“Every novelist spends their life writing the same story over and over,” Danielle Chelosky says in an interview with The Creative Independent. 

“My subject matter doesn’t vary so much from book to book. Just the surface does. The settings, etc. I tend to write the same book over and over, or at least, I take the same subject I took last time out and refine it, or do a slightly different take on it,” Kazuo Ishiguro similarly says to The Guardian.

“How much of a concept change from Power of a Dollar is Get Rich or Die Tryin’? Get Rich or Die Tryin’ is Power of a Dollar after you’ve been shot and you’re pushed out of the business, and they’re blocking you,” 50 Cent says in an interview with Million Dollaz Worth of Game.

If you find this resonating with you, don’t resist the inclination to lean into the same themes or references. 

Assess what your current understanding of the throughline is and double down on it, while you change some of the other surface elements of your work.