Has been sung...every book written...every invention a rehash of an idea...
Yet...new songs are on the charts...new books adorn a novel design of shelf...the dictionary adds words each year...don’t be disheartened...a change of perspective can hit the prism in a slightly different way...then...your decision...

The variables are the characters their reactions and twists.

Take Anne Rice and Steven King. There have been 100,000's of books written about vampires, but what was different about theirs that made them famous authors?

Even King's book, Carrie, wasn't a new concept, teen angst and bullying and revenge. Yet it was a best seller and made into a movie.

Surprisingly, that story got me a cash offer from a writing agent. I never took that story seriously but it taught me one thing: the horror genre is always popular.

keep tapping away.

There are only seven basic plots that all stories follow. They are:

1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

Sometimes a story will contain more than one of these.

Here's more detail:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots

It's the expression of these ideas that make stories unique. Keep writing! I'm sure your story is captivating!

The long trip home to his wife with uncertain outcome.

I forgot about rebirth, a powerful human theme in religion and ceremony. That feeling of being reborn must be exhilarating.

comedy, rebirth, and tragedy are not plots. They are types of story telling.

Still, I'd suggest you peruse the Wikipedia article I linked. The point is that there are fundamentally 7 stories. Feel free to pick nits!

Stay safe, PO!

And even though the Wiki article calls comedy, tragedy, and rebirth, plots, they are still not plots. It's a carelessly written article.


(Says the occasional writer who cannot plot to save her life.)

But, it could even be argued that Sherlock Holmes only had only one plot to all of his adventures. And Miss Marple and Poirot the same.

OTOH, there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, and look how many books we've made of them.

Pianists have it easier with 88 keys, and how many different tunes have been made from those notes...

Don't worry about "who did it first" because somebody did. Best you should worry about who does it best.

to try and learn some classics. I'm lousy and turn the speed all the way down with numerous mistakes.

I'll just give up then watch child prodigies in China on YouTube killing it at only five years old.

And your characters, their quirks and how they interact and evolve.

I encourage you to write it anyway, despite the Simpsons. Who knows where the process will take you?

I've studied a good bit of art therapy, including writing endeavors. Many experts in the field believe that all art forms are sort of autonomous entities wanting to create through us. Think of the shamanic conpcept of the hollow bone theory.

Perhaps the story needs to be retold, restoried. 😊👍

The story is complete it's just that I was thinking I was alone in ripping this from popular culture. How naive.

I fear success much more than continual failure so this fits right into my persona.

That's why I've never submitted anything yet.

I'll bet lots of folks are reading quite a bit more since being home. I'm pretty sure Amazon makes it really easy to do. They even have artists who will whip up cover art for starting somewhere around $5. I've never done it, but several friends have with amazing success.

They have cautioned to have several people read & suggest edits. Omitting this step, they say, is one of the biggest mistakes authors make because readers will be quickly turned off if there are typos, incorrect word usage, or grammatical errors.

The other suggestion is to have 2-3 more books ready to publish before e-publishing the 1st one because if readers find resonance with your work, they will rip through the first book & buy another. If a 2nd ism't already on the market, they lose interest & look elsewhere.

I hope this is helpful in some way. 😚

as others have pointed out, all the stories have been told over and over.