i will put together, piece by piece, the perfect city
Okay, my flist already heard part of the story, and certainly if you have bookshop friended, then you know part of that story as well.
Yesterday I PM-ed lundi with my concerns that she had plagiarized a story of mine. I bring this up because lundi and I had a civil conversation tonight about these two stories, and we came to the conclusion that we will never agree. I believe there was plagiarism. She says that she did not read my story before writing hers, and that the coincidences come from Italo Calvino and Hero. I don't think we can or ever will see eye to eye on this, so I think the only thing I can really do is move on. But before I do, since I have already made a line-by-line comparison on this post, I feel like I have a responsibility to myself to make perfectly clear what my concerns were.
I found lundi's writing because I was checking Joule yesterday, and saw that she had defriended me. I don't know the exact date, because Joule doesn't track things like that, but it could be any time from the beginning of 2009. I found that she was also a writer, and that the most recent story on her LJ writing comm, riversinegypt, was a story for the webcomic Hero. It was entitled of maps and territories (previously posted without those specific notes, as archived here), and was really quite lovely.
However, I felt that it bore too much similarity to my own story for tongari, posted here.
Here is my case for plagiarism, as repeated on umarekawareru's journal:
01. lundi's opening line: Let me tell you a story.
Not only is this the text I used to link the comment drabble to the entry, it also bears uncanny similarity to my opening lines: "I want to tell you something. I want to tell you a story."
This is not a line that appears in either Invisible Cities (henceforth shortened to IC) or Hero. (well, at one point Valentine says to Lost, "I will tell you that story-- later." re: The Little Prince, but I don't think that is really the root of either one of our inspirations. If I am wrong, however, please correct me.)
(edit: it has been pointed out in the comments that there could be multiple translations of IC, and furthermore, the text might be different in Italian. I am willing to take back any of these points about what is or is not in the text of IC if, in texts other than the 1974 William Weaver, there is a disparity in these texts. The stubborn part of me would also like some corroboration with lundi that she has read those different texts, but I will not press the point.)
02. The way the story is set up. In her story, "Let me tell you" is almost always repeated at the beginning of the paragraph. In mine, it is "I want to tell you".
This is not a rhetorical device used in Hero. In IC, there is a fair amount of rhetorical repetition, but I argue far, far from the extent that it is used in either of our two stories.
03. Her: No two cities are alike, you see, and it is not possible to remake something exactly as it was before.
Me: that you cannot recreate a person to be exactly the same as someone else just as you cannot have two cities that are exactly like each other
This is a concept that comes up in IC and in Hero, and thus a weak point. I list it anyway, for completeness, and also because it is one theme among many, many, many that exist in Hero and IC, and seems suspicious to me that we would both choose it.
04. Her: a door, a god. A storyteller. A story. A memory, like a reminder. Like a map.... and the storyteller and the tiger and the god are this story
Me: She knows about golems and sorcerers and demons and gods and most of all, she knows storytellers. She knows golems and sorcerers and demons and gods who are storytellers.
I have looked, and the word "storyteller" does not appear in Hero. It might appear in IC-- my rereading of it this afternoon was not as close. Furthermore, while the concept of "a god" appears for a few short pages in Hero (and almost not at all in IC), it is not a prominent theme in Hero. Again, my suspicions. It is also assumed that one of the characters in the story has a penchant for telling stories, in fact he is a storyteller, but having it mentioned in the same sentence as gods, when he himself is a golem, is a little suspicious.
05. Her: The fact is that I will tell you this story, but you are this story also, and I am this story, and the boy and the man (who are also cities) are this story, and the storyteller and the tiger and the god are this story,
Me: I want to tell you a story, and that story is you.
Not a concept that appears in either Hero or IC. Furthermore, I also write: I want to tell you that I am that witch. That you are that witch, that cat, that priest, that boy. That in this way, they are all real. Note the "you are this/ I am this".
