posted
TaxiDad posted this on another forum, but I decided to move it over here because I thought it was important and was afraid it would be overlooked as a follow up at the end of another thread.
quote: Could I ask a stupid question about the workshops? I don't want to sound paranoid or fecetious or mistrustful, and I surely don't want to offend anyone, but the way the workshops work, wouldn't one worry about having his or her ideas 'borrowed' by another group member? I know you are all probably really honest people who would never do that, but I just need to know. I have a history of having my ideas plagiarized.
I don't think it's a stupid question at all, and I've worried about this from time to time. The answer I tell myself is that people can take my ideas, but they'll never write the same story I would. They can't. Honestly, people get ideas from everywhere all the time. If youw ere honest, your ideas come from your experiences, including books and movies you've seen.
Now, if you've got something that's importnat to you it doesn't make you feel much better to think someone else could just take the idea. So I was wondering what other people thought about this too.
posted
it can happen, but part of the way the groups work is that if say someone took your story you have others who know it was yours--that would be a very dumb move on their part.
As to ideas--character types ect--it has happened. Only thing you can do is stand up for yourself and say hey this is too close to my character or my idea.
posted
This isn't something I really worry much about, but I can see how some people might be worried.
But let's look at why it's unlikely that this will be a problem.
You don't need to worry about the people who are worse writers than you are stealing your idea. They're not going to get their version of the story published. Even if they do, your story will be better.
Most of the writers who are better than you are will have ideas of their own that they want to write about, so they're not going to bother with yours.
So you only need to worry about the small percentage of writers who are better than you, but who are experiencing a shortage of creativity and therefore decide to steal your idea.
What are the chances that such a person will take your idea and, without significantly altering it, write it up into a publishable story before you do, in such a way that your story will no longer be publishable because editors will think you were merely copying the idea from the other author? (i.e., You were at a workshop several years ago with J.K. Rowling and mentioned your idea about a boy with a scar on his head who goes off to wizarding school, and now publishers keep rejecting your novel Larry Kotter and the Alchemist's Rock.)
Probably will not happen.
Now, I understand that in the movie/television business things are different, and you have to be very careful about who hears your idea.
If someone actually "borrows" your actual writing and passes it off as their own, that is plagerism. If someone thinks that you have a neat idea and decide to write about it, then it would be polite for that person to publicly acknowledge that you helped them think up the idea (the acknowledgements or dedication page is often used for that purpose), but there is no obligation, especially if they are not aware that you had the same idea.
Also, Eric is right about most other writers having their own ideas they would prefer to use. I've participated in several "idea/world/character--building" activities of varying levels of formality, and despite the explicit understanding that the participants were free to use the ideas generated, none of the ideas (or milieux, or characters, or technologies) that I am really intersted in writing about come from those discussions or workshops. In fact, it tends to be the other way around, I bring my ideas to the group, knowing that probably no one else there really wants to use them.
Movies and television are very different because it is the director and actors, not the writers, that will give the idea's flesh. There the writer contributes a bit more than just the idea, but not much more. Which is why you should stay away from writing for movies and television unless you are contracted to write the material ahead of time.
posted
According to MMerriam-Webster, plagarize means :
quote: transitive senses : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source intransitive senses : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source
However, I believe you are correct in that in a legal sense plagarism only refers to copywrited materials.
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited August 14, 2003).]
posted
Survivor is right because ideas can't be copyrighted, and plagarism in the legal sense only applies to things that can be copyrighted.
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posted
I think that "idea theft" is more what people are worried about at workshops than plagiarism (as legally defined.) Someone would have to be pretty dumb to copy something someone writes for a workshop and try to pass it off as their own, because all the other workshop participants would know it and could testify in any lawsuit about it.
But since "idea theft" is legal, you can't sue someone for stealing your ideas at a workshop.
I've tried to explain above why I think that's not a real problem.
posted
This whole thing about stealing ideas - I've heard ideas that I thought were fabulous and have wanted to *adopt* them. As of now I haven't, but I wouldn't consider it cheating if I did.
