How many stories are there in the world? When I was a young writer, conventional wisdom was twelve. Twelve basic plots for every work of fiction — film, literature, radio, theater — in the world. The highest estimate I’ve ever seen is 36.
In or around 2006, I began work on a piece of fiction to — what else? — impress a woman. Said woman was the friend of a friend; he introduced us, we sparked, there was drama, we parted. (Boy meets girl — one of the oldest stories, and surely among that 12 I learned as a boy.) To impress her, I began putting together a work of longform fiction. And because this woman used the name Sekhmet on message boards we frequented, I decided to incorporate Sekhmet into the story.
But in a modern way, you know? Even better, I thought, would be to use an Egyptian bad guy as the antagonist. Ancient gods in the modern word? Brilliant! (Yeah, I was reading “American Gods” a lot back then.) And hey, a bit of quick research turned up Apep, a sort of Egyptian god of darkness — in the bad sense — and just the sort of baddie I needed.
I did a little work, wrote a bit of an outline, fleshed out some characters and promptly forgot the project for four years. Once I finished Underneath It All, I saw a pattern in the rejection letters: Sorry, most of the agents said, we’re focusing away from that sort of fiction for supernatural-tinged thrillers or dark urban fantasy. “How about that,” I thought. “I have a supernatural-tinged thriller idea!”
For a couple of months now, with some breaks, I’ve been actively writing the idea, using those Sekhmet and Apep concepts from before. I’ve been getting close to the characters, sussing out ideas for how they’d collide, basically falling in love. And then came yesterday: Oct. 7, 2010, when by chance I stumbled on a random note on TVTropes.org about, yes, a thriller series following the reincarnation of Sekhmet who basically becomes a superhero to fight Apep in modern times.
Argh!
I know: There are only 12 stories in the world. Ancient Egypt is not my exclusive domain to mine. For all I know, the guy’s ideas are radically different. The thing is, I won’t let myself read them. I cannot be even accidentally influenced. My idea is sufficiently different that I can continue on my path and, knowing what little I do about his series, nobody could ever cry plagiarism.
I can worry, but I’ll press on. I already love some of these characters (even if a few will meet unhappy fates) and I believe in my own writing skill. I can’t help but think, though: Why couldn’t that other guy do zombies and vampires like everyone else?
