I have written one musical and have had several plays produced locally (in a very small town). I like to do comedies.
If I were Queen of the World, I would make sure that I got to move to ahead of the line in traffic, at Taco Bell, and at the donut shop.
Do you not find that when you read other authors in the genre that you are working on that you get unduly influence. I read alot but shy away from similar works because I am afraid that 1) they might inadvertantly influence me or 2) they may sap my confidence.
I do become influenced, but I go ahead anyway and then when I do another draft, I re-write it. Then it becomes more my own style.
I would say that if you feel you are imitating, go ahead anyway. It's a way of learning.
Then later you can go back over it and re-write in the areas where it seems to you that you've been too imitative.
But McCarthy certainly taught me to write narrative summary and Dickens taught me description.
Where in America is your Civil War story taking place?
I am working on a fictional autobiography of a child found floating in a rubber inner tube off the straits of florida. He's all grown up, and has broken with the communist regime that was grooming him for a leadership position. Now that Castro's sick, I'm forced to write him out of most of the story.