Thanks for posting over here. And yes, I'm glenmered on DW... for some reason I thought I shouldn't use the same name as here. Dumb. And I'm girlintheglen on ff.net and AO3. You'd think I had a personality disorder ;) As for the unconscious plagiarism, I had an experience with that a few years ago. I wrote a story called the The Deadly Date Affair (https://archiveofourown.org/works/14524674) , with an idea I thought was so original. After I posted it, I read a story by ajsqdaway called The Formula T Affair (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/243897/1/The-FormulaT-Affair) I was very surprised by the similarities in our plot, not a copy but similar. I actually wrote her a note and told her I'd discovered my own story seemed similar to hers, but I had only just read it after writing and posting mine. She wrote back a sweet little note, acknowledging how often we bump into someone else's idea, only because it's an inevitability to do so. If you have enough people doing the same thing, ideas are bound to show up more than once. It was nice to have a veteran of the genre give me such a kind and accepting response. We all do our best to not actually 'copy' someone else's story, or at least I hope so; but it can happen simply because any idea can be had multiple times.
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As for the unconscious plagiarism, I had an experience with that a few years ago. I wrote a story called the The Deadly Date Affair (https://archiveofourown.org/works/14524674) , with an idea I thought was so original. After I posted it, I read a story by ajsqdaway called The Formula T Affair (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/243897/1/The-FormulaT-Affair)
I was very surprised by the similarities in our plot, not a copy but similar. I actually wrote her a note and told her I'd discovered my own story seemed similar to hers, but I had only just read it after writing and posting mine.
She wrote back a sweet little note, acknowledging how often we bump into someone else's idea, only because it's an inevitability to do so. If you have enough people doing the same thing, ideas are bound to show up more than once.
It was nice to have a veteran of the genre give me such a kind and accepting response. We all do our best to not actually 'copy' someone else's story, or at least I hope so; but it can happen simply because any idea can be had multiple times.