I need some guidance on my work and a clarification if my book could be considered a "Spiritual Sucessor" for my favorite JRPG series.

[Highway Star]

Okay, okay, I know the title of this post may sound a bit confusing, but that's how I am at the moment.

Well, first of all, it is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Highway Star and I'm new here on the Serenes Forest forum, so take it easy on me.

I'm a gamer and an aspiring writer, and I've always wanted to write my own stories and fantasies and always desired to turn them into a book that could be sold and found in book stores and on the internet for all my friends to read my stories and see what my passion is about, so about two or three years ago, I finally put this idea into practice. 

After months of study about writing and several classes, I started writing my modern fantasy book while still keeping a good amount of time to play video games and enjoy other things, and it was about a year ago that I discovered the JRPG franchise that completely changed my view on Worldbuilding, character development and story arc and fantasy in general: Nihon Falcom's Trails/Kiseki franchise.

I played all the games up until Trails to Azure and it is redundant to say how discovering this franchise impacted my work. Seriously, it wasn't until I played these games that I realized how much my fictional world lacked all the basic elements of worldbuilding and characters. My world had no structure, no politics, no rules, no systems, no elements, not even a story about everything my characters' ancestors did to create the world they live in. Even worse, the characters. In a nutshell, they were all empty carcasses with no good motivation or justification for doing what they did, and they were all very passive, with no personality or interesting characteristics that made them stand out. But by far, my worst mistake was the story, which had a very confusing back and forth about things and events that were not addressed to the right extent, by far. My biggest mistake.

Of course, I took inspiration from many elements of the Trails franchise to fix my world, and after that, my universe changed completely. I was able to create a history for my continent, establish the proper political and geographical structures, establish organizations, rights, etc. My characters also stopped being empty carcasses and gained tons of depth, development and personal growth according to their individual problems and beliefs, as well as new purposes and new characters to accompany them in these purposes. And it looks so different and better that all the friends I have shown it to praise my work and say that I really have created something spectacular and well-crafted.

However... this is where my problem begins. I fear that even though I included many of the things I had originally planned for my book before I met the Kiseki games, my work has become very similar to the aforementioned Falcom franchise, to the point where my franchise is more like a true spiritual successor of the Trails series, like Mighty No.9 and Megaman, or Castlevania and Bloodstained.

The fear of being accused of plagiarism and theft are things that truly scare me. Sure, my world has original things, quite a bit to be sure, but that still doesn't erase all the similarities between the two universes, and I wonder whether I should scrap half of everything and try to rebuild it or whether I should consider my work a spiritual successor or a pastiche so that it can exist the way it is without any problems occurring.

I AM a Trails fan and I make no point of hiding it, I don't mind having to write an epigraph or a preface on the first page of my book to make it clear that it resembles the Trails series INTENTIONALLY, and that it is STRONGLY INSPIRED BY IT. Heck, I could even write that on the back cover of my book and inside the synopsis! something like: "This book is meant to be an homage/pastiche/strongly inspired/spiritual successor to Nihon Falcom's acclaimed game franchise - The Trails franchise which currently with X number of games released in Japan and etc, etc".

What should I do? I need someone to really enlighten me on this issue and help me with my doubts. Thanks to everyone who has read this far and is willing to help me in this.

Edited February 20, 2023 by Highway Star

[Armchair General]

If you're feeling like you might be unconsciously plagiarizing something, the answer is usually "yes."

[Lightchao42]

I think it would be easier to tell if it's "plagiarism" or not if you told us what the similarities are. I started playing Trails a year and a half ago if you want an additional opinion on the matter.

[Benice]

I'm not a lawyer, and this is #notlegaladvice but I'm pretty sure that it isn't legally plagiarism unless you're directly taking characters, setting, etc. Plot devices and style*, to the best of my knowledge, can't really be copyrighted (Imagine if only one person could use Tsunderes or have witches with pointed hats)- Most Western Fantasy is based upon Lord of the Rings, for example, but it's not like featuring elves or dwarves and wizards and such means you're stealing from Tolkien. If you're telling your own story with its own meaning, it probably will stand on your own merit, even if it's in a setting similar to Trails's. Well, so long as it's not also about the adventures of adoptive siblings Estie and Josh. I won't complain if Josette's there, though

tl;dr having inspiration is fine and even references are perfectly OK, but straight-up replicating is generally not. I think.

*If you haven't already, practicing literary analysis has been really helpful for me in terms of learning how to write: Learning how to build themes and spread messages with your stories can really help give them an identity of their own.

If you're really worried about it, though, you should probably talk to a lawyer about it, since copyright law is really weird, and it varies a lot from country to country- I think Japan's restrictions of what is and isn't fair use is a lot stricter than in a lot of other places.

