Breaking Dawn on The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I have to hand it to her, at least she is honest about her plot origins!

But just because she based her books on these classics, does that mean that her books are not significantly different from Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream? No matter how much you hate the Twilight series, I don’t think you would say that Twilight bears much resemblance to these stories at all, beyond the basic plotlines.

While I’m on this streak of controversial opinions, I want to talk about The Lion King. I was dumbfounded when people told me that it was basically Hamlet. Some friends proceeded to bash The Lion King, saying that Disney is once again copying someone else’s work. Let’s forget about the fact that Shakespeare himself copied other people’s stories.

But does anyone truly see The Lion King as that similar to Hamlet? Sure there is the plot of uncle murders dad, son is ambivalent until he finally realizes his uncle was the murderer and kills him. But then again, Scar didn’t try to marry Sarabi (Simba’s mother) too. And they are lions, not humans. I would think that lions and humans look very different and have different abilities and lifestyles.

Now I can just tell that skeptics would swoop in and say that I‘m getting distracted by surface details, that I’m ignoring the overarching structure that belongs to Hamlet. But I could just as easily argue that they are dwelling on surface plot structures and ignoring the beautiful wonder that is The Lion King. Seriously, just the gorgeous art and stunning music are enough to make it a masterpiece!

The Lion King is in fact one of my favorite Disney movies of all time, and I frankly feel annoyed that all of these amazing things, the characters, the drawings, the songs, are all shoved aside just because it happens to be an “uncle murders dad and takes over as the king, and the son comes back to kill the uncle” kind of story.

Modern-day books that clearly “imitate” another modern-day book, but we still love it anyway

Some people have told me that they don’t care to read The Hunger Games because it’s just Battle Royale. The Hunger Games is not the first story to feature kids pitted against each other in a fight to the death. Nor is it the first story where a totalitarian, oppressive government uses this “game” to keep citizens fighting and distrusting each other, but then the kids figure out what is going on and try to take down the government instead.

But as similar as their storylines are, it seems unfeeling to me to say that Battle Royale and The Hunger Games are the same, and therefore the latter is not worth reading. Sure you can read whatever you want, as our time is limited.

Yet, both books have heartbreaking, moving stories. Both have characters and plot events that shock us, inspire us, or horrify us. I simply cannot understand why people would dismiss one or the other just because of some overlaps in plot structure.

Now, there is another book that could be seen as copying The Hunger Games: Veronica Roth’s Divergent. While they do not try to get kids to kill each other, they do have a similar plot of a dystopian, totalitarian government that has divided the country into artificial factions.

However, yet again, as someone who has read and enjoyed both books, I have to say that they feel completely different. Divergent is more sexually mature, for one, and is generally grimmer, even though The Hunger Games is already no walk in the park. You could say Divergent is an even darker version of The Hunger Games, just as The Shadowhunters could be seen as a harsher and more realistic counterpart to Harry Potter.

Still, that description is simplistic. Even looking at the characters, their personalities, backstories, and relationships, The Hunger Games and Divergent are very different.

For instance, both heroines, Katniss and Trish, have a beloved sibling. Yet, their relationships with their siblings aren’t at all similar. Not to give away any spoilers, but Katniss’s relationship with Prim is more loving and sweet. Trish’s relationship with Caleb is more bitter and fraught with tension.

What if you write a story that you have never heard of, only to discover that someone else has already written it?

In middle school, I was proud of myself for coming up with the original idea of a wolf and a deer becoming best friends, despite being predator and prey. I even wrote the whole story and posted it online. But then a reader told me that this was like The Fox and the Hound.

What? I was flabbergasted because at the time, I had not heard of that book or movie. But this author beat me to it!

I do love The Fox and the Hound very much, so this is not a jab at the movie (I haven’t read the book yet). But I’m just saying that sometimes, you think a story idea is unique, and it is, but only to you and other people who have not heard of a similar story that is already published.

That said, the reader who told me that this was essentially The Fox and the Hound, said that they still liked my story. So it wasn’t all bad.

When we have a lot of fun deliberately copying older stories, and making new productions out of it

Have you seen Oliver and Company? This is an adorable Disney movie based on Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. Except the orphan boy is an orphan kitten, and the pickpocket kids who adopt him are dogs rather than humans. Aside from the fact that these are animals rather than humans, Oliver and Company is still very different from Oliver Twist in many ways.

Charles Dickens’ story was darker, even if it’s considered one of Dickens’ more lighthearted tales (this is not why Oliver Twist is my favorite Dickens’ novel, but I do appreciate the comedy and satire). Oliver and Company was mostly for children, so they had to keep the violence and other things down to a PG level.

Some readers in fact want to see stories similar to books they already adore. I’m in a fan club on Facebook for Nora Sakavic’s All for the Game series. In this story, a group of misfit kids from traumatic backgrounds, come together to play a fictional sport called Exy. A sweet gay romance develops between the main characters.

Some readers asked for stories that are like All for the Game. Some suggestions included The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. The only things in common between these three stories, are that they all involve a group of young people joining together for a greater cause, and they have a gay romance between two main characters. Other than that, the plots, the world-building, and even the characters and relationships are very different.

Likewise, I loved Devil May Cry, as this video game was based on Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy. But Dante and Virgil in the game aren’t just sailing through hell. They actually fight and beat the monsters.

Click here for Part 3 of my series on whether there are truly no more new ideas under the sun.

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Originally published on QuickTalk on Aug 8, 2022