I wasn’t going to talk about the plagiarism / attribution / citation / credit due / inspiration / borrowing / lifting / stealing thing again. But after reading Lydia’s post where she says,
Let’s see. I’ve quoted from Shakespeare and the Bible in just about every book. Thomas Jefferson and Donne have done their time. I have one four-word phrase that’s a winking homage to a specific Terry Pratchett book. I have a line from Star Wars in my latest one, out in March. I have an entire scene that’s a tribute to Bleak House by Dickens in Voices. Oh, and I use the name Pegoty, which was in David Copperfield, too. (…) Not only that, but I have completely ripped off and turned on its head the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Shaw’s Pygmalion and its vast copycat literature, quite a bit of Shakespeare (including The Tempest), and a lot of Dickensian conventions, (…).
and realizing how much fear or concern many authors are now facing, I’m biting the bullet.
We as authors cannot second guess every single phrase we put on the page, fearing the reprisal should the same single phrase be found in another book. There is this thing out there called the ether, and if you write, you know how it works, how many of us reach for the same idea, the same expression, even the same character name at the same time. I can’t find where she made a post on it, but HelenKay Dimon told me that she discovered when turning in her synopsis for her story in “To All A Good Night,” that she, Jill, and Donna had all used the same first name for their heroine – none of them discussing this beforehand. These things happen. We read, we listen, we hear, we retain . . . it all goes into the big melting pot that is our creative brain and it comes out again on the other side.
Just as Lydia used a line from Star Wars, I mixed and matched (poorly, I’ve been told, heh) the Pinyin transliteration of Mandarin cursing used in Firefly in “The Samms Agenda” as an homage to a show I love like my Abuelita. My entire SG-5 series was born out of my love for Alias; an off-the-grid good guy org fighting a bad guy org is hardly original. I could name a half dozen authors right now writing the same thing in their own ongoing series.
None of that is plagiarism.
In her post on the subject at Dear Author, Robin/Janet says about attribution in fiction:
Fiction is different, of course, because even though it is often shaped and influenced by other texts (i.e. fairy tales, myths, famous novels, current events, etc.), we give writers of fiction the assumption of “artistic freedom,” which includes a fair amount of latitude in how they incorporate the many facets of their world into the construction of their fictional works. Readers may appreciate a richly woven fictional world, but we’re not reading fiction merely to acquire knowledge or gain factual understanding. We see fiction writers in a number of fanciful metaphors – as weavers, bards, mythmakers, visionaries — and we recognize craft as inclusive of both style and content.
Artistic freedom, however, does not mean it is fine for us to use what others have written and call it our own. The ether is one thing. Opening a book and copying sentences and paragraphs is another. Many years ago, I read a post on one of GEnie’s old boards where an author said she kept a sack of her favorite novels under her desk, and would flip through them for inspiration when she was stuck for the words she was looking for. I did this for awhile, and it worked, but then it grew uncomfortable for me. A big part of that was that I’d finally found my voice, and I realized only my words, strung together in the rhythm of my voice would work. Robin/Janet goes on to say:
Writing is a persuasive art. Whether an author is trying to convince me to accept her theory on the social importance of 18th century bell makers or to suspend my disbelief and fall deeply in love with the portrait she’s created of forbidden love in 18th century Philadelphia, she is engaged in persuading me to see things her way. She is persuading me, indirectly, perhaps, to defer to the authority of her voice. And I want to be able to trust that it is her voice I hear, even if she has been listening to other voices in preparation to tell her story. That, to me, is the baseline of intellectual integrity I expect from any writer of anything.
When questioned recently about incorporating her research into her narrative, Lynn Viehl gives an excellent example of how research should be used, how every word doesn’t have to be the author’s own when the original reference (hers was “murder holes”) is accepted and understood. But research also must be so smoothly integrated into the fictional text that the reader can’t tell it from the rest of the book (and I think this was a big tell with the Edwards examples, the nonfiction bits as sore thumbs). This is the author’s authority, her knowing of her subject, the pay-off of all the educational reading she’s done.
I once wrote a scene with two cowboys pulling a calf. I know nothing about pulling calves, or about what goes on with a birthing cow for that matter. I do know how to research, and I did, reading books, emailing with a rancher in West Texas, etc. (Just ask the husband about the books on ranching I used to have stacked up around here.)
No, I don’t know a fetlock from what presented means from the color of a cow’s amniotic fluid from how to get a calf breathing. But my cowboys would, and here is the scene that was a result of that research (which is copyrighted to ME so don’t be plagiarizing, got it?). If you make it all the way to the end, tell me if you can pick out the research or whether this sounds like what would be going through the cowboy’s mind because it’s something he knows. (I’m not saying I got it 100% right, but it’s the best example of weaving research into narrative naturally and with voice that I happened to have on hand.)
