Thoughts on Writing #21: Magpie Moments.

[seanan_mcguire]

It's time to return to the modern day for the twenty-first essay in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. Just in case you're new to the party, there will eventually be fifty essays, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. (Past essays are linked from the list of thoughts as they're finished, thus allowing people

Comments

[shadowvalkyrie]

One of the best essays in this series! -- I'm afraid I say that mostly because it's my own main writing problem. My brain does "unintentional plagiarism" to me all the time. I write stuff and realise (luckily, in most cases myself, or I'd be dead of shame by now) that something that just flowed out of my pen keyboard with a ton of other stuff is actually almost verbatim something I've read somewhere else, sometimes years ago. That the brilliant idea I've just had is actually a twist from a movie I saw ages ago. It also happens with character and place names. I would do anything to make it stop, but it just keeps happening

[seanan_mcguire]

Yeah, giving yourself a nervous breakdown = not a good idea. I think that sort of magpie behavior happens to just about everybody; at least you recognize it!

[mariadkins]

When one of my readers asks me if something is intentionally a reference to something else, I take them seriously, if only because it gives me a chance to start picking things apart again (always a favored occupation where I'm concerned). Sometimes, they're able to point out similarities I genuinely hadn't noticed before, giving me the opportunity to either correct or acknowledge them before I wind up committed to a central story element that I can't keep. Outside eyes are very rarely a bad thing, for a lot of reasons; this is one of them.

Been there. :)

[seanan_mcguire]

Totally.

[beckyh2112]

This is, by the way, why most professional authors avoid reading fanfiction

Do you mean 'fanfiction of their own works' or fanfiction in general? I'm curious.

[seanan_mcguire]

It depends on the writer. I think a lot of us/them/the mice will read works not based on their own stuff, although they/we may not admit to it -- what are licensed tie-in novels but fanfiction for pay, after all -- but reading fic based on your own work is basically verboten.

[kyra_neko_rei]

Very impressive and helpful, this one.

[seanan_mcguire]

Thank you!

[miintikwa]

Heh

Dealing with this now regarding the name of the main character of my short story. It's a lovely name, and it works famously-- but the one person I showed the story to went "did you mean to do this?" and I went "BWAH!?!?! NOOOOOOOO!" and now I have to find a new name. Or mean to do it. And I don't know which one works better!

[seanan_mcguire]

Yeah. I had to change the name of my male lead in Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues because it turns out there are two other male leads in my genre named that. It was...vexing.

[miintikwa]

Major vexation.