Today was talking with a co-worker about a fantasy screenplay I'm writing and when I mentioned the description of an element she said "oh like this from Game of Thrones." Took me by surprise before cringing and wanting to bash my head into the product shelves. And when I talking to a friend about a key plot point of another story he went "oh Red Wedding" (shortly after it aired); simply judging by his comment (plus the cavalcade of GoT related posts on Facebook)…I can guess what happened. While the old adage is "every story has been told and what's important is your twist upon it" how do you deal with the information you thought so fresh and different has been done and sometimes almost one-to-one what you've written? I abstain from watching 'Game of Thrones' , 'True Blood', 'Walking Dead', and other genre television or films to limit outside influence until certain stories are completed. Soldier through how I see the story so I won't get hung up on every detail, thinking "so-and-so did it, i can't" or "wait i need to change this, but that'll affect this so i need to change the entire story". How many of us have been there? Talking with a friend about a story we're writing and only to catch a wry grin or chuckle; learning that a film, book, or TV series has gone over the same territory? Whether in character, plot, location, or visual aesthetic. What do you do in that situation? Do you wall yourself off from the medium to proceed as "uninfluenced" as possible? Do you stop every few pages and go "can't do that, so-and-so did" and force rewrites then and there? Or do you write how you originally saw your story and
Screenwriting : "The Simpsons Did It" by Richard Humphries
"The Simpsons Did It"
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I put in terms like, no it's more Game of Thrones meets World War Z, and then that usually crystallizes the concept but be careful, only use successful box office films when talking to decision makers.
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Hmm. I detect a question/answer mismatch. So I'll take a crack: yeah, it's an issue. No, I don't wall myself off from anything. But I've certainly gotten that sort of thing. Most recently, "oh, just like in that episode of Fringe!" For me, if it's very famous, I consider it an issue. You don't want to rewrite the ending of The Sixth Sense or the chestburster scene from Alien (or, unfortunately, maybe the Red Wedding) without some awareness of what the audience is bringing to the table. Maybe you need to twist it, or comment on it, or change it enough to mask the similarity. But you'll never avoid EVERY bit of pop culture of the last 100 years. There's no way. I wouldn't worry about the odd Simpsons (or Fringe) parallel. But the horse head in the bed? It's been done. You know?
Gah, still getting my head wrapped out how to follow these bloody threads. @Kerry, you've basically hit the nail on the head. I'm hoping that my characters and events surrounding the are vastly different that the context of the scene(s) will have different meaning vs what GoT or another show/film have done; still a bit of a gut-punch as someone else got out the gate first. @Alle, interesting; never thought if it like that. My biggest fear has always been trotting over someone's toes without realizing it; but watching a film/show or reading a book in a similar vein as what I'm writing I have the equal fear of unknowingly coping them or simply being fixed in a corner that doesn't go the direction i wanted the story to go.