The Sincerest Form of Flattery?

It’s your part-time Whore, Jane Kindred, here, filling in for Allison again. 

This week’s post is going to have to be a short one, because I decided to demonstrate taking imitation too far by damaging my C7 vertebra somehow and compressing a nerve in my spine. And I’ll tell you what: this effing hurts. In addition to the fingers on my left hand being just numb enough to feel like they’re on fire, I can barely stand, walk, sit, or lie down—which, you may notice, doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of options. And so I’m on lots of drugs. Only I’m allergic to all the really helpful ones, so these aren’t doing much.

The point of which is not to gain sympathy, but to explain why this post will be kind of discombobulated and also to say that I really feel for Allison…literally. I can’t imagine how she deals with this on an ongoing basis, and I really hope the surgery gives her the relief she deserves.

But to touch on the actual topic of the week, rather than bring up the same examples others have mentioned already, I want to briefly talk about the disturbing idea I’ve seen touted on occasion that plagiarism is somehow artistic license. There seems to be an appalling laziness and lack of understanding of what art is by certain young writers who’ve been in the news in the past few years around this topic. Growing up in an era of music sampling by other artists—and then outright music stealing (aka “sharing”)—it’s not really surprising that some writers see nothing wrong with lifting whole passages out of someone else’s work and expecting those authors to be flattered by it. After all, like music, books are just out there for the taking, anyway. And writers are supposed to be flattered by that, too. I mean, seriously, what, are we just that greedy that we expect to make a living off our hard work? Shouldn’t we be grateful that someone wants to steal it? The artist is increasingly devalued as the art is devalued, and this kind of thinking is just one of the many causes of devalued art in recent years.

This is a hard calling to have. And many of us do it because it is a calling. We couldn’t stop if we tried. We can’t stop even when it’s causing us physical pain, because the mental and emotional pain of not writing is worse. We have people and worlds in our heads that want out. And when somebody cavalierly snatches something so personal and decides to call it their own—that’s just sort of unfathomable to me.

So when does inspiration or imitation go too far? When it’s neither. It’s certainly possible for two authors to come up with uncannily similar ideas independently of one another. It happens in Hollywood all the time, or so I’m told. But the actual words of a writer are their brushstrokes. They’re individual, and a forgery stands out. Though full-on ideas can also be plagiarized. I know of a couple of writers who have actually had former critique partners take their ideas after they’d been well developed and write their own version with absolutely no qualms about it. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I don’t have any critique partners.

Yikes. I thought I said this week’s post was going to be a short one. Blame it on the meds. They may finally be kicking in.

Drawing that Squiggly Line Between Inspiration and Plagiarism

Release day for ROGUE'S POSSESSION is tomorrow!!

So, you know, you could totally pre-order it. I mean, I wouldn't be a true Word Whore if I didn't offer you some buy links right here and now, right???

Carina
B&N
Amazon

~does seductive click-the-buy-link dance~

Thank you!

And now, onward to the meat of this Sunday post, the real reason you stopped by, yes?

This week's topic is Inspiration vs Imitation: How Far is Too Far?

Which is quite apropos, given the many scandals that seem to be plaguing the writing community recently. The most recent one is Dave Eggers' new novel, The Circle, was lifted from memoir written by Kate Losse, former ghostwriter for Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. You can read the Salon article here. The upshot, however, is that Eggers released this statement about it:

I’ve just heard about the claims of Kate Losse that my novel, The Circle, was somehow based on a work of nonfiction she wrote. I want to make it clear that I have never read and have never heard of her book before today. I did not, in fact, read any books about any internet companies, or about the experiences of anyone working at any of these companies, either before or while writing The Circle. I avoided all such books, and did not even visit any tech campuses, expressly because I didn’t want The Circle to seem to be based on any extant companies or upon the experiences of any employees of any extant companies. Because The Circle has not been released, it’s my understanding that Kate Losse has not read my novel yet, so I trust that when she does read it she’ll understand that I have not read, and certainly never lifted anything from, her book.

What I find interesting is his insistence that he did not read any books on similar topics or go near the tech companies. I kind of want to ask if he stayed off Facebook and Twitter, too, but that would be snarky.

And, let me be clear, reliable folks have gone and read both books and they all seem to agree that Eggers lifted nothing from Losse.

I'm just kind of amused by the lengths he says he went to in avoiding his story on reality, which is kind of bizarre, given that he started as a memoirist (with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). On second thought, maybe that's part of why he wanted to draw such a clear line within himself.

The thing is, every memoirist knows that this line is never clear. I can say this with confidence, having been a published memoirist and having participated in countless discussions and panels exploring this very thing. Calling a work fiction doesn't change the fact that the writer is still drawing from the real world.

Do I think Eggers plagiarized? Absolutely not. Do I think he couldn't help but draw on extant companies?

Yes yes yes.

More, I think it's disingenuous for any writer to think that he or she doesn't do this.

Of course, there's a huge difference between taking someone's book, replacing the character names and publishing it as your own. Or lifting entire passages from someone else's novel and sticking it in your own. Or taking a book like Twilight and writing a fan fiction version of it where Edward is a sexual dominant and Bella his submissive - then later changing some of the names and setting details.

But, of those three examples, the last is not plagiarism. It's Fifty Shades of Grey, an international bestseller. Do some people think that it took inspiration too far? Sure. A lot of them do. Is it plagiarism? Nope.

Would I, personally, do that? No.

That's my vague and wiggly line. I accept that all the thousands of books and stories I've read in my life now feed into what I write. I don't think I could make a statement like Eggers did, because I can't be sure that it's true. I read eclectically, widely and near constantly. Who knows where the stuff in my head comes from?

(Not incidentally, the gal who owns the gym I go to said to me yesterday, "Your head must be a crazy place to live." I took it as a compliment.)

But I would never deliberately adopt someone else's world or characters. I know a lot of writers get started with fan fiction and love being able to do that. For me, it's an internal line I don't want to ever cross.

It's just a shade too far for my taste.