Just realized my writing prompt "lost camera" story was a total ripoff

Last week I submitted a prompt about a hiker finding a lost camera in the woods and posting the photos online. I thought it was original until my critique partner pointed out it's almost exactly like a Black Mirror episode from 2016. Now I'm reworking it with a solid twist - maybe the camera belongs to the hiker's past self. Anyone else ever accidentally copy a famous story without realizing it?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahchen7d ago

Had a buddy who spent six months writing a sci-fi novel about a guy who wakes up from cryosleep and realizes he's the last human on a spaceship. He was so proud of it. Then he watched Wall-E for the first time and had to delete the whole thing because it was basically the first ten minutes of that movie, just with less cute robots. He said it wrecked him for a week. Sometimes you think you're being clever and your brain is just pulling from stuff you forgot you ever saw. But hey, at least he found out before he tried to publish it, right? Your twist with the past self sounds solid, way better than my friend's deleted file.

the_val7d ago

oh man that's rough, @noahchen sending your buddy some solidarity from me