Accused once of using another author's ideas. Was I a fan of their book? Yes. The general subject matter was the same, yes, the concept similar, but yet the "genre" has many such similar books. My work had been shaped long before I read the author's book. Plagiarism, it was not. I was sure of that. But it unsettled me to think someone thought I did that. And recently, I have a WIP that employs a similar structure of several other books I've read and admire -- very short chapters, not necessarily linear, all leading to the same narrative. Is that stealing, when you use another's story structure? Don't think so. If that were the case, every modern novel would be plagiarizing the structure of the first modern novels, right? Every road trip story would be a rip off The Odyssey. It is a touchy place to find oneself, however. If my WIP ever gets published, I plan to acknowledge the authors' structural influence on me. But, I wonder. if that's even the best practice?