Also, welcome to the forest!

also if you want to practice writing I know a pretty good place to do so *cough*

Edited February 21, 2023 by Benice

[Highway Star]

19 hours ago, Benice said:

I'm not a lawyer, and this is #notlegaladvice but I'm pretty sure that it isn't legally plagiarism unless you're directly taking characters, setting, etc. Plot devices and style*, to the best of my knowledge, can't really be copyrighted (Imagine if only one person could use Tsunderes or have witches with pointed hats)- Most Western Fantasy is based upon Lord of the Rings, for example, but it's not like featuring elves or dwarves and wizards and such means you're stealing from Tolkien. If you're telling your own story with its own meaning, it probably will stand on your own merit, even if it's in a setting similar to Trails's. Well, so long as it's not also about the adventures of adoptive siblings Estie and Josh. I won't complain if Josette's there, though

tl;dr having inspiration is fine and even references are perfectly OK, but straight-up replicating is generally not. I think.

*If you haven't already, practicing literary analysis has been really helpful for me in terms of learning how to write: Learning how to build themes and spread messages with your stories can really help give them an identity of their own.

If you're really worried about it, though, you should probably talk to a lawyer about it, since copyright law is really weird, and it varies a lot from country to country- I think Japan's restrictions of what is and isn't fair use is a lot stricter than in a lot of other places.

Also, welcome to the forest!

also if you want to practice writing I know a pretty good place to do so *cough*

Thank you very much for your answer, it will certainly give me a lot to think about. And well, about the story itself: no, it doesn't steal or copy any story features or elements from any of the Trails games. It follows its own story with its own meaning and characters just like you said, but some of the similarities still make me very reflective... I will take a look at my work and try to remove as many similarities as I can. But still, what do you think the reactions might be if I actually mentioned that my work actually has inspirations from the Trails series? Do you think there could be any problems? And also, How in Aidios's name can someone call himself a proud Josette fan?! 😲

[Benice]

7 hours ago, Highway Star said:

some of the similarities still make me very reflective...

What are those similarities? Inspiration and plagiarism cover pretty wide berths, so it is a bit hard to say without context.

7 hours ago, Highway Star said:

I will take a look at my work and try to remove as many similarities as I can.

I wouldn't jump the gun just yet; if it's your vision, I don't think you should change it without good cause to.

7 hours ago, Highway Star said:

But still, what do you think the reactions might be if I actually mentioned that my work actually has inspirations from the Trails series?

Legally, no clue: Definitely a question for a lawyer. I would presume that there would have to be something since Trails/Kiseki is probably trademarked, but either a dedication to the games' writers or directors or including sources of inspiration in your author bio is probably OK.

7 hours ago, Highway Star said:

How in Aidios's name can someone call himself a proud Josette fan?! 😲

[Highway Star]

On 2/21/2023 at 11:21 PM, Benice said:

On 2/21/2023 at 3:41 PM, Highway Star said:

I will take a look at my work and try to remove as many similarities as I can.

I wouldn't jump the gun just yet; if it's your vision, I don't think you should change it without good cause to.

Yeah, I probably should have been more specific. Actually, what I meant was that I would actually re-evaluate my work and try to remove as much as I could without compromising the integrity of my work. My bad.

On 2/21/2023 at 11:21 PM, Benice said:

On 2/21/2023 at 3:41 PM, Highway Star said:

But still, what do you think the reactions might be if I actually mentioned that my work actually has inspirations from the Trails series?

Legally, no clue: Definitely a question for a lawyer. I would presume that there would have to be something since Trails/Kiseki is probably trademarked, but either a dedication to the games' writers or directors or including sources of inspiration in your author bio is probably OK.

Like, write a dedication at the beginning of the book to the developers? Saying what for example?

On 2/21/2023 at 11:21 PM, Benice said:

On 2/21/2023 at 3:41 PM, Highway Star said:

some of the similarities still make me very reflective...

What are those similarities? Inspiration and plagiarism cover pretty wide berths, so it is a bit hard to say without context.

I don't know... I'm always a little wary about posting things like this on the internet, but I don't think it will be necessary, I'll try to reevaluate my work myself and see what will happen in the end. And if I really have to hire a lawyer to help me in this matter, I will do it without fear. I'm going to focus on that so I don't think there's any need to share them at the moment.

[Benice]

3 hours ago, Highway Star said:

Like, write a dedication at the beginning of the book to the developers? Saying what for example?

A lot of books just have an opening page that says something like "For Mom" or something like that. Occasionally, it'll have a message too, like, "For Mom, who always believed in me"  or "For my wife, for not letting me give up on my dreams"; If you so wished, you could probably dedicate it to the director or writer of the Trails games, even if it's just a simple "For X" or "To Y". (Some books make their dedications more significant to the work itself, such as Beloved's dedication being to "Sixty Million and More", in reference to all the Africans and their descendants who died in the slave trade, if you'd rather do something in that vein).

3 hours ago, Highway Star said:

I'm always a little wary about posting things like this on the internet,

If I may be so bold, may I ask why? You certainly don't have to share if you don't wish to, but if what you're worried about is other people believing you've plagiarized, then... Well, it may be worth putting your neck out a little so that other people can see what they think of it.

3 hours ago, Highway Star said:

And if I really have to hire a lawyer to help me in this matter, I will do it without fear. I

Another thing worth mentioning is that if you send it to a publisher, they'd probably tell you whether or not a dedication to a series would be acceptable or not, since that's probably a reasonably big part of their domain.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Benice