WWQ: Plagiarism
It's time to resurrect my poor, neglected LJ with the Writer's Weekly Question:
Writer's Weekly Question #14
How much do you borrow from your favorite writers, and how much is actually your very own ideas? At what point does "borrowing" become "plagiarism?"
Okay, I am NOT amused. I just wrote practically a disseration on this subject. What did LJ save? Nothing after the question itself!
I'll try again.
It's often said that there are only seven plots. The actual list varies, and some writers have managed to reduce it to just two or three items, but the basic concept holds true. If you define it all broadly enough, all fiction can be lumped into just a few categories, covering types of conflict as well as such themes as transformation, sacrifice, the journey and so on. At this level of abstraction, everyone is traveling a well-worn road. Plagiarism is not even an issue. The use of archetypal themes is generally thought to be a good thing, because it tickles the mind in a certain way, tapping into things that have interested human beings for millenia. In Heirs of Mâvarin alone, I can find transformation, the quest, coming of age, man vs. man, the "brave little tailor" and so on. I didn't put most of those things there on purpose, but that's the beauty of archetypes and myth in fiction. They tend to crop up unbidden, enriching the story.
If you're writing in a particular genre, the territory inevitably becomes even more familiar. A fantasy novel will involve magic, science fiction will have extrapolated science or technology, and a bildungroman will have a person moving into adulthood. Here's where things can start to seem a little derivative, but ultimately it's considered okay to a few stock elements, as long as they're presented in an original way.
As we move from the general to the specific, things become increasingly problematic. It's okay to have a mysterious stranger help your everyman hero. But if that stranger is hidden royalty, and worse yet a Ranger, you're moving beyond archetype into imitation of a specific work. You can write about a high school student who finds out that she's really a princess, but if she starts keeping a diary and taking princess lessons from her grandmother, Meg Cabot will have every right to get cranky. (Paul Park's princess, shown at right, owes nothing to Cabot's Princess Mia.)
The particular case that's in the news goes way beyond this. Plagiarism consists of the work's actual presentation being similar or identical to the work being copied. Writing about wookies and light sabres without permission from Lucusfilm falls under this heading, but generally it comes down to the unattributed use of another writer's words. The college student whose book was just pulled by her publisher used slightly-reworded passages from at least three books by at least two other authors. That is unquestionably plagiarism. The only major defense is "unintentional plagiarism," which is what George Harrison claimed when it was pointed out that My Sweet Lord was extremely similar in melody to He's So Fine by the Chiffons. There are legitimately times when we're not sure whether a particular turn of phrase is ours alone, or half-remembered from something we read or heard. But when it happens over and over, in reasonably large blocks of text, it's unlikely to be accidental.
I should also distinguish between informal nonfiction, formal essays and fiction in this regard. In my blogging I often use brief quotations of familiar phrases without attribution, such as "amazingly amazing" (a Hitchhiker's Guide reference) or "D'oh!" (a reference to Homer Simpson's "annoyed grunt"). I expect most of my readers to recognize such references without my pedantically calling attention to them. The web is full of geeky references to Douglas Adams, The Simpsons and other bits of popular culture. But in a formal or scholarly work, such a reference needs a citation, if it's used at all. Similarly, a fictional character may reasonably make a brief reference to popular culture, as a way of showing that character's hipness or geekiness. It happened all the time in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If it's short enough, it doesn't need a citation, but a longer passage may require permission and an acknowledgement. And if the character says "D'oh!" all the time, is bald, lives for beer and doughnuts and works at a nuclear power plant...well, you'd better be either writing parody or on a certain show's writing staff. Otherwise, that "D'oh!" is probably going to cost you some dough!
(Okay, that was lame. I think I had a better ending the first time around. Ah, well.)
Karen
Writer's Weekly Question #14
How much do you borrow from your favorite writers, and how much is actually your very own ideas? At what point does "borrowing" become "plagiarism?"
Okay, I am NOT amused. I just wrote practically a disseration on this subject. What did LJ save? Nothing after the question itself!
I'll try again.
It's often said that there are only seven plots. The actual list varies, and some writers have managed to reduce it to just two or three items, but the basic concept holds true. If you define it all broadly enough, all fiction can be lumped into just a few categories, covering types of conflict as well as such themes as transformation, sacrifice, the journey and so on. At this level of abstraction, everyone is traveling a well-worn road. Plagiarism is not even an issue. The use of archetypal themes is generally thought to be a good thing, because it tickles the mind in a certain way, tapping into things that have interested human beings for millenia. In Heirs of Mâvarin alone, I can find transformation, the quest, coming of age, man vs. man, the "brave little tailor" and so on. I didn't put most of those things there on purpose, but that's the beauty of archetypes and myth in fiction. They tend to crop up unbidden, enriching the story.
If you're writing in a particular genre, the territory inevitably becomes even more familiar. A fantasy novel will involve magic, science fiction will have extrapolated science or technology, and a bildungroman will have a person moving into adulthood. Here's where things can start to seem a little derivative, but ultimately it's considered okay to a few stock elements, as long as they're presented in an original way.
As we move from the general to the specific, things become increasingly problematic. It's okay to have a mysterious stranger help your everyman hero. But if that stranger is hidden royalty, and worse yet a Ranger, you're moving beyond archetype into imitation of a specific work. You can write about a high school student who finds out that she's really a princess, but if she starts keeping a diary and taking princess lessons from her grandmother, Meg Cabot will have every right to get cranky. (Paul Park's princess, shown at right, owes nothing to Cabot's Princess Mia.)
The particular case that's in the news goes way beyond this. Plagiarism consists of the work's actual presentation being similar or identical to the work being copied. Writing about wookies and light sabres without permission from Lucusfilm falls under this heading, but generally it comes down to the unattributed use of another writer's words. The college student whose book was just pulled by her publisher used slightly-reworded passages from at least three books by at least two other authors. That is unquestionably plagiarism. The only major defense is "unintentional plagiarism," which is what George Harrison claimed when it was pointed out that My Sweet Lord was extremely similar in melody to He's So Fine by the Chiffons. There are legitimately times when we're not sure whether a particular turn of phrase is ours alone, or half-remembered from something we read or heard. But when it happens over and over, in reasonably large blocks of text, it's unlikely to be accidental.
I should also distinguish between informal nonfiction, formal essays and fiction in this regard. In my blogging I often use brief quotations of familiar phrases without attribution, such as "amazingly amazing" (a Hitchhiker's Guide reference) or "D'oh!" (a reference to Homer Simpson's "annoyed grunt"). I expect most of my readers to recognize such references without my pedantically calling attention to them. The web is full of geeky references to Douglas Adams, The Simpsons and other bits of popular culture. But in a formal or scholarly work, such a reference needs a citation, if it's used at all. Similarly, a fictional character may reasonably make a brief reference to popular culture, as a way of showing that character's hipness or geekiness. It happened all the time in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If it's short enough, it doesn't need a citation, but a longer passage may require permission and an acknowledgement. And if the character says "D'oh!" all the time, is bald, lives for beer and doughnuts and works at a nuclear power plant...well, you'd better be either writing parody or on a certain show's writing staff. Otherwise, that "D'oh!" is probably going to cost you some dough!
(Okay, that was lame. I think I had a better ending the first time around. Ah, well.)
Karen