How do you tell if a concept has already been taken?

[TerryE]

Yeah, but one thing I didn't like about Walking Dead, is that the opening with him waking from a coma alone in the hospital was almost identical to "28 Days Later". I know that scene came straight from the comics, (and I don't know if 28 Days or the Walking Dead comic came first), but once the film of "28 Days Later" was out there, I think the "Walking Dead" people should have come with a new twist for the TV series.

[Randy D. Rubin]

I just think this whole zombie resurgence is getting over played and somewhat tired. Meanwhile I write a zombie story as we speak
and I'm trying to throw a different spice into the soup.

[TerryE]

Ooohhh, how about adding some angsty teenage vampire spice. That's not played out.

[ClydeUmney]

Well, he might sue movie producers, but I can't imagine him going after a writer who's sold a short story for $40 or $50 to a magazine.
Every story out there has already been told, it's just your unique take on it. You could say the movie "In Time" sounds a lot like Logan's Run for that matter.
But the story concept, GPS devices bringing many different car occupants to the same location is basically the same setup as say Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None," getting a group of random (or not so random) strangers assembled in a meeting place before the story starts, perhaps when an ulterior motive is involved.

But what makes the story special is your unique execution of said idea, and not so much the "original idea".

Cheers,

[Randy D. Rubin]

I agree. Just try and write a ghost story that hasn't already been done. It's damn near impossible to be completely unique.

[Randy D. Rubin]

I have to disagree...I have fresh ideas for stories coming at me all the time. I get them from dreams at night. It helps to be somewhat eccentric with a love of the language. At least that's what the voices keep whispering in my head. I dig them out with a sharp nut pick when they leave me to my own devices between medication rounds... Bloody ear infections won't go away though...

[Xiabei]

Many vampire stories, yes, and many new ones - but a lot of them ARE cliches. There is definitely a market for "been there, done that, same old cookie-cutter characters and situations" - somebody has to keep buying them, in the same way romance books keep selling, or Mack Bolan-type books keep selling. Usually something comes along (or back, like vampires), somebody writes something with a slightly different approach, and then all of a sudden they're everywhere - vampires, zombies, the whole "smart-ass renegade private detective/paranormal investigator" thing, or even the "Oh no, my child has been kidnapped and there's only one man who can save him! Coincidentally, it's a man I used to love *sob*" type books - perhaps some do try to be unique, but too often they're so similar that they could all be written by the same person. Yet they're still occupying space in the book store. Cliche apparently doesn't mean unpublishable.

[Randy D. Rubin]

You make a good argument X (How do you pronounce that, is it like zhee bay?)