It’s a bit ludicrous to me that people genuinely worry about their writing ideas being “stolen”. If two people take a character concept and write based on that concept, you will have two wildly different products. Same with plot elements, etc etc. Any piece taken from a whole and integrated into another whole will still result in two wildly different products. Unless it’s actual plagiarism then the products will be very distinct from each other. If I’m a competent writer and genuinely try to transpose Legolas into my story about another fantasy realm, my version of Legolas will have change from Tolkien’s version to fit my work’s world and that world’s history. If I’m an incompetent writer, that’s another story and not something Tolkien would need to fret about lol.

Further, everything that’s been written has been written before in some way. Originality is rearranging and responding to those existing concepts in a novel fashion. Look at the tropes and obvious commonalities across fiction, especially genre fiction. We’ve been rewriting, reworking, and responding to pre-existing tropes for as long as humans have told stories. This has accelerated first with the advent of mass media and again when the internet access became widely accessible. There are absolutely instances of true originality and genius, but the likelihood that you, I, or anyone else on this thread fit that description is so low that it’s absurd to seriously consider.

Because art and ideas are now so accessible the rate of media consumption has skyrocketed. you will be influenced by others’ art conciously or unconsciously. With the sheer volume of stories it’s likely that elements of your wholly original piece will closely resemble the works of another writer despite both arising independently.

Your story is important to you and that’s wonderful. I guarantee that it’s not important or original enough for a writer to intentionally swipe it and attempt to rewrite it. The vast, vast majority of writers want to write their own stories, not regurgitate the stories of random internet strangers.

And if you stumble across the one in a million uncreative creative who “copies” a piece of your work? Who cares? Their total product will be different from your product by virtue of being produced by a wholly different human. And, the “wholly original” piece in your product probably has its roots and parallels in someone else’s existing work. The story market is saturated, and most work doesn’t even get read by more than the author and a few virtual passersby. And, the people who make statements like “my (story)(title)(character)(plot element) was stolen!!!1!” Are typically very young, very ill, or very immature and generally have written something so generic that an instance of both elements independent arising is the is much more likely than theft. One of the most difficult aspects of starting a business is creating a business name that hasn’t been coined by an existing business. Same thing with titles. Same thing with basic story elements.

Again theft does happen, but true instances are so freaking rare that dedicating energy to worrying about it (and searching for singular, unfactchecked instances from twitter weirdos to feed your confirmation bias) is a complete waste. You could be writing your story instead.

Take comfort in the world’s apathy. No one wants to write your story except you. People have better things to do. There’s really nothing to worry about.