I wonder if there’s a single published author of popular fiction who isn’t shuddering over the situation with Kaavya Viswanathan and the charges of plagiarism against her.
As a writer, I’m constantly observing, absorbing, processing, and reshaping everything I see and hear. I couldn’t possibly count the number of times a friend has told me something, and my immediate reaction is, “May I use that?” If it’s an incident that happened to the person, I feel relatively safe, because by the time it goes through all my filters and adjustments and the other machinery of my imagination, it’ll probably be very different from its origin. But if it’s a great line or quip, how do I know where that person got it? Maybe it was in somebody else’s book or movie or play or TV show.
One of the eerie things about writing with four other people is how often we think the same thoughts and articulate our visions the same ways. If it can happen among the four of us, who’s to say it can’t happen between multitudes of us?
That situation is even more pronounced with Tim and me, because we seem to share a brain when we write. We both admit that there are passages in our novels whose writers we can’t identify. Were they conversations or ideas we once shared that turned into text? Are we subconsciously mimicking each other’s styles and word choices because we know each other so well and have to write in a single voice?
Beyond that, we are all just bombarded with so much from pop culture. There’s no way anyone can remember every sight gag, every brilliant line, every idea that s/he is exposed to. I’m sure there’s a lot of borrowing that’s entirely unintentional. And certainly there’s a lot of imitating that is meant to be a tribute to the original…or to replicate its success. A blockbuster movie, bestselling book, or highly rated TV show will spawn dozens more just like it.
And some things are just accidents. I think I’ve told the hamster story on here before. Among the companion animals of my life were a dog named Hamlet and a hamster named Houdi. When I began writing A COVENTRY CHRISTMAS, I decided to turn those two into one animal: Hamlet the hamster. In a conversation with my friend Tandy after my novel was half-written, she said, “A hamster? Like Janet Evanovich?” I’d never read a Janet Evanovich book in my life, but I immediately went out and got her first book about Stephanie Plum, the bounty hunter who has a hamster named Rex.
I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I turn Hamlet into another rodent-like thing? Then I remembered that Harley Jane Kozak has a ferret in her mysteries. For all I knew, the shelves of women’s fiction were teeming with more gerbils, moles, squirrels, and lemmings, than a rainforest–or a Captain and Tenille song. Finally, Tom said, “Just because someone once wrote Lassie doesn’t mean no one else can ever use a dog in a book.” So instead of offing my fictitious hamster, I found a way to pay conscious and deliberate tribute to Evanovich and Rex within my story.
I didn’t steal Rex and turn him into Hamlet. The same way that, even though I JOKE about this, the writers of Queer as Folk didn’t steal the TJB character Ken Bruckner and turn him into Ben Bruckner. There is such a thing as coincidence.
While part of me scowls at the idea of plagiarism, another part of me quakes at the thought of being accused of it. Mostly, I can’t help noticing (and I’m not the first to comment on this!) that every time the media runs the Kaavya Viswanathan story, mention is made of the huge advance she was given to write her books and the fact that she got a movie deal (which is where the real $$$$ are). If she’d been barely compensated the way most writers are, would people be less inclined to study every sentence in her novel and compare it to the writers she’s accused of plagiarizing?
I don’t know. But I do know this. When you get wrapped up discussing these concepts on your Live Journal, you forget that cauldron of homemade soup you started. And then you end up with:
Does Janet Evanovich have days like this?
Generally I just browse through Amazon, cut & paste from exerpts and string them all together until it makes sense and sounds good…
Seriously, who draws the line between plagiarism and plot similarity? It seems that with “chick lit,” there is a bit of a formula. The names and settings change but it seems that there will always be similarities in the plot and situations. Then again, I’ve never read “chick lit,” so maybe I should just shut up…
Genius!
No “Chic Lit?” Oh come now…it’s amazing stuff! Like, Elizabeth Wurtzel! Or Shannon O’Neal, and even Sylvia Plath! The Bell Jar is considered Chic Lit these days. But yes the plots are similiar in plight. Women with issues, drama, love, career, and really more along the lines of “Oh God, It’s Me Margaret” period stories from hell. HHahhahaha Sorry, cracked myself up there.
Anyway, the only difference in any books I read, really, is the genre of it. Just like you said. Besides, I make connections in so many novels it’s not even funny. but I would never say that’s plagiarism.
