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  1.  

    Yay, more writing threads!

    Okay, some background and explanation on this topic: we’re all well acquainted with cliches, overused plot devices, similar character names, stories, worldbuilding, etc. etc. We’ve repeatedly criticized the Inheritance books for their unoriginality in these respects, although they are by no means the only guilty ones. Also, we’ve called bullshit on Paolini’s ‘there are no new ideas’ or something like that philosophy. However, sometimes some overlap is inevitable. So at what point do similar things become suspiciously similar, rather than just coincidentally so?

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJun 27th 2011
     

    I really don’t know, even though I’ve thought about it a lot. I think it’s a very fine line and one that can all too easily be crossed. On one hand, you could argue it’s all a matter of attitude—if you intentionally copy, that’s plagiarism; if you don’t, it’s just coincidence. But that’s a very simplistic view of a complicated topic. What about a shout-out? That’s clearly intentional, but if it’s not overwhelming, then I don’t think it counts as plagiarism. On the other hand, what if you’re subconsciously inspired by something? That could end up being kind of plagiarism, even though it was unintentional.

  2.  

    I see what you mean by ‘subconscious inspiration’- it definitely exists. For example, someone published a story about a middle-aged man’s sexual obsession with a prepubescent girl. Then Vladimir Nabokov wrote Lolita. He had read the short story before writing Lolita, but claimed that he was not thinking of it while writing his own book. Obviously the basic plot of Lolita isn’t what makes it so renowned as much as the words Nabokov used, but it does bear thinking about.

  3.  

    The key to avoiding this is to A) be cognizant of what you’re borrowing, and B) do something with it. If you steal stuff wholesale out of laziness, well, that’s a sign of weak ass writing. If you borrow something fairly basic and then do your own building upon it, that’s an awful lot more tolerable.

    To use my own thing as an example, there’s a lot of Rurouni Kenshin (my favorite anime as a teenager) in it. The male lead’s name(Sojiro) is the same name as a secondary villain. They were vaguely similar when I started, but there’s not really a whole lot of connection there anymore, since I took the basic premise(swordfighting prodigy orphaned at an early age with an emotional demeanor that others find puzzling) and built on it. There’s lots of little nods to the name’s origin in there still(stuff like my Sojiro’s primary sword’s name[Tenken] being the nickname of the RuroKen Sojiro, things like that) but the character’s not just his namesake in a different story(though he never really was to begin with).

    So yeah, do something with it.

  4.  

    If your Melisande dresses all in one colour and worships a weird god and is all-out freaky, then you have a problem. Otherwise, I’d say all you have in common is the name and the alignment. (And she might even be chaotic evil rather than lawful evil, which, knowing you, I’d say yours is.)

    Also, interesting side note, anyone with a name similar to Melisande is always evil.

  5.  

    My Melisande isn’t really evil…although curiously, when I first found the name I imagined using it for a heroine, until I found a better name.

    B) do something with it.

    There’s the important thing, right? When you think enough about it and build, then eventually you get something that’s mostly yours.

    That’s probably the main issue with Tolkienian elves- it’s now the standard, instead of an option. Even as far as Paolini went, do you think that there were enough cultural differences with the elves and that they could have been more fleshed out if he’d developed them more? Or was it an issue of the whole idea being a rip-off?

  6.  

    I think the biggest issue is Paolini has is that his most effective stuff is all retread. When he starts trying to build on it, it goes from cliche to boring, which is even worse.

  7.  

    Yeah, poor kid. I mean, imagine building on a bunch of stuff you like, having all these ideas you think are great, and all you end up with is a book that’s as boring as hell. I feel a bit sorry for him when you put it like that.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeJun 28th 2011 edited
     

    I tend to think in threes, and I think from reading that there might be some underlying human psychology to that. Three is one of the fastest numbers we can process, after ‘one’. Nearly every letter in every written alphabet is made of no more than three pen-lifts not including accents, and there’s a lot of other stuff that humans in general tend to think of in threes that I can’t recall right now.

    Basically, three similarities at once is going to be a lot more noticeable (a LOT more) than one or two similarities. With the Melisande example, one similarity is the name: oh cool, they have similar names. What a coincidence! A second similarity is that they’re both sorceresses. That’s a weird coincidence. Oh, they both dress in green? That’s suspicious. They both do this or that eccentric thing that isn’t an everyday thing? That’s when you get claims of plagiarism. The fourth coincidence is the deal-breaker.

