Lifting another author's work, changing names and locales then presenting it as your own is plagiarism.
Using popular culture in a story is not.
Sometimes this is a difficult debate to be in, people's emotions can effect how they approach the subject. Robert E. Howard of Conan the Barbarian fame regularly recycled his plots from one character to another. Is this self-plagiarism, laziness or the recognition of an effective means of writing a story that someone will read. I raised the question to some of his fans and got an earful of response right back at me.
The fact that some of them had previously bitched about other authors doing the same was not acknowledged.
In the comic book field the artist/writer Wally Wood was known for keeping huge files of drawing that he would regularly either crib or literally trace over. He became the 'Milton Berle' of comics, using what a lot of other people created for his own benefit. Yet nobody ever called him on it and to his fans he remains a tragic figure destroyed by the comic book industry rather than by his own personality and alcoholism.
I guess my point with this whole debate is that it will eventually devolve into an opportunity for those who dislike a certain author to sling whatever mud they chose to in their direction. I remember the Ranma 1/2 fan fiction war over who was the best match for the main character. Some people even resorted to hacking sites preferring the other character or sending virus laden e-mails to opposing camps.
In the end the result was pretty much the vacating of the field by a host of the more interesting writers.
It would be tragic if something like that happened again.
pgavigan . . . thinking of the old theater saying, "It's my idea, I stole it first."
no subject
Using popular culture in a story is not.
Sometimes this is a difficult debate to be in, people's emotions can effect how they approach the subject. Robert E. Howard of Conan the Barbarian fame regularly recycled his plots from one character to another. Is this self-plagiarism, laziness or the recognition of an effective means of writing a story that someone will read. I raised the question to some of his fans and got an earful of response right back at me.
The fact that some of them had previously bitched about other authors doing the same was not acknowledged.
In the comic book field the artist/writer Wally Wood was known for keeping huge files of drawing that he would regularly either crib or literally trace over. He became the 'Milton Berle' of comics, using what a lot of other people created for his own benefit. Yet nobody ever called him on it and to his fans he remains a tragic figure destroyed by the comic book industry rather than by his own personality and alcoholism.
I guess my point with this whole debate is that it will eventually devolve into an opportunity for those who dislike a certain author to sling whatever mud they chose to in their direction. I remember the Ranma 1/2 fan fiction war over who was the best match for the main character. Some people even resorted to hacking sites preferring the other character or sending virus laden e-mails to opposing camps.
In the end the result was pretty much the vacating of the field by a host of the more interesting writers.
It would be tragic if something like that happened again.
pgavigan . . . thinking of the old theater saying, "It's my idea, I stole it first."