Do you ever get that oh shit feeling when you read something that sounds an awful lot like something you’ve written?

 

That just happened and I can’t help feeling like I’m going to be accused of being a hack. I’ve got a sick feeling in my stomach and I can’t figure out why, because I’ve done nothing wrong.

 

Back in August, I started the 5th book in my War’s Darkest Series. I got about half way through and set it aside because another work needed my attention. In my book, my character Derrick Rierson sees a little girl everywhere he looks. I haven’t yet worked out what happened to him or what he did to make him see her but I know the little girl is a key piece of his damnation and his ultimate salvation.

 

I just opened the first page of David Finkle’s The Good Soldiers and read about a soldier who sees a little girl when he closes his eyes.

 

Does it matter that I wrote my story before I ever even heard of The Good Soldiers? I don’t know. Does it matter that Joann Ross and I both wrote a book titled Shattered with a lead character named Shane? I don’t know. But as the yet unpublished author, I now know what it feels like to be worried about being accused of plagiarism.

 

I pulled the idea of the little girl out of the ether but it turns out, it wasn’t from a void. It really happened to a soldier and now I’ve got to decide whether or not to keep my book the way it is or change it.

 

I won’t make any decisions right now. I’ll finish writing my book and I’ll still read Mr. Finkle’s book. I’ll discuss with my agent and the writers in my circle of trust. But I do know that I’m considering making a change because of the possibility of accusation, not the actual accusation.

 

So writers: do you change your books because someone else has the same idea or do you stubbornly hold onto the idea that sparked the initial work?