06. Her: Let me tell you a story about a boy who is also a city, and a man who is also a city, and a priest and a witch and a storyteller and a god who are all cities... Let me tell you that I also am a city (that you also are a city)...
Me: The witch is a city, the cat is a city. The boy is a city who has yet to realize that he is a city. You and I are the cities of Marco Polo and Genghis Khan
Two things here, one weak and one I believe to be stronger. The weak point: the witch is a relatively minor character in Hero, one that could be replaced by any of the other minor characters: Valentine's siblings, the lady who owns the city of desire, the other golems, etc etc, even Eira. It is suspicious to me that a character who all but disappears after the first 1/3 of the currently published story should show up in both our free-form, no-themes-or-rules stories.
Second: in Hero, it is implied that people are cities, or that there is a connection that people are compared to cities, but it is never explicitly stated as such.
07. Her: are this story, which has no proper beginning and no proper ending
Me: I want to tell you that stories don't have to begin at the beginning, that sometimes they don't begin at all, sometimes they happen
A common enough concept, but does not appear in IC or Hero.
08. Her: in this way it is a part of the city, part of its making. In this way it is the city.
Me: In this way, stories are like love. In this way, all stories are love stories.
Other than points 1 and 2, my biggest beef with this story. Two sentences, both beginning with "in this way". The first sentence is a lighter comparison, in my case "like love", in her case "part of". The second one, a definitive statement-- "all stories are love stories" and "it is the city". Both made without becoming two separate paragraphs, which is something I would have normally done.
For me, the ones that I think really make my case are 1, 2, 5, and 8. I also think that is difficult to imagine so many similarities in two stories, published a week apart from each other, mine under 600 words, and her under 1000 words. We were not given a theme or a challenge to write a story for, and so had no reason to write about the same themes or people other than by chance or inspiration.
Here are some arguments that I have already heard, and what I have to say about it.
01. Many of these themes are ones lundi has already explored.
I agree. Many of them are. But there are other themes that she doesn't. For one, she has a whole Prince of Tennis story about summer. And another Prince of Tennis story about sacrifice and love, using the story of the Crane Wife. But many of the same themes as mine, including themes that do not explicitly come up in Hero or IC? Why these particular ones, and in this particular way?
02. lundi is very deeply ingrained in Italo Calvino literature, and as Hero is based off IC, and you have also read a lot of Italo Calvino and read Hero as well, this is where the similarities are coming from.
I have indeed read both canons. But I am not deeply ingrained in Calvino's work. I have never modeled my writing after his. I haven't read a book by him in about half a year, and I finished IC and haven't read it since last summer. There is no reason for me to have written so similar to him, if that is where the similarities came from.
03. lundi and you have very similar styles anyway.
I agree! We really do! However, why did she choose this particular rhetorical style? Why this particular phrase to repeat? Why not numbered sections ( a style we both have in common), or frequent section breaks? Why not second person? Why not third, as her other HikaGo/Invisible Cities fic was written in? Why not past tense? Why was it written in a storytelling format that was so repetitive, instead of more drawn out and flourished like that in IC?
04. lundi claims that she has never read your drabble until you contacted her.
I can only claim to the fact that she was familiar with my writing, both because she had friended my journal and also because she was and still is a watcher of la_foule, my Ouran collab. Granted, my drabble was a comment drabble, on what would be for her then a LJ no longer on her flist, but for me, it is seems more likely for her to have come across my drabble than for us to have written so similar a story within a week of each other, completely independently.
05. You are writing from the same canon(s), of course the stories will be similar.
And often stories written in the same fandom, among writers who like the same writers (as I see lundi and I do), will sound similar. But I have been writing on the Internet for at least seven years now, and never, never, ever have I ever written a story so similar to someone else's, completely independently, without having communicated with them via chat, email, or comments. I can understand similar plots, hell maybe even similar dialogue. But a 600 word drabble and a 1000 word drabble using two sentences, one after another, with identical structures? I'm sorry. That seems ridiculous to me.
