Sunday, September 24
Damn The Slush God, anyway. He linked to the Official Seal Generator, and is therefore responsible for this:
It does not go small enough to make an LJ icon, which is a shame, cause I'm quite enamored of it. It's so very me.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 247 words. Bad Kat.
Comments: I am slowly crawling back on the wagon of writing regularly, after two weeks of no time and writer's block. I know where things are going, now, but I'm hitting the old problem of getting tripped up by packing enough cool alien-ness in the wee details. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's no such thing as too much worldbuilding.
Snips: Hey, Elliot has morals. Who knew?
Elliot grimaced inwardly. The other kin were ignoring him as well, blithely unaware of the human in their midst, free to act as they would without any masters present. It was hardly the first time he'd been in this position, but it still made him uncomfortable. Watching other people without their knowledge was merely gathering intelligence. This was spying.
It does not go small enough to make an LJ icon, which is a shame, cause I'm quite enamored of it. It's so very me.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 247 words. Bad Kat.
Comments: I am slowly crawling back on the wagon of writing regularly, after two weeks of no time and writer's block. I know where things are going, now, but I'm hitting the old problem of getting tripped up by packing enough cool alien-ness in the wee details. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's no such thing as too much worldbuilding.
Snips: Hey, Elliot has morals. Who knew?
Elliot grimaced inwardly. The other kin were ignoring him as well, blithely unaware of the human in their midst, free to act as they would without any masters present. It was hardly the first time he'd been in this position, but it still made him uncomfortable. Watching other people without their knowledge was merely gathering intelligence. This was spying.
Sunday, September 03
Okay, guys. Because I've had to explain this again to someone. Just one... more... time.
Plagiarism - the practice of dishonestly claiming original authorship of material which one has not actually created, such as when a person incorporates material from someone else's work into his own work without attributing it. (from Wikipedia).
As regards fiction:
You are not a plagiarist if:
- You falsify data. This only really comes up when a novel is sold as something else, as in the recent case of a "true life memoir" where large chunks of it turned out to be fiction. In any case, it is not plagiarism. It's lying. They're different.
- You use someone else's characters and/or setting in your writing. This is known as "fanfiction", or, in legal parlance, "copyright violation". It is not the same as plagiarism because a) it is almost always correctly attributed and b) it is using the creations and ideas set forth in a work, not the actual work or words. This doesn't make it legal, of course, but it is a different kettle of fish, and one that authors tend to view more tolerantly than they do actual plagiarism.
- Your plot, characters, or setting bear a close resemblance to someone else's plot, characters, or setting. There are only so many variations on a theme out there, and people are bound to stumble across some of the same ones by mistake. In a recent blog post Neil Gaiman talks about people accusing Peter Beagle of plagiarizing him and accusing him of plagiarizing J.K. Rowling (in both cases the "plagiarized" work was published a decade or more after the supposed source). Even when someone deliberately uses another work for inspiration, it is not necessarily plagiarism. Writers have been stealing ideas from each other since writing began. It's the mark of a rank amateur in writing circles to worry that someone will "steal your idea", because, of course, coming up with an idea is the easy part. It's what you do with the idea that counts.
You may be a plagiarist if:
- Your "inspiration" comes from a single source. While writers steal liberally from each other, they tend to be wide-ranging and indiscriminate thieves. It's true, for example, that Shakespeare (often cited by plagiarism apologists) borrowed heavily, using, for example, large chunks of Ovid's Metamorphoses in A Midsummer Night's Dream... but he also borrowed from Apuleius, Chauncer, and quite a few others for the same play, as well as putting his own twist on each aspect of the story (and, some speculate, borrowing from himself: Pyramus and Thisbe bear a certain resemblance to Romeo and Juliet). If you're borrowing from one source, you're not only limiting yourself -- you're getting dangerously close to real theft.
- Your plot, characters, and setting bear close resemblance to someone else's. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but thrice is cold-blooded planning.
These aren't, by themselves, plagiarism. They are often warning signs. They are usually bad art. And they are frequently unmarketable: editors are looking for something new and different, not your rehash of somebody else's bestseller. But we are still not into the territory of out-and-out plagiarism.
You are probably a plagiarist if:
- You have to hold the "inspirational" work open while you work. If you are copying the words that someone else wrote, either you're quoting -- which you should make clear -- or you're plagiarizing. If you pass someone else's writing off as your own, it is plagiarism.
- More than half the words in the scene are the same as the words in the "inspirational" scene. It doesn't matter if you change the names. It doesn't matter if you swap out an adjective or two. If you pass someone else's writing off as your own, it is plagiarism.
