Borrowed, Stolen, or Merely Recycled?

With the unexpected addition of a new character who just showed up in my NaNoWriMo novel tonight, I've come to the realization that the book I'm writing is almost the same as the book I'm reading. Change the setting and the genre, add a few characters, change a few circumstances, and really, it's the same story.

This is bugging me somewhat. Although I should hasten to add that I don't mean I'm plagiarizing the book, or deliberately lifting ideas, characters, incidents or anything else from that book and putting it into my own. What I mean is more subtle. I can't really even put my finger on it; perhaps it's merely a mood or an overtone, a resemblance in character interactions, an examination of similar relationships.

And really, is this all bad?

Depending on who you ask, there are a limited number of "plots" available for the writer to address in any given story--that number ranges from one to about sixty-nine. Perhaps we shouldn't worry too much about absolute originality. At my daughter's school the other day I noticed a poster that read something along the lines of, "Those who are afraid to imitate never create anything."

I guess I'll just get on with the creation and not worry about the imitation. It's the sincerest form of flattery anyway, so they say.