Furthermore, in our shared fandoms, Ouran and Prince of Tennis, I see that while we have written stories that might seem similar (Her, a TezuFuji story where Fuji takes Tezuka to Okinawa; me, a TezuFuji story where Fuji takes Tezuka to China; her, an Ouran story where Tamaki invites Kyouya to France, and they bring up Eclair; me, well, la_foule), I haven't seen another instance where we have structured our stories almost exactly identical, and used almost identical sentences.
06. The "In this way" sentence construction is more common than you think, and also it makes stylistic sense to use it twice in that instance.
To the former: I will have to say I disagree. I can't, off the top of my head, think of a story that uses it that way that I've read recently. I know I was inspired by "Meditation in Lagunitas", that says "In this it resembles...". But again, I do not pretend to know all.
As to the latter, I agree, as that's why I used it in that way. XD But again, I have my suspicions if two writers would have used it, independently of each other, so similarly.
Finally, what happened after I found this story.
I talked to bookshop/Aja, and she convinced me to contact lundi privately. Which I did. That evening, lundi responded to me via email, saying among other things that she did not plagiarize me. This evening I talked with lundi via AIM, and we parted amicably, though still in fervent disagreement. Pretty much everything else is public record, and you may draw your own conclusions.
edit 7/31: tongari has written a public post here which if nothing else is enlightening background material, and personally furthers my own suspicions.
I was planning on taking the commenting off this post, but I've never had a policy of doing so in the past except in dire cases, and don't plan on doing so in the future. So: feel free to comment. But let me warn you: if you are here to argue which particular instances you don't feel are plagiarizing and you expect me to respond, it's not that I don't want to hear you out or that I don't care about your opinion; it's just that you should probably just save your breath. I've already talked to the writer herself about it-- what more could you have to add? I've let it go now. That doesn't mean I am not firm in my stance that I believe I was plagiarized. I just am done arguing about it.
ON A DIFFERENT NOTE ENTIRELY:
I am not bookshop, and I will not defend Aja's actions for her. However. One thing I do find unsavory about this whole mess is that there is an implication that just because Aja has fandom influence, that she is not entitled to make accusations of plagiarism just like everyone else-- that just because she is a BNF, she needs to carefully watch who she accuses, and have an iron clad case against them before she voices her thoughts. In particular, this statement sat completely wrong with me: I am merely suggesting that it might be a good idea to look up your facts before accusing anyone of anything, especially when you're someone who has so much influence over fandom in general that she can create and destroy fandoms and actually bring anyone in fandom down if you so wished.
I think I know Aja well enough to know that she would never, on a whim, decide to "bring [some]one in fandom down" just, well, because she felt like it. I have never seen an instance of this, and I have been in fandom(s) with her for a long time. If this is the response people get to accusations of plagiarism, I can see why people feel like they might be able to get away with plagiarizing.
Plagiarism, for fanfic writers, is a serious deal. I would never accuse someone of plagiarism for funsies. I also have faith that Aja would not either, especially since she herself has been accused of it before. Whether or not you agree with her claims is something else entirely. But I don't feel comfortable telling some people that they're allowed to make open claims of plagiarism because they're not BNFs, and telling people with larger fandom influence that they need to watch themselves. The seriousness of the claim should be the factor, not the fandom influence. If a BNF was accused of plagiarism, they would expect the same amount of judiciousness as a no-name writer. It should work the other way around too.
Furthermore, simply because I chose to handle my claim privately first does not mean that I actually think plagiarism should only be accused in private, then brought public when some tenuous consensus comes to bear. I don't think Aja did anything wrong by making her post, not only because I am her friend, but also because I think we owe it to ourselves as a writing community, even if it is just of fanfic, to discuss these matters openly and seriously. And at the end of it, if someone feels they have wronged someone else, whether it is by plagiarizing or by accusing someone of plagiarism, then I would expect honest-felt apologies. (And that includes you, Aja!)
