Can a Story Be Original Even if It’s Based on Something Else?
Was Shakespeare original?
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…
