As you may know, I'm venturing into this world of gothic urban horror called Soulweaver, and im quite happy with the result so far.

I started this little adventure around Jan this year and I've been having a great time with it, if not getting a little concerned with the ideas are coming out of my own head, but anyway that's my issue(s). When not writing on the train on my daily commute, I read, and being a 'King' fan I eagerly started reading Dr Sleep. About half way through the book I read a scene where an old man is dying, and our hero start seeing all his memories as the old man dies.

Hmm thinks I, That sounds very familiar, My main character does exactly the same bloody thing in the first chapter of my story... bugger! ...

(not that I'm claiming to be even on the same planet as King - far from it - just to be clear on that)

Here is the part king wrote:

 
Excerpt From: Stephen King. “Doctor Sleep.” 

“Instead of taking Charlie’s pulse—there was really no point—he took one of the old man’s hands in his. He saw Charlie’s twin sons at four, on swings. He saw Charlie’s wife pulling down a shade in the bedroom, wearing nothing but the slip of Belgian lace he’d bought her for their first anniversary; saw how her ponytail swung over one shoulder when she turned to look at him, her face lit in a smile that was all yes. He saw a Farmall tractor with a striped umbrella raised over the seat. He smelled bacon and heard Frank Sinatra singing “Come Fly with Me” from a cracked Motorola radio sitting on a worktable littered with tools. He saw a hubcap full of rain reflecting a red barn. He tasted blueberries and gutted a deer and fished in some distant lake whose surface was dappled by steady autumn rain. He was sixty, dancing with his wife in the American Legion hall. He was thirty, splitting wood. He was five, wearing shorts and pulling a red wagon. Then the pictures blurred together, the way cards do when they’re shuffled in the hands of an expert, and the wind was blowing[…]”

Here is the part from Soul weaver:

"The weaver smiled. She liked this part. She vaguely heard one of the doctors saying something about time of death. Soon she wasn't aware of anything as she sat across the old mans chest, except the high she was to be feeling from absorbing his memories. Recollections came flooding into her. She gasped and shuddered in ecstasy. She saw the birth of his daughter… The fishing trip with that lover. She saw the way she looked at him as they skinny dipped in the lake… The memories kept coming faster, incoherently and yet wonderful. The accident when he broke his leg… Pain, Passion, lust, greed … Faster and faster they hit her. They didn't make much sense but she didn't care. Throwing her head back, she gasped as the breathlessness took her. The feeling was beyond describable and dangerously pleasurable[...]"

Bugger, the main point of this story is that the weaver's feed off the memories that the dying give out.

I guess the question I'm asking is, is it too close? Or bugger it, it is what it is, run with it.

 (the concept of the Soulweaver tale itself is vastly different to Dr Sleep, it just that paragraph that concerns me.)

If i had read Dr Sleep first, then, thought "ooh, that's a good idea" ill make a story out of that, then I wouldn't really be too worried about it, but as this is the other way round I have more of a "bugger bugger bugger!" feeling. I cant even say I subconsciously ripped it off, which happens all the time across the creative worlds.

What are your thoughts oh great collective of cleverer people than me... 'preciate any feedback.

Cheers
Al 

At first glance, I have to admit that they're sorta similar.  However, King's version seems to be more sentimental, and your weaver seems to get more of an erotic thrill out of it, and that's a pretty big difference.  

I can't predict how other readers and critics will respond, or whether they'll notice, but just to be on the safe side, instead of starting with your weaver in the middle of seeing the memories of a dying person, maybe open with what draws her attention to the old man in the first place?

Just a thought.  Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback Ian ... yeah I think I'm gonna just go with it for now. As a musician you get "that sounds like" whenever you create an original song and record it, as an artist you get "your style is very similar to ..." I guess at the end of the day, it is what it is (at this stage anyway). 

Cheers

Al