That's a good point, about all ideas coming from somewhere else. Since the wheel was invented, how many original ideas have there been (and think of that poor guy -- I don't think he even got credit for the idea!)

And I'm kind of thinking of all of the challenges that get posted and the replies to them -- some of those challenges, there's thirty or forty replies (I remember one that galadhrim.net had way back when they existed, and there were so many stories to one prompt that I never read them all). It's very true that the same story can be told in many ways.