Lilac Blush
asked
Erica Ridley:
I read that your first rom-com manuscript was rejected, but then similar movies came out shortly afterwards. Do you think sometimes it's because they want to keep that idea to themselves? I know this isn't a very positive question, but I think it's something people should look out for.
Erica Ridley
Hi Emmaline! While I've no doubt that ideas sometimes do get copied (intentionally or unintentionally) I also believe that people often have the same ideas at the same time and can start a wave from seemingly out of nowhere. Traditional publishing and movie production are notoriously long processes, so most likely those projects were already in the works when my agent was shopping my book... we just didn't know it yet, so we couldn't use the trend to our advantage! In general, I think so much depends on the author, that even if you gave 100 of us the same premise to write, we'd end up with 100 different stories. I would never want fear of being copied to prevent someone from getting their work in front of the right people. :)
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