I take it as just business. I brush the news off and keep knocking on Hollywood's giant door with a gift basket (great screenplay) in hand I pray they can't resist.

Maurice Vaughan - Screenwriter

Im not sure if this will make him feel better or worse, but I actually a short story in a Readers Digest from years and years ago with that exact same plot. A man is out on a ledge, wanting to jump, and police try and talk him down. Had a really good twist ending too.

Rent the DVD of Henry Hathway's terrific Fourteen Hours about the beat cop who spends fourteen hours trying to talk a potential suicide off a ledge. It's from 1951.

You just have to accept it. It's the business.

In the 90s, I submitted a script that the producers of one company really liked...but a few days earlier they had bought a similar vehicle. They "simply couldn't" buy mine, too. I did try to continue marketing my script, but the previous sale poisoned the well. *sigh* Enough time has passed, now, that maybe I can dust it off, retitle it, and send it back into the fray.

Plus side: they did make the other movie, and it wasn't bad at all. At least I wasn't passed over for dreck.

A script sold a few years back with a story idea so completely identical to mine that the director I was working with suspected me of foul play.

What did I do? I got me a copy of that "other script." Turns out the story idea was the only thing it had in common with mine.

It was called "Rock In School".
I wrote it thinking of Rob Schneider after reading about the
Langley Schools Music Project
(http://www.amazon.com/Innocence-Despair-Langley-Schools-Project/dp/B00005Q6NP).
My hero was a failed musician who gets tricked into taking the fall for a failing school and snatches victory from the jaws of deafeat.
Differences?
My kids were poor- so poor they had to fund-raise by selling canned hams door to door.
I also had more of a villain and a darker tone.

It's happened so many times, now I just laugh. You can't do anything about it. They rally didn't steal from you- two people can have the same idea at once and one can be cuter and have richer parents. Now, THAT'S unfair.

So...you have to be better then they are. You still might not win, but it gives you something to do.

It sucks to remember to that.

I was 17. I took a biology class that was about genes.

I was inspired to write a story about the last male on earth. A virus stroke the planet and destroyed the XY genes that're connected to masculinity.

"I'd love to see a sci-fi film like that." I thought.

A month later, Disturbia was released and DJ Caruso announced that he would adapt Y: The Last Man. A comic book series that had exactly the same premise. I never knew about the comicbook before that.

It sucked yeah. But I realize and understand that writers have limitless imagination. If an idea fails, I can create a better one. Creativity is unlimited. All I have to do is trust the process.

It happened with two of my ideas in the past year. Luckily I wasn't quite at the first draft stage with either. But one positive I took away from it -- my ideas are in line with what Hollywood is currently looking for. Made me smile, actually.

@Nick: "But one positive I took away from it -- my ideas are in line with what Hollywood is currently looking for." That's the one positive you can take from this experience. I'll explain more in an update.

One thing that will ease the blow is knowing from the very beginning that someone is working on your idea as you write. It's just a matter of timing. Don't use the excuse of some similar idea selling or getting made to leave your project incomplete. Always finish.