Is my story too similar to others?

Question

I'm writing a story about these detectives that are mythical creatures and go on a journey to save the five (or is it six I can't remember) realms. Some of the things I'm concerned about are:

"The Magic Stones" - Is that too close to Infinity Stones from Avengers? One of my characters is an adventurer/archeologist - Is that too close to Indiana Jones? There are dark mythical creatures - Is that too close to the dark unicorn from Fablehaven? There's a troll, goblin, giant, and ogre forest - Is that too close to the troll and goblin territories from Land Of Stories? There's a magical book that predicts the future - Is that too close to any artifact? The tesseract is mentioned - Is that something that multiple writers can mention?

That's all my concerns about plagiarism for now...

Any clarification that this stuff is okay to have in my story would be great :)

Answer 1

Firstly, I think it would be funny if the characters couldn't remember if it was five or six realms.

But seriously, if you are worried about some fantasy trope being used before then you're going to have to invent alot of things that no one has thought of in hundreds of years. Have there been magic stones? Oh yes, lots of times, but those were different magic stones that did different things.

Indiana Jones was just one archaeologist he didn't end the field of archaeology.

If there aren't dark mythical creatures then the "light" ones will be boring.

I can't imagine there would be whole races of mythical sentient creatures that don't have territory, or at least lost it in war and now live as refugees or nomads.

If you decide to predict the future you can put it in a book if you want. Books are a great way to convey information and can be wrong or altered unless there is a reason this one can't.

A tesseract is a "4 dimensional cube" you can use that word if you want, it belongs to theoretical geometry.

If you're only worried about plagiarism then you should do some google searches on specific items and make sure yours are just a little different. Remember the magical things you came up with are yours, like many before you. Your good idea may have been had before. But it's how you use it that sets your story apart.

Answer 2

There's nothing new under the sun. I once presented a list of a dozen plots for peer review. Every single one was very similar to a story within the last 20 years. Most of which I hadn't seen or read. While it's important not to come off as a cover band, it's more important to keep the 'other stories' from influencing yours. Write in a vacuum. Near-misses are gonna happen, but that's for other people to worry about IMHO. There's no way you can know every story. Dive into your world, entirely free this one.