Don't Be Afraid to Steal

You're constantly reading, you're constantly watching things, and you're watching all these ridiculous videos. Occasionally, you're going to see somebody either get something  so right it's  So incredible that you need to try and do it yourself or something so wrong you need to if you figure out how to do it right. Worse, you know it's going to drive you crazy until you do it. 

Except that you're going to feel a little bit hesitant; you're going to feel that there's some sort of honor code between writers that prevents you from doing so. I'm going to tell you straight up: Go ahead and steal it. This is one of those things everybody does to some degree. If you listen to a lot of different comedian routines, you're going to hear a lot of the same jokes. I'm gonna go even further: Some of them won't be all that different once you break things down. But the bottom line is you're going to hear a lot of the same jokes because all these comedians are stealing from each other. 

When you start watching movies and TV, you're going to see a lot of people going through the same basic ideas. Again, that's because they saw something really cool or saw something really awful and decided to try and do it themselves. Everyone steals from somewhere: Sure, it may start as a form of flattery or because they're curious if they can do it themselves, and sometimes because they just want to do whatever others are doing because they know it's safe, but the bottom line is everyone does it to some degree.

As a writer I'm telling you to go ahead and steal. Now, I can see some hesitation because everybody feels there's some sort of writers code that prevents this, or you'll be found out as a fraud. That's perfectly natural. However, at the same time writers tend to be a little bit of family and we tend to have a lot of rivalries going on; we do like challenging each other for position. As long as you're doing something that will challenge others and challenging yourself, you're should be good to go. 

Just keep in mind that while there is a certain amount of gray when it comes to ideas, copyright laws are black and white. As long as you don't steal whole pieces of somebody else's work, you should be good to go. You're more than welcome to go ahead and see what you can do with it, so don't be afraid to steal someone else's idea, just make sure that you have some fun with it and make it your own.