    Or, using Eragon as an example, The story starts with a farm boy (1), whose home is burnt down by the agents of the Empire (2) in a search for some object that has been hidden (3 – suspicious). Eragon’s uncle is killed in the attack (that’s 4, and now we call shenanigans). I’ve found in the sporks and critiques I’ve read, three tends to be the threshold (the three-shold?) of similarities before it gets suspicious.

    On the other hand, they have to be fairly substantial coincidences, or it just gets silly. Oh, you’ve got a character with brown hair? And he likes steak, does he? And he lives in America! Clearly plagiarism! Or not.

    That’s my take on it, anyway. Avoid a fourth coincidence, and you should be okay.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJun 28th 2011
     

    So a good rule of thumb is three significant coincidences? That works for me. I always struggle with deciding where the line should fall, but that actually sounds like a pretty decent rule. And if you really have to stretch to fit one of those coincidences, it probably isn’t bad.

    •  
      CommentAuthorInkblot
    • CommentTimeJun 28th 2011
     

    Taku, that’s brilliant. I’m using that from now on.

    On roughly the same topic, don’t you just HATE it when you’re working on something and there’s that little niggle at the back of your mind, and then hours later it dawns on you the name, date, and episode number of what you were unconsciously ripping off? And then it’s like “Aww, now I can’t possibly use this, even though it’s the best scene yet.”

  8.  

    I move that the Three-shold become official, or as official as anything should be in the writing world.

    On roughly the same topic, don’t you just HATE it when you’re working on something and there’s that little niggle at the back of your mind, and then hours later it dawns on you the name, date, and episode number of what you were unconsciously ripping off? And then it’s like “Aww, now I can’t possibly use this, even though it’s the best scene yet.”

    Haha, I recognized that a significant part of my book is ripped off ‘Aladdin’. :P

    •  
      CommentAuthorInkblot
    • CommentTimeJun 28th 2011
     

    Someone mentioned that you could make it a shout-out. That’s really a clever way to go. When you spot something in a work that is clearly ripped off of something else, you’re always sort of waiting for the author to acknowledge it. If they never do, then you, the reader, know more than they do, and that superiority ruins your enjoyment. You’re suddenly the Critic with a capital C. A good lampshade hanging allows the reader to get over it and get on with the plot.

    Also, I just thought I’d mention that I read this great article somewhere (it may have been here, since it was possibly about Eragon) about the use of mythology in writing. As much as we oh-so-1337 moderns hate to admit it, everything we know about psychology is really just an extension of what the Greeks developed. Their work was a foundation for everything that came after, and there probably has not been a group of people whose overall wisdom (not knowledge) compares since. That keen understanding of human nature happens to be left for us in the form of myths, a language of deep and powerful emotional symbols and cues that we really don’t understand. The home, the Other, vengeful fates, the importance of our decisions, hatred, envy, jealousy, nobility.

    Anyway, there was this one line that I really liked. It ran something like “...[Mythology and the plagiarism of it is not actually a bad thing. The ripping off of these common elements] allows the audience to jump right into the story. The elements with which they are subconsciously familiar allow them to begin enjoying the story much faster.”

    Maybe it was about the cultural gap between Eastern and Western mythology. I can’t remember what the heck that thing was about. That one line is great to think about though.

  9.  

    As long as we’re talking about shout-outs…I’ve never been really clear about how to do one properly, without making it look like further imitation.

    •  
      CommentAuthorInkblot
    • CommentTimeJun 28th 2011 edited
     

    Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know. ;)

    I dunno. I was thinking about it, and it seems that the difference between plagiarism and homage is possibly related to something completely unrelated: the overall quality of the story. If it’s crap, we tend to assume it’s plagiarism. If it’s well-written and the author seems like they should know better, then we assume they do and that it’s a clever, snarky in-joke. Thoughts?

    You can always put it in your acknowledgments if you’re totally stuck :P

  10.  

    I think we have a shout-outs thread…

  11.  

    I think we have a shout-outs thread…

    We do.

  12.  

    What I hate is when your ideas are “stolen” from someone else. As in you had the ideas ages ago, and then coincidentally something comes out later that is suspiciously like yours. So if you were to ever get your own thing published people might think you copied when you had the idea well before the other thing. The new The Legend of Zelda game that’s coming out soon seems to have a lot of similarities with my fantasy story I’ve been planning but never writing. And I already knowingly had some similarities to Zelda in my series already. The new similarities are that the starting location is similar and what initially moves the plot forward looks similar but I can’t be sure until the game actually comes out and I play it. Chances are it will be different enough.