With that, I'll get off my soapbox and shut up.
Yesterday I PM-ed lundi with my concerns that she had plagiarized a story of mine. I bring this up because lundi and I had a civil conversation tonight about these two stories, and we came to the conclusion that we will never agree. I believe there was plagiarism. She says that she did not read my story before writing hers, and that the coincidences come from Italo Calvino and Hero. I don't think we can or ever will see eye to eye on this, so I think the only thing I can really do is move on. But before I do, since I have already made a line-by-line comparison on this post, I feel like I have a responsibility to myself to make perfectly clear what my concerns were.
I found lundi's writing because I was checking Joule yesterday, and saw that she had defriended me. I don't know the exact date, because Joule doesn't track things like that, but it could be any time from the beginning of 2009. I found that she was also a writer, and that the most recent story on her LJ writing comm, riversinegypt, was a story for the webcomic Hero. It was entitled of maps and territories (previously posted without those specific notes, as archived here), and was really quite lovely.
However, I felt that it bore too much similarity to my own story for tongari, posted here.
Here is my case for plagiarism, as repeated on umarekawareru's journal:
01. lundi's opening line: Let me tell you a story.
Not only is this the text I used to link the comment drabble to the entry, it also bears uncanny similarity to my opening lines: "I want to tell you something. I want to tell you a story."
This is not a line that appears in either Invisible Cities (henceforth shortened to IC) or Hero. (well, at one point Valentine says to Lost, "I will tell you that story-- later." re: The Little Prince, but I don't think that is really the root of either one of our inspirations. If I am wrong, however, please correct me.)
(edit: it has been pointed out in the comments that there could be multiple translations of IC, and furthermore, the text might be different in Italian. I am willing to take back any of these points about what is or is not in the text of IC if, in texts other than the 1974 William Weaver, there is a disparity in these texts. The stubborn part of me would also like some corroboration with lundi that she has read those different texts, but I will not press the point.)
02. The way the story is set up. In her story, "Let me tell you" is almost always repeated at the beginning of the paragraph. In mine, it is "I want to tell you".
This is not a rhetorical device used in Hero. In IC, there is a fair amount of rhetorical repetition, but I argue far, far from the extent that it is used in either of our two stories.
03. Her: No two cities are alike, you see, and it is not possible to remake something exactly as it was before.
Me: that you cannot recreate a person to be exactly the same as someone else just as you cannot have two cities that are exactly like each other
This is a concept that comes up in IC and in Hero, and thus a weak point. I list it anyway, for completeness, and also because it is one theme among many, many, many that exist in Hero and IC, and seems suspicious to me that we would both choose it.
04. Her: a door, a god. A storyteller. A story. A memory, like a reminder. Like a map.... and the storyteller and the tiger and the god are this story
Me: She knows about golems and sorcerers and demons and gods and most of all, she knows storytellers. She knows golems and sorcerers and demons and gods who are storytellers.
I have looked, and the word "storyteller" does not appear in Hero. It might appear in IC-- my rereading of it this afternoon was not as close. Furthermore, while the concept of "a god" appears for a few short pages in Hero (and almost not at all in IC), it is not a prominent theme in Hero. Again, my suspicions. It is also assumed that one of the characters in the story has a penchant for telling stories, in fact he is a storyteller, but having it mentioned in the same sentence as gods, when he himself is a golem, is a little suspicious.
05. Her: The fact is that I will tell you this story, but you are this story also, and I am this story, and the boy and the man (who are also cities) are this story, and the storyteller and the tiger and the god are this story,
Me: I want to tell you a story, and that story is you.
Not a concept that appears in either Hero or IC. Furthermore, I also write: I want to tell you that I am that witch. That you are that witch, that cat, that priest, that boy. That in this way, they are all real. Note the "you are this/ I am this".
06. Her: Let me tell you a story about a boy who is also a city, and a man who is also a city, and a priest and a witch and a storyteller and a god who are all cities... Let me tell you that I also am a city (that you also are a city)...
