Are you a thief?

Walt Disney’s Cinderella was based on a fairy tale collected by the brothers Grimm. Marissa Meyer’s wonderful adaptation of the same story, Cinder, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2012.

Word count: 305           Reading time: 1-2 minutes

I bet Cinderella, as published by the brothers Grimm in 1812, was only one of many versions being told by the oral storytellers of the day.

‘Filter any single incident through another set of eyes, it becomes a different story’ Ellen Hopkins, Flirting with the Monster.

Helen Fielding watched the 1995 BBC drama, Pride and Prejudice, and re-worked the plot into her classic novel Bridget Jones’s Diary. She even based the BJD romantic lead on Colin Firth who played Mr. Darcy to Jennifer Ehle’s Elizabeth Bennet. In doing so Fielding created a mini-industry that just keeps paying and paying.

Picasso said it best: art is theft. But there is good theft and bad theft, and writer Holly Lisle gives some hints here: How to (legally and ethically) steal ideas on the difference between the two. Austin Kleon offers more guidance in his book Steal Like an Artist:

Good theft: honours, studies, credits, transforms, and remixes. It takes from many sources, not just one.

Bad theft: degrades, skims, plagiarizes, imitates, and rips off. It takes only from one source.

David Bowie said, “The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from,” and most of the time, that’s how I pick my reading list. I lift ideas from other writers and if my remix is detected, I hope I've done justice to the original work. 

Have you stolen any good ideas or techniques lately? Have you read an author that made you break out in goosebumps and if so, did you do something to honour that experience? How do you stop your admiration of someone’s work from slipping into plagiarism?

A Basket Full of Miracles

 Word count: 486                      Reading time: 2-3 minutes

When I learned to scuba dive in the Pacific Northwest, it wasn’t a laidback, warm water experience. The environment posed the biggest threat so I’d don my 40 lb drysuit, heft my 25 lb weight belt, and pick up my 35 lb tank. Then I’d start the long descent to the beach. Adrenaline lightened my load as I anticipated sinking into the dark, frigid ocean. After an exhilarating, sometime dangerous, dive I’d surface and have to haul all that gear back to where I parked.

As I picked my way across kelp-slippery rocks and up rough steep tracks, I’d tell myself not to look at the long stretch that separated me from my car. I’d get there, one step at a time. When did I forget that simple philosophy?

Over the years I’ve amassed a small collection of writing reference books. Trouble is I sometimes buy them, read a random chapter or two, and then file them. Recently, I’ve added a few more to the collection. Then I set them around the house like land mines: on a side table in the living room, on the mantelpiece, beside the bed and on my dresser – anywhere that I am likely to trip over them. They aren’t going back onto the shelves until I’ve finished them, cover to cover. The ones I’m reading (simultaneously) right now are:

• Writing Down the Bones – Natalie Goldberg – I love her theories of free writing for a more physical connection with the work and to unearth long-buried feelings.
• Reading Like A Writer – Francine Prose – I had forgotten her invaluable advice on how to get the most out of the hours spent lost in fiction. A must for anyone who wants to write.
• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers – Renni Browne & Dave King – I wish I’d read this years ago. It gives such a different approach to revising one’s own work.
• Steal Like An Artist – Austin Kleon – this is my latest and I’m reading it for a second time this summer because he offers grounded, often humorous, advice on everything from an artist’s social life to his or her financial management.

I found many treasures had been buried in my bookshelves for far too long. Now they are helping me as I revise my YA novel, due for release in Spring 2014.

So, just like I climbed up the beach with my scuba gear, one step at a time, I’m working through them, page by page. In fact it’s almost Bird By Bird. Thank you Anne Lamott. It’s amazing how much we can do when we concentrate on what is in front of us and stop thinking about the faraway goal.

What books are you reading to help your craft? Do you buy reference books, skim them, and then set them aside for another day? Are there any more books I should be reading?

 ***

Scuba photo: Cathy Komar

Carbonless Copy

Word count: 355             Reading time: 1-2 mins 

In her Novel Immersion Workshop in 2009, Pearl Luke mentioned that when she finds a novel she admires, she often types certain passages, verbatim, to get a feel for that writer’s magic. That comment chilled me because I thought if I did the same thing then surely I’d end up plagiarizing, unintentionally or otherwise. A few years down the road two different writing coaches advised me to copy-type from novels in my genre as a method of learning what works.

Could so many experts be wrong? I decided not and opened a book by YA writer John Green and started typing. I soon realized enormous inspiration lies not just in reading good writers but in mimicking them, at least for a short while. “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to,” said Jean-Luc Godard.

Now I copy-type every week, at least a page or two. The trick is to internalize the masters’ skill, not to ape their words or stories. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says there is nothing new under the sun and Jim Jarmusch agrees. “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. […] Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent.”

And, if you’re really worried about plagiarism, the Grammarly website offers you a Plagiarism Checker. I tried it with a few paragraphs from Green’s book Looking for Alaska. The Checker reported unoriginal text detected. Then I put in excerpts from Ellen Hopkins, Sherman Alexie, and Sarah Dessen. In each instance Plagiarism Checker recognized that work was not original to me. When I checked my own work it reported this text in this document is original. Phew.

Have you ever copied anyone else’s work for practice? What did you learn from the experience?

PS if you need some ideas on how to widen your inspiration, look no further than the book How To Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon. I bought my e-copy only yesterday and it’s already helped with this blog.

***

Original art: (c) Dawn Hudson