    The big, glaring similarity to Zelda before this new games was announced is my use of 3 goddesses each creating one part of the world. Is that too similar peoples? I like to think I go way more indepth in my mythology and explain things way better than Zelda ever did. It should be different enough…

  13.  

    What I hate is when your ideas are “stolen” from someone else. As in you had the ideas ages ago, and then coincidentally something comes out later that is suspiciously like yours.

    I had something like that happen to me. I was talking about a short story I had written to this guy in my CW class, and then he asked if I had read Sluggy Freelance, and I said no. He said that my story sounded a lot like a something Sluggy Freelance had done. I didn’t even know what Sluggy Freelance was. I thought it was an author until I looked it up and found out it was webcomic. I couldn’t find the comic in question, though, so I don’t know how similar they were. It just annoyed me that I thought I had actually thought something somewhat original that was, apparently, really similar to something I had never even heard of.

  14.  

    Thanks for the link, NP, I meant to go look for it but got a little distracted.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJun 29th 2011 edited
     

    The asari in Mass Effect remind me far too much of my dalar. Long-lived? Check. Mysterious semi-supernatural powers that are actually explainable by SCIENCE? Check. Think they’re superior to everyone else (which may or may not be true, but don’t tell them that or they’ll get even more full of themselves)? Check. Adrenaline junkies, at least at younger ages? Check. Constantly scheming and manipulating everyone else? Check. Even their names sound vaguely like my names!

    Thankfully, my dalar aren’t blue, aliens, monogendered, or entirely bisexual, so I think I’m safe from plagiarism claims if anyone ever brings it up—and I have dated writings and files from before the first Mass Effect trailer was ever released to prove it if need be!

  15.  

    But Platypus when did the comics come out, before or after you had your ideas? Well either way it’s still the same basic principle and annoying. I, too, have some things that people tell me a similar to things I’ve never heard of. But meh.

    Someone loves Mass Effect so much that their love for it predates the game even being announced. You could probably always hax the files! I will not accept your proof!

  16.  

    I believe the comics came out first, but I had no knowledge of them, so it was annoying. Like you said, same principle.

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    I think I might write an article for the main II page about coi9nicences and the threeshold, seeing as you guys seem to like that idea.

    Shout-outs and homages are obviously exempt from the three thing, because there is an implied acknowledgement by both reader and writer. Since there is that implied acknowledgement, the writer is basically saying “:I know where this is from, don’t you? Wasn’t the original material awesome?” and therefore not trying to claim the idea or material as their own original work.

    • CommentAuthorNo One
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    I think I might write an article for the main II page about coi9nicences and the threeshold, seeing as you guys seem to like that idea.

    Do it!

    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    Except perhaps I’ll write about coincidences, instead. I shall use example material that is near and dear to all of us. (i.e. Inheritance).

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    An Inheritance example: the Doctor Who reference is a shoutout. The use of extremely-similar-to-LotR names (and a lot of them) is… not.

  17.  

    Taku, do it!

  18.  

    Taku, do it!

    Yes, please, write it.

    the Doctor Who reference is a shoutout.

    What Doctor Who shoutout?

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    He makes some reference to a “lonely god” in Brsingersigha;rea (however the heck you spell that) which is what The Doctor is called in the episode “Face of Boe”.

    Oh, and I have to admit I don’t watch Dr. Who (before people start thinking I do and find out that I don’t and then think I’m an uncool poser), I just have a sister who is obsessed with it and weirded out that it got a reference in a fantasy novel set in a totally different world.

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    And I apologize for the double-post, but I have a legitimate question on the topic of shout-outs. Essentially, a shout-out is an allusion and an allusion is an acceptable literary device. What I have noticed is that you can make an allusion to virtually anything except Tolkien and it is still considered an allusion and it is acceptable. However, for some reason, if you allude to Tolkien, it is virtually ipso facto plagiarism. For example, let’s say I write a fantasy novel and I name a knight Ralph after the protagonist in the classic but oft over-looked Well at the World’s End. Now, people who have read the book will probably get the allusion and not be upset by it because my Ralph does not go on the same adventures as Ralph in the Well at the World’s End. However, if I write a fantasy novel and name my protagonist after a character in LotR, like Boromir for example, fans have a problem and start muttering about plagiarism even if my Boromir is unique from Tolkien’s creation.

    Why is that? I’m guessing it’s because of how often Tolkien has been ripped, but I don’t know.

    Oh, and just to note, I am not defending Paolini – what he does with Tolkien goes to a level far beyond allusion as detailed in myriad places across the internet by discerning readers such as yourselves. ;)

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    Well, true. I think the reason people get so up in arms about LotR is that those names are just so iconic and distinctively him. Any more, everyone has heard of Arwen and Aragorn and Frodo. It’s so obvious, people can instantly recognize it.

