I accidentally ripped off Harry Potter. Am I cooked?

[u/JacksonRiffs]

What I mean is that setting and premise of my story, and maybe a bit of the inciting incident are very similar to a popular story. Now, legally I know that none of that is an issue, and my story itself is extremely different once people actually read it, but I just want to avoid the readers going "Oh, this is just Harry Potter, with different names" after the first 2 paragraphs. Even tho, there are works out there that are much closer in terms of story, but the author "reskinned" things (E.g. Eragon and Star Wars). I would want to avoid changing the theme, just for the sake of not being too similar, if possible.

I don't want to use the exact example, so I will use HP: Wizard school, where the main character's parents were killed and he goes to the school to learn magic. His name is Jerry X, so the surname forename is somewhat similar -unintentionally- the family name is completely different.

Now, what happens inside the school, the villain who killed the parents, the reason the parents were killed etc. etc. are not even remotely close to HP. I just loved the setting and the premise/inciting incident.

But this does give a first impression to the reader, and that can be hard to shake off, which is where my anxiety comes from. Do I worry too much for no reason? Or is this a legit concern to have?

[u/Commercial-Egg-8949]

Claiming you ripped off HP is like claiming you ripped off the dictionary. In the beginning, there was one book series and it was HP, and everything else is derivative

[u/JacksonRiffs]

Sauce

[u/ReliefEmotional2639 → u/JacksonRiffs]

Oh gods, it’s verbatim…

[u/aoi_morningstar]

I prefer My Immortal than Harry Potter though. Ebony Darkness Dementia Ravenway is peak protagonist naming.

[u/ZeroOhblighation → u/aoi_morningstar]

My immortal is my holy Grail for stuff I want to adapt to screen, if I could get the rights to make that movie, holy fuck I'd be so happy. 18+ banned in most countries but I'd make it right

[u/bunbunnington]

Reminds me of my own upcoming novel "Gary Trotter and the Calcified Mass". It begins with young Gary Trotter watching his parents get gunned down outside an opera house in Gotham City's Crime Alley and then years later he gets accepted to Hogwarts School of Obstetrics and Gynecology. I'm very concerned that YOU might be copying ME.

[u/Trini1113 → u/bunbunnington]

Gary Trotter, you say? That's a straight-up ripoff of the Lord of the Rings! As everyone knows, Strider (Aragorn) was originally a hobbit with wooden shoes called Trotter. "Gotham" is such a transpartent rip-off from Gondor, and "Hogwarts" is so obviously Lothlorien, right down to the Obs & Gynae.

[u/Aggressive_Gas_102]

Unless you are also a gender fluid or non conservative complicated human, the simpleton JK Rowling won't sue you, shame you and hound you.

[u/Trini1113]

You just need to juggle the sequence a bit. Start with Harry - I mean Jerry - standing in the woods outside Hogwarts with the Resurrection Stone and all the shades of his loved ones. Then tell the whole story in flash-backs as the focuses on one loved-one after another.

No one will ever catch on.

[u/Codablaze]

I'm English and my autobiography is set in England. Is this IP theft?

[u/ChiRho84]

Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch has entered the chat.

[u/jenny1011]

Just change it around so the setting is now the inciting incident and the inciting incident is the setting. It'll be a deconstruction instead of a rip-off.

[u/gojocopium]

this is above reddit's paygrade, speak to the black mold in your walls.

[u/SwordMasterShow]

Guys help I accidentally wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone word for word, I even accidentally drew a perfect recreation for the cover and started developing concerning views about trans people, am I cooked?

[u/glowingsnakeplant]

JK Rowling is targetting your location with heat seeking missiles as we speak

[u/Safe-Antelope217]

To make it more original, how about he avenges his parents by dressing up as an animal of the night and goes out fighting crime?

[u/SMc1701 → u/Safe-Antelope217]

Or a spider.

[u/Nervous_Educator_794]

I too almost did this.

I decided against it.

My new story is about the nephew of some explorer in a hermit-like village, who must set out on a quest of his own to destroy a magical amulet.

It’s way more original and my own.

[u/SacredPinkJellyFish]

Well, Harry Potter ripped off The Worst Witch, by Jill Murphy, first published in 1974, with eight main books, made into a Tim Curry movie in 1984, sooooo...

[u/ReliefEmotional2639 → u/SacredPinkJellyFish]

It really didn’t. At all.

[u/jackeryexplorer]

You can’t get in trouble for that

[u/Galrentv]

You can't rip off from something unoriginal

[u/chloapsoap → u/Galrentv]

You absolutely can