Like a bag of Liquorice Allsorts, your writing will contain little tastes of the unexpected as well as some familiar elements. So, when you’re sitting there, scribbling or tapping away, do you ever wonder if your marvellous, utterly inspired plot has been written before? The unpalatable answer is: it probably has.

Does it matter? Probably not.

If you’re a writer, and also an avid reader like me, borrowing piles of books from the library each week, bingeing in bookshops and charity shops, or filling up your e-reader, it can be disconcerting to find that you’ve chosen several books with related themes. To the new and aspiring novelist, it can be gutting to read a summary of your entire storyline on the back of a newly published paperback. Dispiriting to think the plot you’ve been worrying at for years has already been done.  

Honestly, how many completely original stories have you read, ever?

In recent weeks I’ve picked up novels dealing with eerily similar subject matter. No spoilers, but plots have included: heroines who are morticians (but not in crime novels); husbands or wives who mysteriously disappear; recalcitrant teenage daughters who have problems and/or secrets; husbands who reveal a second family; and almost interchangeable crime scenes The choice has been completely unintentional, as the blurb doesn’t always betray all the details of the story.

Just last week, I read a new release with definite echoes of my own WIP, which I’ve been working on for the past two years. Great minds, eh?

Fiction is awash with adaptions and reinventions of familiar tales. They say there are only seven basic plots anyway, so good luck trying to invent one that hasn’t already been covered by someone, somewhere.  Besides, no one can read everything; life’s too short. Denying yourself the pleasure of exploring a delicious subplot because you’ve read something similar, and worrying that your readers will notice a resemblance, is to invite even more uncertainty and doubt into your writing life. And you’ve got enough of that already, right?

So what if the plot has been used before? Not by you, it hasn’t. 

There are always aspects that will be different. Imagine baking a chocolate cake. The recipe calls for certain ingredients in particular amounts. The result is a sort of alchemy. Change the method or the ingredients only slightly and the cake will be different: denser, lighter, more luscious, less calorific.

The same goes for writing. The love story you’re considering may have been told many times before – it’s the human condition, after all – but not in your voice, with your expertise in telling an old story in a new and distinctive way. Even in a familiar girl meets boy scenario, there’s lots of scope for originality. Unusual settings and exotic locations create interesting situations almost by themselves. A mental or physical problem could add a new dimension to an otherwise ordinary situation (make sure you do your research first). Consider the dynamics of the couple: how they respond to each other, to outside influences, things they can and can’t control – there’s a huge range of emotions, undercurrents and subtleties to be explored, in your own inimitable way.  

Try not to get too hung up worrying about plagiarising someone else’s work. There’s no copyright in ideas, just the way they are expressed. Avoid hackneyed phrases and clichés, which will mark your writing out as unoriginal. We are all unique and the stories we tell will be similarly individual. Approach familiar stories from a different perspective, introduce unexpected elements. Be inventive, unpredictable and ingenious.

There really is nothing new under the sun. Everyone’s recipe is different. We all have our own writing style and voice. The stories we tell, even those with similar themes, will always be different.