It’s long been said that knowledge is power and it’s come to my attention that there is a popular book series about a young boy with electric superpowers called the Michael Vey series. After looking up the story I found that the storyline of the first book of that series Prisoner of Cell 25 and the first book in my series The Abnormals have some extremely similar plot points and devices. There are even some characters that are alike.
HOWEVER
Neither of our stories are fan fics: Richard Paul Evans and I myself each made our own original stories and it just so happens that they have similar elements. His story is unrelated to mine, and mine to his. Any coincidental elements are just that, coincidental, and should not be considered anything else.
Anyone who has written a story before should know that it’s very common that plot elements are often traversed by more than one author by accident. There’s even sayings that there are only so many different plots in the literary world: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots. (I know this a link to a Wikipedia page about one author’s work but the point is that this has been researched. The articles I’ve read about the similarity in author’s plots and the numerous researches into it have been lost somewhere in the web and I have no clue where to find them.)
Making a complex, compelling story is a long and difficult process, and more often than not, when creating a story, an author may be forced to use certain plot elements and devices for the story to make sense, otherwise readers may not even accept it. For example, it’s not often that stories with a protagonist and an antagonist allow the antagonist to win – readers generally don’t like that. I’m not saying that is always the case, but it is the truth in a lot of cases. With that being said, it’s not hard to imagine that authors will sometimes come up with similar ideas.
Now, while I haven’t read the Michael Vey series, I have come to the decision that I won’t, because plagiarism is a willfull and disgusting act, and I do not wish to – on purpose or accidentally – include any influence from Richard Paul Evan’s series into my own. The purpose of this post is to let the world know that I am aware of his book, and that even though his came out first, I have not read it and it played no part in my book (as you could eventually tell upon reading it).
I’m sure that the Michael Vey series is entertaining and original, and I will have to take my fellow readers word for it in future.
“I think being different, going against the grain of society is the greatest thing in the world.”
– Elijah Wood
www.devonrowebooks.com 