Copying may seem the most flattering way of compliment, but it is actually the most obnoxious one.
"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
- Cyril Connolly
Someone kill me. right. now. For the past few months, there have been events of plagiarism. Back when I was a new writer, I was able to ignore them because I was a young, naive, innocent writer who believes that "imitation" can help a person develop. In that one side of the story, it holds true, but in another side, it causes a lot of damage.
Now that I've published enough stories to know, the amount of plagiarized stories circulating around the cyberworld unsettles me (especially when they are stories that I admire, stories that allowed me to create new friendships, stories that I love) and leaves me feeling stunned. Like how can you do that? Don't you have any shame? Amazing, talented writers are giving up their love of writing due to your poor and unempathetic decisions. How can you go around taking stories and calling it your own?
In the end, the chapters of Maelstrom are being left unedited because I don't know how and where to find the will to work hard on a story that may one day be plagiarized. Because of my growth as a writer, I've decided that all my previous stories which reference other stories will be taken and be rewritten again.
"Plagiarism is an unconscionable act, no matter the reason. If you justify your actions by saying it’s because you admire the writer, or you want to have a similar style, or simply because you believe imitation is the best form of flattery, you are in fact doing more damage than you know. Taking someone’s work and passing it off as your own is an age-old offense and unfortunately the burden of proof has always been with the original author. It is incredibly difficult to present evidence in cyberspace so it’s become a whole new struggle for contemporary writers.
Paraphrasing is plagiarism. Lifting dialogues is plagiarism. Changing the characters’ names and the setting of the story still makes it plagiarism. Using different sources and tweaking the sentences so that they fit together is also plagiarism. And while I can’t claim ownership for every witty discourse, snarky remark, or even my most compelling descriptive and narrative paragraphs, it still pains me to see sentences I carefully constructed repeated by others as though it was to their merit. You’d be surprised how easily the original writer can spot imitations of his or her work. And once they do, it’s very offensive." - November Romeo.