By the way, I am Shannon, and I love TJB.
Hi Shannon. Yay! I love people who love TJB. I love TJB, too, but I’m biased.
I love Judy Blume. I was the only boy (that I know of) who was reading her books. “Chick Lit?” Who knew?
I think with her it was a little more pronounced. Apparently there was just more then one author, there are passages that seem to be lifted from Meg Cabot ( who I like) and Sarah Kinsella ( I don’t know if that is spelled right … )
I don’t get copying from The Princess Diaries though – it was HUGE
The thing is, in writing, everyone pulls from something they read or experienced somewhere down the road in their lives. It’s inevitable to plagiarize something from an idea basis. Sucks, but this is true. That’s why research papers are bunk. I never make my students do them because all they are doing is regurgitating something they read. Plus they are boring. The only way to get around that awful blunder is to just be true to yourself. If you unknowingly did it, that is not your fault, therefore, you can’t be blamed. But if it is a word for word issue, well that’s stealing. Like in the case of Dan Brown; he didn’t steal anything. And his ideas were is own based on his past readings and experiences, plus the research he did for 2 years. He told me once that the hardest thing about writing the Divinci Code was coming to terms himself with what he found. 🙂 My close friend, TC Boyle says that all authors plagiarize. Because they take someones else’s life and make it their own. Ha! I love that. I read TJB novels, and I make them my own. I really think that the term need tweaking on the definition side.
oh and “they” being “it” but could be “they” because my students are boring sometimes. Lol
I was thinking about David Leavitt’s While England Sleeps. Not one of my favorite of his books. At the time, when all the uproar started, I thought he had the right to take someone’s bio and make it his own and fictionalize it and give it a brand new life. When I read the details that were lifted from the bio, basically the whole bio, the only embellishment was the detailed sex and the use every possible British slang word for masturbation and fornication. No wonder the original author was upset, it was his life without his sense of decorum. That’s not being creative, that’s being lazy.
Viswanathan’s case is even worse because she lifted complete passages. It reminds me of my high school experience where one girl lifted whole books and her mother, who was our teacher, kept giving her A+. I was furious, but then I was the only other person who read all these books. It boggled my mind how the teacher/mother did not suspect anything given that some of these stories were classics and others were popular teen fiction. My guess is that publishers are in a very competitive business and sometimes their excitement about a possible new star blinds them to the obvious.
Michelle
I know this is going to sound REALLY age-centric (if that’s a term), but honestly–when someone so young is writing fantastic chick lit, shouldn’t that set off alarms? I’m not saying a young person couldn’t be a good writer of pop fiction, I’m just saying that a little more scrutiny and caution might have been in order.
The sad part is that if only some passages are lifted from other writers’ works, she must have talent. She’s ruined herself with this scandal. Although some publisher will probably come along and offer her a chunk of change to write her account of the scandal. The beat goes on…
It’s not completely age-centric. I thought the same thing when I first heard about the book deal. I did realize that some young people are freakishly advanced and have the intelligence and talent to write a commercially successful novel.
In this case, I think her age and inexperience may have led her to believe she might not be caught embellishing. She’ll grow out of that and will probably become a helluva writer down the road. But, as you pointed out, she probably just blacklisted herself in the literary world. At 17.
At 17.
Sounds like a new verse for a Janis Ian song.
Can I throw my two cents in here? Personally I’m more than a little offended by what she (allegedly) has done. Part of the joy of writing, for me anyway, is trying to find the right words to help tell the story that’s playing out inside of my head. If I could find the right words now I would try to describe for Miss Viswanathan the giddiness that I feel when a word, a simple yet beautifully perfect word, pops into my head, making the sentence I’ve been struggling to compose not only come alive but sing with joy. I think she would then understand the anger – no, hatred – I would have toward anyone who would dare to try to steal it.
So off with her head! lol
Good point. Writers–especially literary fiction writers and poets–have a love affair with their words. Although I’m probably not as painstaking a writer when it comes to words, I am when it comes to characters, so I’d be furious if someone stole my characters.
Although…that makes me think of fan fiction. I have conflicting perspectives of fan fiction. Probably a topic for its own post.
And P.S. You made the leap! Welcome!
Thanks!