Discussion: Do You Read Books Similar to Your WIPs?

Photo credit: kbrookes on Flickr

As I revise the last book of the Beyond the Red trilogy (which is surreal, and weird, but also, in a way, feels right), I've been thinking about all the YA Sci-Fi books I'm going to catch up on. Because since 2013, when I first started writing Beyond the Red, I've let my YA Sci-Fi reading—especially Sci-Fi that involves other planets, or aliens, or space—fall to the wayside with only a couple exceptions.

It wasn't an accident, either.

I think it's really important to know your genre and category really well—and I do feel that I do know YA Sci-Fi relatively well. But as a person with a lot of anxiety, I've also experienced more than my fair share of anxiety attacks over my brain convincing me my book(s) are too similar to books that are already out there. And not in a Red Queen is similar to Hunger Games and both are successful kind of way, but in a THE AUTHOR WILL SUE YOU FOR PLAGIARISM kind of way, which is an irrational fear because no, I've never plagiarized nor will I ever, but anxiety disorders aren't rational with their brain spirals.

So, as a way of coping with that, and also as a way of avoiding the worry as I write that I'm being too influenced by what I've recently read (which, as you can imagine, is a paralyzing thing to worry about), I've avoided books even remotely similar to what I'm working on.

And you know? Anxiety-wise, it's worked: I haven't had an anxiety attack over too similar!! in over a year now. And as a nice bonus, I now have a pretty decent idea of all of the YA Sci-Fi alien/space books I'd like to catch up on.

As I start thinking about projects I'm going to work on after I'm done with The Rising Gold, I've acknowledged I'll want to do research before I start writing—research involving other books in the genre and category that aren't too similar to my premise, but will still help me get to know the genre and category before I dive in. Once I start writing, though, I imagine I'll cut myself off a little more strictly.

I'm curious, though—do you read books similar to your WIPs while you're drafting? What are your thoughts? 

Twitter-sized bite:

Do you read books similar to your WIPs while drafting? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)