Me: The witch is a city, the cat is a city. The boy is a city who has yet to realize that he is a city. You and I are the cities of Marco Polo and Genghis Khan
Two things here, one weak and one I believe to be stronger. The weak point: the witch is a relatively minor character in Hero, one that could be replaced by any of the other minor characters: Valentine's siblings, the lady who owns the city of desire, the other golems, etc etc, even Eira. It is suspicious to me that a character who all but disappears after the first 1/3 of the currently published story should show up in both our free-form, no-themes-or-rules stories.
Second: in Hero, it is implied that people are cities, or that there is a connection that people are compared to cities, but it is never explicitly stated as such.
07. Her: are this story, which has no proper beginning and no proper ending
Me: I want to tell you that stories don't have to begin at the beginning, that sometimes they don't begin at all, sometimes they happen
A common enough concept, but does not appear in IC or Hero.
08. Her: in this way it is a part of the city, part of its making. In this way it is the city.
Me: In this way, stories are like love. In this way, all stories are love stories.
Other than points 1 and 2, my biggest beef with this story. Two sentences, both beginning with "in this way". The first sentence is a lighter comparison, in my case "like love", in her case "part of". The second one, a definitive statement-- "all stories are love stories" and "it is the city". Both made without becoming two separate paragraphs, which is something I would have normally done.
For me, the ones that I think really make my case are 1, 2, 5, and 8. I also think that is difficult to imagine so many similarities in two stories, published a week apart from each other, mine under 600 words, and her under 1000 words. We were not given a theme or a challenge to write a story for, and so had no reason to write about the same themes or people other than by chance or inspiration.
Here are some arguments that I have already heard, and what I have to say about it.
01. Many of these themes are ones lundi has already explored.
I agree. Many of them are. But there are other themes that she doesn't. For one, she has a whole Prince of Tennis story about summer. And another Prince of Tennis story about sacrifice and love, using the story of the Crane Wife. But many of the same themes as mine, including themes that do not explicitly come up in Hero or IC? Why these particular ones, and in this particular way?
02. lundi is very deeply ingrained in Italo Calvino literature, and as Hero is based off IC, and you have also read a lot of Italo Calvino and read Hero as well, this is where the similarities are coming from.
I have indeed read both canons. But I am not deeply ingrained in Calvino's work. I have never modeled my writing after his. I haven't read a book by him in about half a year, and I finished IC and haven't read it since last summer. There is no reason for me to have written so similar to him, if that is where the similarities came from.
03. lundi and you have very similar styles anyway.
I agree! We really do! However, why did she choose this particular rhetorical style? Why this particular phrase to repeat? Why not numbered sections ( a style we both have in common), or frequent section breaks? Why not second person? Why not third, as her other HikaGo/Invisible Cities fic was written in? Why not past tense? Why was it written in a storytelling format that was so repetitive, instead of more drawn out and flourished like that in IC?
04. lundi claims that she has never read your drabble until you contacted her.
I can only claim to the fact that she was familiar with my writing, both because she had friended my journal and also because she was and still is a watcher of la_foule, my Ouran collab. Granted, my drabble was a comment drabble, on what would be for her then a LJ no longer on her flist, but for me, it is seems more likely for her to have come across my drabble than for us to have written so similar a story within a week of each other, completely independently.
05. You are writing from the same canon(s), of course the stories will be similar.
And often stories written in the same fandom, among writers who like the same writers (as I see lundi and I do), will sound similar. But I have been writing on the Internet for at least seven years now, and never, never, ever have I ever written a story so similar to someone else's, completely independently, without having communicated with them via chat, email, or comments. I can understand similar plots, hell maybe even similar dialogue. But a 600 word drabble and a 1000 word drabble using two sentences, one after another, with identical structures? I'm sorry. That seems ridiculous to me.
