Writing stories (or developing the plot at least) is a most diverting pastime. The trouble always lies in keeping one's story from sounding like someone else's. The stories I come up with for my own enjoyment are a patchwork of all the things that have struck my fancy from as far back as I can remember. We watched a movie when I was 5 or 6 years old and I only remember three tiny snippets. Two of those snippets have shown up in one form or another in many of my little stories (there are a vast number). Sometimes I get pieces from trailers for movies that I never watch, or an episode of a TV show that I only watched part of. It is always little bits and pieces that strike me; rarely, if ever, the whole thing. So if someone were to hear one of my stories I wonder if its having taken from so many others would make it seem like an entirely new story or what it is, a patchwork. If the latter I wonder if that would be considered good or bad.