Susan, you have to write the book you want to write, not the book you think will sell. It sounds like you've put real love into your current book and to stop writing it because another book might be kind of like it is insane troll logic. I like alternate history. I'd have to be convinced to read alternate history with dragons. I read at least two mystery series in which the main character is a PI who sticks with a case no matter what. Aside from the same scenery, they're entirely different.

If you are that worried, push Charlotte more. That is your big original bit of alternative history, because I haven't really seen or read anything that focused on Charlotte. So if you are worried about the originality aspect, figure out how to use Charlotte more aggressively and prominently.

Well, I think she would become more prominent as the series goes on, particularly if it were to become successful enough that I could write beyond the four books or so I have planned and take her into her late teens and early 20's. I mean, there's only so much I can do with a little kid in what's primarily an adult military action-adventure story. I do like the idea of exploring what England might've looked like if Charlotte never died in childbirth and there was therefore never a Victoria. But this is Wellesley's story, really--it's the idea of having to give up his character that would most break my heart if I had to stop writing it. And I can only see myself writing him as a protagonist in an alternative history. If I were writing real world, he'd at most get a cameo. I have zero interest in writing biographical fiction (and I barely even read it), because I already know how it ends and I can't mess with his head by throwing him into situations he never had to face IRL.

That's the core of it. I don't want have to to stop throwing Arthur Wellesley into strange situations and using them to challenge his spicy brains and unravel his certainties. It's just too damn fun to mess with his head...

Susan. Really Really don't change your story because of what some other author does. Just don't. Heinlein used to say that there are really only three plots: boy meets girl and variants, the brave little tailor, and the man who learned better. There is of course an obvious feminist critique of the phrasing, but fundamentally he was right. There are NO original plots. It all lies in the execution. Is your writing style exactly the same as nemesis, the Dread Pirate Novik? Is your world building, your sense of what the times is like the same? Don't worry about superficial similarities.

Listen to the wisdom of Sondheim:

Every moment makes a contribution,
Every little detail plays a part.
Having just a vision's no solution,.
Everything depends on execution
Putting it together, that's what counts!

And you are doing just that! Don't worry about similarities between one sentence descriptions. Someone creative in marketing can come up with a new one sentence description.

I feel pretty safe in saying, not that you were worried about this, but Naomi is not at all the type of person who would run around pointing fingers and accusing people of copying.

It all lies in the execution. Is your writing style exactly the same as nemesis, the Dread Pirate Novik? Is your world building, your sense of what the times is like the same?

Well, no, not at all. I'd even go so far as to say they're extremely different.

I feel pretty safe in saying, not that you were worried about this, but Naomi is not at all the type of person who would run around pointing fingers and accusing people of copying.

Yeah, I know. I'm more afraid everybody else will!

Heinlein used to say that there are really only three plots: boy meets girl and variants, the brave little tailor, and the man who learned better.

Wait. I thought the only three original stories were: Boy Meets Girl and variants, A Stranger Comes to Town, and The Quest.

Someone who has won awards retelling familiar tales, with a twist, of a writer a couple of generations older, and whose forte is retold fairytales often told me, "There are no original stories. None. Tell what you want, just make sure you tell it well."

(If I wanted to work at it I could get another told or tell in that sentence somewhere)

I had to have the "no original plots" talk with a friend several years ago. I told her, "The only ones who came up with original stories were the cavemen who told them first." That cheered her up.

The Brave Little Tailor could share elements with The Quest, but I think A Stranger Comes is more pervasive than The Man Who Learned Better, though the latter covers most of Aesop's Fables.

Does V of E have the same Napoleon succeeded in invading England thing that you do, Susan? I'm not familiar at all.

Yeah, it does, though it sounds like she might resolve that in one book instead of spinning it out over a series like I'm planning to.