- You fail to cite, or only partially cite, the "inspirational" work. Don't leave work you have directly copied uncited. Don't try to convince yourself that as long as you've admitted to using some of the cited author's ideas, it's fine that you type in the actual scene with the names changed. And for God's sake, don't pretend that you can't remember specifics about the work, such as the title or author (as both recent plagiarists I've seen did). When you "remember" a scene well enough to reproduce it nearly word for word (as, again, both recent plagiarists did), claiming that you "can't remember" the title is going to look just a wee bit dishonest.
Once again, boys and girls: if you pass someone else's writing off as your own, it is plagiarism.
Legally speaking, plagiarism is not that great a sin. If you do it at university and get caught, you'll be expelled: if you do it in the publishing world and get caught, you'll see your novel pulled faster than you can say "legal action": and in both cases your name will be mud around those parts for some time. But they don't come to your house and confiscate your laptop. Heck, they probably don't even make you give the advance back. You don't gain much, but in the long run, you're only loosing a little.
Artistically speaking, you're shooting yourself in the foot. The main benefit of all the borderline stuff I describe above -- borrowing ideas from other writers, writing fanfiction, even "embroidering" your autobiography if it comes to that -- is that it's good practice. Most people don't jump full-on into the deep end of purely original fiction. They extrapolate from their own lives, writing Mary Sues and thinly-veiled stories about their friends. They write fanfiction. They file a few serial numbers off their favorite TV show and populate it with their own characters. This is the shallow end of the writing pool, and while many will be happy to splash and play there forever, a few will gain the courage to go swimming further out. They're practicing for the real thing. They're learning.
You don't learn a damned thing from holding up someone else's book and copying the words.
The only reason to plagiarize is to make yourself look better than you are. Sometimes it's to get a passing grade. Sometimes it's to get a publishing contract. Sometimes it's just so you can preen under the praises of your friends. But no matter which way you cut it, you don't plagiarize so you can get better at writing, or even so you can play and have fun. You're not in the deep end. You're not in the shallows. You're not even in the friggin' pool.
You are not, in other words, a writer.
And that's what I consider plagiarism and why I object to it. Now, let us never speak of this again.
-----
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 1,022 words. Yay!
Comments: Okay, I am through the closet trick now, and wrestling with self-doubt (OMG nothing happens! They just talk! Is it funny? IT'S NOT FUNNY! AAAAAGH! ...etc). Also nervously contemplating throwing chapter 1 up on the writing workshop I just joined. I'm a virgin with this particular 'shop, and apparently this stuff doesn't get any easier even after you've been around the block.
Snips: This is what a closet trick looks like: Person A is in a room with Person B. Person C knocks. Person B, who has some reason to avoid Person C, hides. Then, while Person C is there, Person D knocks. Person C has some reason to avoid Person D... well, you get the picture.
"Incidentally, how many people in your household at the moment?"
Andera looked startled. "Why -- five, counting Edison and myself. Our daughter, Edison's sister, and a relation of his who's been visiting for the last few months -- a grand-niece of some sort, I believe. Why do you ask?"
"Merely curious," said Elliot. Explaining that he was running out of storage space would only lead to misunderstandings.
Plagiarism - the practice of dishonestly claiming original authorship of material which one has not actually created, such as when a person incorporates material from someone else's work into his own work without attributing it. (from Wikipedia).
As regards fiction:
You are not a plagiarist if:
- You falsify data. This only really comes up when a novel is sold as something else, as in the recent case of a "true life memoir" where large chunks of it turned out to be fiction. In any case, it is not plagiarism. It's lying. They're different.
- You use someone else's characters and/or setting in your writing. This is known as "fanfiction", or, in legal parlance, "copyright violation". It is not the same as plagiarism because a) it is almost always correctly attributed and b) it is using the creations and ideas set forth in a work, not the actual work or words. This doesn't make it legal, of course, but it is a different kettle of fish, and one that authors tend to view more tolerantly than they do actual plagiarism.
- Your plot, characters, or setting bear a close resemblance to someone else's plot, characters, or setting. There are only so many variations on a theme out there, and people are bound to stumble across some of the same ones by mistake. In a recent blog post Neil Gaiman talks about people accusing Peter Beagle of plagiarizing him and accusing him of plagiarizing J.K. Rowling (in both cases the "plagiarized" work was published a decade or more after the supposed source). Even when someone deliberately uses another work for inspiration, it is not necessarily plagiarism. Writers have been stealing ideas from each other since writing began. It's the mark of a rank amateur in writing circles to worry that someone will "steal your idea", because, of course, coming up with an idea is the easy part. It's what you do with the idea that counts.