**********
He’d found her on the ground straining, resting, then struggling back to her feet, heading for the low growing stand of thick mesquite that paralleled the gully’s steep edge. Kit understood the instinctive need driving her away from predators, toward a safe place to give birth. But, God Bless America, the lip of a ten foot drop off wasn’t it.
“Hee-ya! Get up, girl. Hee-ya!” He waved his coil, slapped it against his left thigh. The cow turned, stopped, glanced back. Tail switching, she kicked at her belly. Even Rowdy, the border collie who functioned as both Kit’s right and left hands, wasn’t having a lick of luck getting her to move in the right direction.
“Rowdy!” Kit called off the dog and Rowdy circled around to sit off Kit’s right side. For a good fifteen minutes he studied the cow from horseback. Hat pulled low, he leaned into wrists stacked on his saddle horn, not liking her exhaustion, her agitation . . . or, sonuvabitch, the color of the fluid in the sac she expelled. Kit dismounted to several more choice words. The calf was stressed and in more trouble than its momma. And momma, judging by the wild look in her eye, wasn’t going to stand still for Kit’s brand of tender lovin’ care.
“You need a hand?”
Kit glanced over his shoulder at Bobby Campetti who, to no one’s surprise, had his catch rope ready. Four years on the ranch and Bobby had all the makings of a vaquero. Or he would if but for his Italian heritage. And the fact that he hailed from New York City. Not to mention that catching a critter was only half the biscuit. He still had trouble flanking it down. This time that wasn’t a worry. Nature would be taking this momma to the ground soon enough.
Kit nodded toward the cow’s head. “Stick your loop on her neck. I’m gonna have to pull this calf. And this momma looks like she’s got a mind to dislocate my shoulder.”
“You got it, boss.” The sixth of ten kids raised in Manhattan’s Little Italy, Bobby Campetti had adapted to life in West Texas like a man born and bred. ‘Course he wouldn’t be fooling any old timers with that accent, Kit mused, tying off a noose on the end of the short rope he carried in his saddle pack for times like this.
It didn’t take him half a minute at the cow’s back end to determine that the calf had presented all wrong. Hind feet first was not the way to get things done in a hurry. What had been an annoyance might well have just become an emergency if this calf was truly bass-ackwards and not just sideways or upside down. Only one way to find out.
Kit rolled up his sleeve.
“Oh, man.” Having left his quarter horse, Jack Rabbit, in charge of keeping the cow from any funny business, Bobby backed up a dozen steps. Hands at hips, he hung his head and shuddered. “Don’t even start with that shit.”
“Now, c’mon, Campetti. You’re the one who wanted to be a cowboy.”
“Yeah, but you never told me I’d be havin’ to rummage around the back end of a cow.”
“I’m doing the rummagin’ here. But,” Kit felt around, “if this calf’s as big as I think it is, I’m gonna need a hand.”
“Not a hand. Anything. Just not a hand.”
Kit laughed. “Fine. You can pull. Grab my rope. Hook that double loop above the fetlocks.”
“Fetlocks. Right. Fetlocks I can handle.” And he did, slipping the small loop around the calf’s hooves and up over the joints.
“Hey, jog my memory, will you?” Kit stretched what needed stretching. Bobby pulled what needed pulling. The cow’s knees buckled and she went down to the ground. The men followed, muscles taut and limbs crossed one way and tangled another. What a friggin’ mess. “Remind me why I chose the wide open spaces instead of sticking with a nice safe stable, benefits included, military career. No wait.” He adjusted his hold. “This is where I grew up. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Youse made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, Boss.” Bobby braced his boots on the cow’s rump.
“Ah, yes. A bad habit—” Kit stopped, repositioned the looped rope above the calf’s hocks “—a very bad habit, watch the ribcage—” he grabbed the rope to add his weight to Bobby’s leverage “—a very very bad habit that seems to run in the family.”
“So I’ve noticed. If it’s not you, it’s Cassie. Or the Judge. And anyway, I kinda like wearing my hair long. No way I could be getting away with the wild man look in the Corp.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. C’mon you sonuvabitch. Get your fat head out here and breathe.” Kit grunted. Groaned. Beads of sweat tortured a path from his temple to his jaw. Tension pulled at his shoulders, his biceps, his neck. And more than likely the umbilical cord had pinched off as the ribcage came through the momma’s pelvis and this whole effort was a big fat waste of time anyway.
And then with a grunt, Bobby fell backwards as the calf slid into his lap. He scrambled to his feet. Kit did the same, clearing the amnion sac from the newborn’s face. They hoisted the calf by the back legs, draining the fluid from his air passages and tickling his nose on the short grass to get him breathing.