But, that's because its just an idea. We've all seen a bagazillion movies about a crappy sports team that pulls it around at the last minute to win the big game. Same idea, but I wouldn't consider the Bad News Bears the same movie as The Waterboy (thank goodness *yeesh*).
I think most people have problems because they believe their idea is *original*. It's not. Even if you think it is, it's not.
The ideas aren't original, the words certainly are not original, the only thing that *is* original is the arrangement of words - the manner in which you tell your story. That can't be duplicated (legally).
posted
Well, I'm going to disagree with Dia just a little bit.
It's possible to have an original idea, but it's pretty rare. And even if your idea is original, that doesn't mean only one good story can be written from it.
As far as I know, H. G. Wells had the original idea of a time machine. However, that has not stopped people from writing good (and bad) time-machine stories ever since.
So your idea just might be original. If so, so what? If you're good enough a writer to write the story on your own without revealing the idea to anyone, what do you need a workshop for? And if you feel that a workshop will help you write a better story, then reveal the idea and write the best story you can. If someone else writes a story based on the same idea -- well, they could do that after you published anyway.
posted
Actually Edward Page Mitchell published a time travel story seven years before Well's, it was called "The Clock That Went Backwards" - not to mention a sixth century poet who wrote about the chances of time standing still, Rip Van Winkle, Sleeping Beauty (which, albeit only pause time and not reverse it...). And then there is the Islamic story about Muhammed being carried to heaven on a mare, and after a long period only to just see a jar of water crash to the ground that the mare had kicked over.
...Not a new idea under the sun.
I guess I relate writing to business in this instance. If it's such a great idea - why hasn't it been done before? And if it's worth doing you might have to accept that it's been done, so then, how can you do it *better*?
Well, I knew about Rip Van Winkle, but since I was talking about a "time machine" (allowing controlled travel through time, both forward and back) rather than just time travel into the future, I didn't mention it. I hadn't heard of the Edward Page Mitchell story.
But my point is that someone must have come up with the original time machine story.
quote:...Not a new idea under the sun.
Every idea must have been thought of a first time. Therefore, it cannot have always been true that there were no new ideas under the sun. If it is true now, that means every possible idea has already been conceived.
I prefer to think that somewhere on the margins of our knowledge and speculation, it is still possible to find a new idea.
posted
There is also the fact that one idea is never enough to sustain a whole story. (One idea may work for a vignette, but not a full-fledged story.)
You have to have at least two ideas working together for a story to happen, and you can be pretty darn original in which two (or three or four or more) ideas you put together to make your story, and in the way you put them together.
The more ideas in a story, the more possibilities in how to combine them and execute them.
posted
There are new ideas--and the authors make big bucks when they come up with one.
Clan of the Cave Bear--a lot of prehistoric fiction out there these days--and many better written ones. Aruel got 250,000 for that first book when that sort of advance was unheard of. Why? A new idea. Before that cavemen grunted at each other. Basically.
As to coming up with a new idea--work at it. Then search for other works in that genre.
This is where reading a lot of everything comes into play.
Shrug--I'll brag. My novel is an original idea. My agent agrees. (one of the reasons he picked it up was "the idea was so original") I can only hope the publishers think so too.
I don't think we can be like when they wanted to close the US patent office because everything that could be invented had been. There are new ideas out there. And of course we don’t know them—because they are new and not thought of yet.
quote: The more ideas in a story, the more possibilities in how to combine them and execute them.
Very true, but as many possible combinations there are of ideas and plot and characters, there are as many ways to screw it up. You have to be careful, I guess.
posted
The best workshop I was ever in (of all three of them <grin> ) had an interesting exercise as a central theme for one of the 4 days. We went through a brainstorming session (1000 ideas kind of thing) and then refined an idea together. Then we were all challenged to write up a quick three pager on that idea. All 30 of us came up with radically different stories from the same idea.
A more broad example of this sort of thing: Stephen King "Dreamcatcher" vs. "Invasion of the body snatchers" pretty similar core idea, vastly different stories.
I guess I am trying to say that I am not at all concerned with idea theft...there have been, and will be, plenty of novel of wizards and witches, including young ones, and J.K. will not end up suing over them all.
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