It's All Been Done Before (and Now It's Your Turn)
What to do about fears of unoriginality and false accusations of plagiarism
Superman is Hercules + carnie strongmen + Ahura Mazda + the immigrant experience
Dragon Ball is kung fu movies + Superman + Chinese folklore + whatever was popular in the 80s/90s
Batman is The Shadow + Dracula + Hades + Zorro + Scarlet Pimpernel + Sherlock Holmes
Point being: everything is derivative of something else.
That's how culture works.
People don't want something they've totally never seen before and can't reference or find relevant. They want something familiar enough to decide whether to give it a shot but different enough that they won't get bored.
If you're really worried about your project being too similar to another popular work, you can always try combining it with elements of something else you love.
Maybe this won't be your magnum opus and at the end you still won't find it original enough.
That's okay.
Hunter S Thompson's first writing projects could not have been more unoriginal: he literally rewrote his favorite books word for word so he could know what great writing feels like. He then went on to pioneer gonzo journalism and write some of the most original works of the 20th century.
Whether typing out The Great Gatsby or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I don't think Hunter stressed too much about if the words/phrases he was using had ever been put down in that order. He was just trying to become a great writer.
There are plenty of mediocre creators who produce works nobody has ever seen before. Works that nobody will ever want to see.
To the greats, being the first to ever do something doesn't matter.
What matters is whether you put a spin on what you're doing that is interesting and personally fulfilling enough to be worth your time and efforts to continue. Because as long as you can keep going–and improving along the way–excellence and originality are sure to follow.
Yes, everything has been done before, and nothing like what each of us can offer has been done before. “What matters is whether you put a spin on what you're doing that is interesting and personally fulfilling enough to be worth your time and efforts to continue.”