Monday, July 23, 2012

Stealing, aka, Where Do Stories and Characters Come From?

You may know exactly where the idea for your book or character came from.

That annoying relative you want to put in their place.

A book you read and loved--until the last chapter, when your entire reading experience was ground under that author's unrelenting heel.

The life you might have led, had you chosen a different road.

Maybe.

Or maybe an idea, a piece of dialog, a character just popped into your head so fast, you knew you had to write it.

What if you are working on your beloved MIP (masterpiece in progress or mess in progress, depending on the alignment of the planets) or maybe you've finished it, and you catch a glimpse of an old movie or dig an old book out of the corner of the closet and--

Uh-oh.

Suddenly you know where the idea for this situation or that character or the entire premise came from.

Somebody else's work, something you saw or read and then "forgot."

It happens.

As Sherwood Smith describes here.

When is it stealing and when is it creating, and how do our brains work anyway, and oh by the way, what about that pesky copyright issue...?

Read it. You'll find it interesting.  Don't forget to read the comments, too! 

And while you're at it, look at this, too.  He's an artist, but everything he says works for writers, too.

Have a great week and go write something!


2 comments:

bdharrell said...

"Plagairism isn't stealing... it's merely recycling!"

'Professor' Peter Schickele

Patricia Burroughs aka Pooks said...

That was not quite the point. Ahem!