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2011
     

    @swenson – That certainly makes sense. But what if I take a name that is more obscure. Suppose I name a topographical feature after the not-so-well-remembered Emyn Muil hill range. Perhaps I name a town Emyn Muil. I have a feeling that the uber-fans who recognize the name would still cry, “Plagiarist! Flog the plagiarist!”

  19.  

    Bypass it. Instead of a town, name a character Emyn Muil.

    Then again, that may not work, because remember how Tolkein created a whole language or two as the basis of LotR? Yeah, if you rip off a character name or a town name from there, it’s like you’re trying to pass off a whole language as your own. People tend to get a little bit antsy about that.

    Added to which, you start to wonder why there are traces of Elvish throughout this new novel you’re reading, so you start wondering if there was a way in the past in-universe for Tolkein and this new novel to have collided somehow, and so it starts you off on a wild mass guessing trip, by the end of which you just conclude that everyone was a Time Lord. And the book you were reading is now ruined forever.

    That’s why you stay away from doing shout-outs to Tolkein.

  20.  

    I think Tolkien just requires subtler shout-outs than other authors because he’s so well-known. For example, even if you’re writing about elves, a throwaway comment about a creeper who’s in love with his cousin would only be familiar to readers of the Silmarillion.

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2011
     

    What y’all are saying makes sense. Personally, I have never given a Tolkien shout-out because I feel that it’s too gray an area. It was just an observation I made a little while ago and I was curious if anybody had guesses as to why there is the disdain for Tolkien allusions.

    Then again, that may not work, because remember how Tolkein created a whole language or two as the basis of LotR?

    That is a very good point. Although, some of the people and places (I think particularly the Rohirrim characters), Tolkien essentially just put together words from Old English. Emyn Muil may have been a name from one of the languages he actually invented, however.

    •  
      CommentAuthorThea
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2011
     

    Not being particularly good at recognizing shoutouts or allusions myself so I wouldn’t know how to incorportate them. I like the rule of three however, and though I’ve heard it in other contexts, not so much like this. However, I think I will adopt it.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2011
     

    @SWQ – or an accidental creeper who’s in love with his sister… Tolkien wrote some very creepertastic stories.

  21.  

    or an accidental creeper who’s in love with his sister

    Yeah, that too.

  22.  

    Yes, please, write it.

    Thirded.

    I’m guessing it’s because of how often Tolkien has been ripped

    i’m guessing you’re right.:)

    what he does with Tolkien goes to a level far beyond allusion

    He’s not the only one. In the first book of the infamous Sword of Truth-series, the previous owner of the Ring Sword is a froglike creature who is obsessed with stalking/killing/eating/robbing the current owner who is Our Hero. Said creature also talks funny. Can you say “Gollum”, boys and girls?

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2011
     

    I haven’t read the Sword of Truth series, but yeah, that sounds like just a wee bit too much of a coincidence.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2011
     

    Oh, I just thought of a Tolkien reference that I don’t think people would consider a rip-off: in Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad, he mentions a Gollum-like creature after the witches are boating down a river (with a giant waterfall, mind you) shortly after leaving an underground dwarf city. In that case, he makes it so obvious what he’s referencing and he references several other books and whatnot throughout the novel, so it’s clear it’s supposed to be an obvious reference.

  23.  

    I haven’t read the Sword of Truth series, but yeah, that sounds like just a wee bit too much of a coincidence.

    Also, the Sword is the Important Plot Item, so much so that the series is named for it – just like LotR. I may be missing some things, but feel free to check out the spork of said book on Eragon Sporkings. The sporker insists on calling the creature Gollum, cause… well, that’s who he is.

    @swenson – you just made me think of another obvious reference: in Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, they go into a WoW/DD-like “game universe” (almost like Reboot). While Billy and his buddy are slaying monsters and marveling at the glowing numbers that jump out of each dead body, giving them high scores, Mandy runs into a Gollum-expy guarding the Plot Item of the game.

    He even gives her a riddle to solve: “What’s black and blue and red all over?”

    •  
      CommentAuthorWulfRitter
    • CommentTimeJul 3rd 2011
     

    Pratchett and Grim Adventures can get away with it because it’s satire.

    •  
      CommentAuthorThea
    • CommentTimeJul 3rd 2011
     

    ^^True, but even then they don’t usually focus on one work, but on a genre, or simple trends. If it can be traced to one work, it’s fairly clear (for a given definition) and only one small part.