You may be a plagiarist if:
- Your "inspiration" comes from a single source. While writers steal liberally from each other, they tend to be wide-ranging and indiscriminate thieves. It's true, for example, that Shakespeare (often cited by plagiarism apologists) borrowed heavily, using, for example, large chunks of Ovid's Metamorphoses in A Midsummer Night's Dream... but he also borrowed from Apuleius, Chauncer, and quite a few others for the same play, as well as putting his own twist on each aspect of the story (and, some speculate, borrowing from himself: Pyramus and Thisbe bear a certain resemblance to Romeo and Juliet). If you're borrowing from one source, you're not only limiting yourself -- you're getting dangerously close to real theft.
- Your plot, characters, and setting bear close resemblance to someone else's. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but thrice is cold-blooded planning.
These aren't, by themselves, plagiarism. They are often warning signs. They are usually bad art. And they are frequently unmarketable: editors are looking for something new and different, not your rehash of somebody else's bestseller. But we are still not into the territory of out-and-out plagiarism.
You are probably a plagiarist if:
- You have to hold the "inspirational" work open while you work. If you are copying the words that someone else wrote, either you're quoting -- which you should make clear -- or you're plagiarizing. If you pass someone else's writing off as your own, it is plagiarism.
- More than half the words in the scene are the same as the words in the "inspirational" scene. It doesn't matter if you change the names. It doesn't matter if you swap out an adjective or two. If you pass someone else's writing off as your own, it is plagiarism.
- You fail to cite, or only partially cite, the "inspirational" work. Don't leave work you have directly copied uncited. Don't try to convince yourself that as long as you've admitted to using some of the cited author's ideas, it's fine that you type in the actual scene with the names changed. And for God's sake, don't pretend that you can't remember specifics about the work, such as the title or author (as both recent plagiarists I've seen did). When you "remember" a scene well enough to reproduce it nearly word for word (as, again, both recent plagiarists did), claiming that you "can't remember" the title is going to look just a wee bit dishonest.
Once again, boys and girls: if you pass someone else's writing off as your own, it is plagiarism.
Legally speaking, plagiarism is not that great a sin. If you do it at university and get caught, you'll be expelled: if you do it in the publishing world and get caught, you'll see your novel pulled faster than you can say "legal action": and in both cases your name will be mud around those parts for some time. But they don't come to your house and confiscate your laptop. Heck, they probably don't even make you give the advance back. You don't gain much, but in the long run, you're only loosing a little.
Artistically speaking, you're shooting yourself in the foot. The main benefit of all the borderline stuff I describe above -- borrowing ideas from other writers, writing fanfiction, even "embroidering" your autobiography if it comes to that -- is that it's good practice. Most people don't jump full-on into the deep end of purely original fiction. They extrapolate from their own lives, writing Mary Sues and thinly-veiled stories about their friends. They write fanfiction. They file a few serial numbers off their favorite TV show and populate it with their own characters. This is the shallow end of the writing pool, and while many will be happy to splash and play there forever, a few will gain the courage to go swimming further out. They're practicing for the real thing. They're learning.
You don't learn a damned thing from holding up someone else's book and copying the words.
The only reason to plagiarize is to make yourself look better than you are. Sometimes it's to get a passing grade. Sometimes it's to get a publishing contract. Sometimes it's just so you can preen under the praises of your friends. But no matter which way you cut it, you don't plagiarize so you can get better at writing, or even so you can play and have fun. You're not in the deep end. You're not in the shallows. You're not even in the friggin' pool.
You are not, in other words, a writer.
And that's what I consider plagiarism and why I object to it. Now, let us never speak of this again.
-----
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 1,022 words. Yay!
Comments: Okay, I am through the closet trick now, and wrestling with self-doubt (OMG nothing happens! They just talk! Is it funny? IT'S NOT FUNNY! AAAAAGH! ...etc). Also nervously contemplating throwing chapter 1 up on the writing workshop I just joined. I'm a virgin with this particular 'shop, and apparently this stuff doesn't get any easier even after you've been around the block.
Snips: This is what a closet trick looks like: Person A is in a room with Person B. Person C knocks. Person B, who has some reason to avoid Person C, hides. Then, while Person C is there, Person D knocks. Person C has some reason to avoid Person D... well, you get the picture.
"Incidentally, how many people in your household at the moment?"
Andera looked startled. "Why -- five, counting Edison and myself. Our daughter, Edison's sister, and a relation of his who's been visiting for the last few months -- a grand-niece of some sort, I believe. Why do you ask?"
"Merely curious," said Elliot. Explaining that he was running out of storage space would only lead to misunderstandings.
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