

This is a hard one to answer, and as ever I’m like, just me I ain’t no sage or some perfect answer machine but- I think the best thing to look out for is if you aren’t comfortable with your story yourself. If you look at your story and only see the work of someone else, then perhaps you should rework it. Don’t drop it entirely necessarily; put it in storage, mull over it, try a few ‘what if’ scenarios, change characters around, or put the cast in a totally different world. Try smashing it together with another story idea you had, and see what results from the collision! Play with it until you feel you’ve muddled it up enough that it feels strange and new and wonderful to you- the odds are it will to everyone else! It’s impossible to remove yourself from all external influences; everything and everyone influences stories, and good writers build from the ideas they absorb from other writers. We all inspire one another and that’s healthy, and how great stories come to be! Don’t be afraid of it.