What Do You Do When Your Book Idea Isn't Unique?

WHY, OF COURSE YOUR IDEA IS UNIQUE!!!

I recently came across this problem while reading a new book. My work in progress is something that I've  been planning for about three years. It's a concept that has always intrigued me, and I'd never read any other YA book with this storyline. As I plotted the story out, I wanted to pat myself on the back and congratulate my genius brain for being so awesome because NO ONE HAD EVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE.

Then I sat down to read Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. My first thoughts:

• Oh my gosh, y'all this book is so good. 
• Her prose! ACK! ENVY! Beautiful! I want to pet the pages!
• This character is so beautifully broken that I want to jump inside the novel and give her a hug! (Even though, you know, Juliette would kill me... But she wouldn't feel good about it.)

Then I got to a part that completely shattered me. (You see what I did there?) One of her main plot points is EXACTLY like mine. I was crushed. Here is this amazing writer, already agented by one of the top agents in the industry, published by one of the most prestigious YA houses in America, and to top it all off, her prose could suffocate mine like a sugar coated boa constrictor. 

I stopped writing for weeks. I mean, what was I going to do? I was already halfway through my WIP and what was the point of continuing it? Surely no agent is going to want to take on a copycat project. I felt so defeated that I considered scrapping the 20,000 words I had and starting completely over-- even though I LOVED those 20,000 words like WHOA. 

This project was SO different from my previous manuscript that is now shelved, and I just KNEW that it was going to be the one to get me an agent. It had a unique plot and it was science fiction (which is wanted in the YA market right now), so I was going to have to no trouble finding an agent this time. 

But someone got to the finish line before me.

So what DO you do when you see your genius book idea written by someone else? YOU WRITE IT ANYWAY. 

After five weeks of abandoning my manuscript and feeding my depression over it, I said, "You know what? I'm going to write this novel anyway!" My main character is nothing like Shatter Me's Juliette. Actually, my main character is what classifies the novel as science fiction. THAT was different than Shatter Me. 

And that was just the first of a string of things that I realized made my novel unique from Tahereh's. It really is true that the execution of a concept is what makes you different from everyone else who has thought of the same thing. No one thinks exactly alike-- it's what makes us all unique. (There I go, sounding like a kindergarten teacher. Everyone join hands, let's sing Kumbaya) 

So even if you have an idea for the NEXT BIG NOVEL and then see it a week later on a Barnes and Noble shelf, write it anyway! I promise that it will turn out 97.6% different than anyone else's similar idea. (My math may be off by a bit. It's not my strong suit). 

(NOTE: If for some reason Tahereh Mafi ever reads this post, please know: I am a huge fan of yours! No disrespect was intended for you or your amazing book. And how cool is it that Tahereh Mafi is reading my blog right now?)