“C’mon, baby. C’mon.” Finally. A good healthy cough that came after a year’s worth of seconds. Kit released a gusty sigh of relief and vowed next time he made rounds to lug a six-pack along with the rest of his gear. He sure could use a beer to go with the steak he still didn’t have.
Now that’s how it’s done, Alison–very nicely integrated research! (Not that I know a fetlock from a what’s presented, but it flowed just like your writing and words usually do, and that’s the whole point, isn’t it?)
by Fedora January 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pmOh, *I* know the difference between what’s ethical and what’s not–and what’s plagiarism and what’s not. It simply seemed to me that a lot of people commenting didn’t. And if they can’t tell the difference, it may be open season soon on authors of all stripes for all sorts of reasons.
by Lydia January 15th, 2008 at 4:00 pmRight, sorry. That didn’t quite come out the way I meant!
But you’re right on the open season thing, which is what was happening to Lynn re: her book EVERMORE on Suzanne Brockmann’s boards apparently – readers alleging her integrated research was no different than CE lifting passages since both were using the ideas and work of others.
by Alison January 15th, 2008 at 4:17 pmI will add (being urged by Robin), that I don’t believe we currently have an open season happening. But if authors and readers both aren’t educated, allegations could escalate because the issue isn’t understood. Integrating research is not plagiarizing. Lifting passages is plagiarizing.
Sarah S.G. Frantz actually spells it out quite clearly in this post at Teach Me Tonight.
by Alison January 15th, 2008 at 7:25 pmI was really disturbed by some of the remarks I read on a certain website and the tension that has built. I actually picked up one of my books and thought about the whole process of research. And I am paying very close attention on my new manuscript.
The comments here are both comforting and thoughtful. You must all know that some people do not understand *intergrating research* and these issues can really get out of hand when a lot of people start ranting. It sort of shocked me, actually. I agree with Lydia. It’s scary in a way, because it might not stop. Let’s hope something good comes out of this misery.
by Jane Harrington January 15th, 2008 at 8:17 pmI don’t know if it could be said that readers are implying Viehl’s research is just the same as plagiarism~one comment was made that the background detail in Evermore had to have been found in a history book.
People don’t always understand the amount of research some writers do. They eat, drink, live, breathe whatever it is they are studying. When you know forward and backward, a good writer can easily incorporate what she’s learned into her story…incorporate what she’s learned, not copy what she read. That’s the difference.
And it’s a big one.
I think the problem is too many people don’t get what is plagiiarism and what it isn’t.
which is why I keep harping on educating.
by Shiloh Walker January 15th, 2008 at 10:47 pmIt sounded like a history book, but apparently she changed enough dots and adjectives to make it acceptable. Again the ideas are clearly not hers.
It’s the “apparently” she did something to make it “acceptable” and the ideas “are clearly not hers” that I read as implying what she did was questionable. The reader who posted that to her blog was not the one making the accusation, only mentioning it so PBW could defend herself.
The fact that an author is put into that position is the problem. Educating is exactly what needs to happen. Authors need to know how to use research as Lynn did and as I demonstrated above, and readers need to know how fiction writing works. As Sarah at Teach Me Tonight says:
by Alison January 15th, 2008 at 10:55 pmThe fact that an author is put into that position is the problem.
You know, if the fear that readers are going to be Googling books en masse gets authors to take seriously the need to define and self-police intellectual honesty within the Romance community, then IMO it’s not such a terrible thing.
Regarding the Viehl situation, though, the reader who made the original reference kept talking about “gray areas” — that is, that the rules were not so clear cut in fiction as they are in academia. The poster who inquired on Viehl’s blog IMO was engaged in a conversation on Brockmann’s blog that contained some miscommunication with the poster Alison quoted here, and was not, also IMO, asking Viehl to “defend” herself, but merely to explain her research methods.
So what’s wrong with readers asking about that?
I have to say by way of context that I found Viehl’s McCarthyism post, Lydia Joyce’s rant, and Barbara Samuel’s “dishonor” accusations insulting and possessed of some of the hysteria they were seeing in readers.
But in any case, why should any author be entitled to an exemption from a reader wondering about how they use secondary materials in their writing? If that smacks of unfair or hysterical reader behavior, I’d suggest that *perhaps* if there hadn’t been so much ‘what’s the big deal,’ and ‘Edwards was only using research,’ and how dare those mean bitches post about this in public,’ readers wouldn’t feel insulted and angry about how the Romance community handles, talks about, and responds to issues of plagiarism, and wouldn’t be digging in to show why it is important to us.
I challenge any author to read the PDF the Smart Bitches have put together and tell me that’s all no big deal. And I further challenge any author to read, actually READ all the comments on DA, TMT, and SB and justify/back up allegations of dishonor, McCarthyism (I gotta say, this one really gets me, because to equate an author whose main comment in the issue of intellectual integrity is to characterize readers as witch hunters just seems to me the exact OPPOSITE of what authors of conscience like Arthur Miller would advocate), mob hysteria, etc.
