There are many reason why folks don’t write. Lack of talent isn’t one of them.

Misunderstanding the rules of originality is.

Writers don’t have to worry about originality but some do. No one is you and no one’s voice is your voice; but sometimes writers needlessly worry  about “borrowing” from other writers. I guess it’s critical to clarify borrowing. Stealing somebody’s IDEA is another thing altogether and it’s a bad, bad thing. You CAN’T claim you wrote Gone With the Wind but You CAN write a Civil War saga entwined with a love story.

Borrowing technique or approach is how we learn from other writers, from reading their plots, loving or hating their characters,  often wishing we had written anything half as good.

It’s a good thing to borrow something you like, such as a type of character, a kind of crime, a certain pace that drives tension, a way of having characters talk to each other.

Then write something you’d just love to read.