Furthermore, in our shared fandoms, Ouran and Prince of Tennis, I see that while we have written stories that might seem similar (Her, a TezuFuji story where Fuji takes Tezuka to Okinawa; me, a TezuFuji story where Fuji takes Tezuka to China; her, an Ouran story where Tamaki invites Kyouya to France, and they bring up Eclair; me, well, la_foule), I haven't seen another instance where we have structured our stories almost exactly identical, and used almost identical sentences.
06. The "In this way" sentence construction is more common than you think, and also it makes stylistic sense to use it twice in that instance.
To the former: I will have to say I disagree. I can't, off the top of my head, think of a story that uses it that way that I've read recently. I know I was inspired by "Meditation in Lagunitas", that says "In this it resembles...". But again, I do not pretend to know all.
As to the latter, I agree, as that's why I used it in that way. XD But again, I have my suspicions if two writers would have used it, independently of each other, so similarly.
Finally, what happened after I found this story.
I talked to bookshop/Aja, and she convinced me to contact lundi privately. Which I did. That evening, lundi responded to me via email, saying among other things that she did not plagiarize me. This evening I talked with lundi via AIM, and we parted amicably, though still in fervent disagreement. Pretty much everything else is public record, and you may draw your own conclusions.
edit 7/31: tongari has written a public post here which if nothing else is enlightening background material, and personally furthers my own suspicions.
I was planning on taking the commenting off this post, but I've never had a policy of doing so in the past except in dire cases, and don't plan on doing so in the future. So: feel free to comment. But let me warn you: if you are here to argue which particular instances you don't feel are plagiarizing and you expect me to respond, it's not that I don't want to hear you out or that I don't care about your opinion; it's just that you should probably just save your breath. I've already talked to the writer herself about it-- what more could you have to add? I've let it go now. That doesn't mean I am not firm in my stance that I believe I was plagiarized. I just am done arguing about it.
ON A DIFFERENT NOTE ENTIRELY:
I am not bookshop, and I will not defend Aja's actions for her. However. One thing I do find unsavory about this whole mess is that there is an implication that just because Aja has fandom influence, that she is not entitled to make accusations of plagiarism just like everyone else-- that just because she is a BNF, she needs to carefully watch who she accuses, and have an iron clad case against them before she voices her thoughts. In particular, this statement sat completely wrong with me: I am merely suggesting that it might be a good idea to look up your facts before accusing anyone of anything, especially when you're someone who has so much influence over fandom in general that she can create and destroy fandoms and actually bring anyone in fandom down if you so wished.
I think I know Aja well enough to know that she would never, on a whim, decide to "bring [some]one in fandom down" just, well, because she felt like it. I have never seen an instance of this, and I have been in fandom(s) with her for a long time. If this is the response people get to accusations of plagiarism, I can see why people feel like they might be able to get away with plagiarizing.
Plagiarism, for fanfic writers, is a serious deal. I would never accuse someone of plagiarism for funsies. I also have faith that Aja would not either, especially since she herself has been accused of it before. Whether or not you agree with her claims is something else entirely. But I don't feel comfortable telling some people that they're allowed to make open claims of plagiarism because they're not BNFs, and telling people with larger fandom influence that they need to watch themselves. The seriousness of the claim should be the factor, not the fandom influence. If a BNF was accused of plagiarism, they would expect the same amount of judiciousness as a no-name writer. It should work the other way around too.
Furthermore, simply because I chose to handle my claim privately first does not mean that I actually think plagiarism should only be accused in private, then brought public when some tenuous consensus comes to bear. I don't think Aja did anything wrong by making her post, not only because I am her friend, but also because I think we owe it to ourselves as a writing community, even if it is just of fanfic, to discuss these matters openly and seriously. And at the end of it, if someone feels they have wronged someone else, whether it is by plagiarizing or by accusing someone of plagiarism, then I would expect honest-felt apologies. (And that includes you, Aja!)
With that, I'll get off my soapbox and shut up.