Every
writer—if you’ve written long enough—knows this moment: the moment where you’re
watching a movie, or perhaps just reading a book, and there it is. Your
story. Your idea. Your character. Your dialogue. Not that it’s been
stolen from you, but you both lucked on the same source of inspiration; they
just beat you to it.
For
me, it was a situation—a humorous moment that two characters found themselves
in, which led to very awkward dialogue that made the situation even funnier.
And I had imagined it all. Some contextual details aside, it was more or less
the same scene, with quite similar dialogue, though with a slightly different
conclusion. My story—almost my words. And now I couldn’t use them. Or I could,
but it would forever be in the shadow of the previous work, which would lead to
a profoundly guilty conscience.