As someone who writes professionally in another field, I can tell you that no other writer I know in my field (and among my friends and colleagues) is ever without a keen awareness of the respect we owe each other as writers. If authors want to remain quiet about CE, I understand. If authors want to remain quiet about plagiarism, I don’t understand but can accept it without automatically thinking they condone what Edwards did. But if authors want to stay silent about CE and plagiarism AND characterize readers as stupid and incapable of recognizing the difference between a Biblical allusion and the lifting of full passages from a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, I have a problem. Unless the anxiety comes from seeing how some authors in the community themselves don’t understand the difference. But again, I’d say this is less about readers and more about how the Romance community does or doesn’t talk about and hold important issues of intellectual honesty and creative integrity.
Finally, as to authors’ fears that readers will be Googling their books, I don’t want to sound dismissive, but I do think that authors are more likely to lose intelligent readers by comparing them to mindless mob members or witch hunters. I’ve always been vigilant about not holding an author’s artistic work against whatever she might say online that I disagree with or find offensive. I think I’ve reached the line across which I cannot go, however. When I read a piece from which I infer a profound disrespect for readers, I wonder why I should read a book by someone who thinks that I’m not entitled to speak out about plagiarism and that authors should be beyond questions regarding their own research process. Because that does, IMO, impinge on the actual writing.
One more thing: although I expect that professional authors should know what is and isn’t okay when using external texts, I understand that the amorphous quality of the rules in this community and fiction in general have created a decent amount of confusion. And I understand how difficult it might be for an author to indicate their own confusion about these issues. So I don’t automatically write off an author who truly doesn’t know the rules or an author who is nervous about the limits of her own work. Frankly I think authors should be thinking about these issues. What I just can’t swallow are these comments from authors that it’s wrong, wrong, wrong for readers to be talking about this publicly or finding examples of copying– COPYING, not allusions. Have some readers gone over the line in their comments about Edwards? Sure. But I’m not looking to buy their books and expend my time reading their work, so my expectations are very different. That might not seem fair, but I suspect I’m not the only one who feels that way.
by Robin January 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pmRobin, I’m going to bring this comment up into a post of its own. I’m afraid it’ll stay buried here, and there’s a lot here worth seeing.
by Alison January 16th, 2008 at 12:33 pm[...] Comments Alison on Here’s the thing about research . . .Robin on Here’s the thing about research . . .Alison on Even if you prefer to avoid controversy . . [...]
by Alison Kent » Blog Archive January 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm*erased because the above post pissed the Ever Loving Shit out of me* And now I can not think.
by Eva Gale January 16th, 2008 at 6:55 pmMs Kent, I’m the reader who asked Ms Viehl about her research. I have been trying to encourage my fellow readers to educated themselves about what is and isn’t plagiarism, what is research, etc.–all those things that would prevent them, the readers, from flinging the big P about like confetti, or conversely, from not understanding why actual plagiarism is wrong and offensive, regardless what the origin of the plagiarized work.
Would it be okay with you if I linked this wonderful post of yours in my posts to my fellow readers? Thank you.
by azteclady January 16th, 2008 at 7:49 pmazteclady – link away!
by Alison January 16th, 2008 at 9:21 pmNot your post Alison, Robin’s comment.
by Eva Gale January 16th, 2008 at 9:27 pmThank you, Ms Kent
by azteclady January 16th, 2008 at 9:28 pmLOL, Eva. I kinda figured. :)
Honestly, I have a whole heaping lot of thoughts, but I’m tired. I said in this post that I had sworn this year to expend my energy on my books and not on controversy.
I got sucked into this because of the assumption by some that silence might mean I’m in agreement with the authors who have downplayed the file of examples that has been put together. I am not in agreement with them.
Even before the extent of the plagiarism was exposed (and who the hell cares who exposed it???), what I saw in the examples was enough for me to cry foul. What I read on private author loops only fueled the fouliness. *g*
But I have two upcoming deadlines, and my brain cells have been spread too thin. I’ve posted all I’m going to, and I probably won’t comment much. I’ve said my piece(s).
I’ve also given an educating example of how to use research in an author’s voice. I feel I’ve done all I could.
Now I’m going back to working on my stories!
by Alison January 16th, 2008 at 9:33 pm[...] Today at GenReality I’m talking about letting go of stories we love, ones that editors don’t, and that seem will never find a home except within our hearts. The story I can’t let go is the one I posted an excerpt to a year ago January at this link. [...]
by Alison Kent » Blog Archive » That of which I cannot let go May 18th, 2009 at 8:36 am