Plot plagiarism?

[KatG]

I can't outdo anything KatG is laying out on the table, but during my Animation degree, I was specifically told time and again that the business world and the readers often want "the same, only different". That's essentially what you're doing. Just my humble two cents to add in since I'm late to the party (again).

Same but different is kind of a myth too, I'm afraid. Especially when it comes to written fiction readers, who go through a different process of experiencing story than if you are watching a visual medium or even illustrated material like comics because they are not receiving imagery, but processing a written text, a language communication, and evaluating and assessing not just the substance/look of the story but the effect of the language itself on the ear and brain, in addition to the story. (And written fiction is not bound by a two hour running time or special effects budgets, etc., that can constrain what structures are used in visual mediums.) Readers are not a monolith group. They're not even one majority group and outliers. They're varied individuals. And what they think is different and fresh will vary, according to their preferences and experiences, and that includes professionals who will decide whether to invest in the work like movie studios and editors at publishers. There is not a standard majority set of preferences that you're trying to hit, (though there are a lot of people who think that there is one and will be happy to tell you what it is.)

At the same time, because readers (and viewers) have to process possibilities of the direction the story might take (plot structure,) they're really good at doing that, because that's how humans communicate, and so what is fresh to one who was expecting a different possibility may be boring and trite to another. Authors get hung up on the endpoint outcomes of their plots, the answers to the questions they set up in the story and readers' reactions to them, as if that was the big deciding factor. But readers are going through the experience of the story through their own personal lens, of seeing what questions the author sets up with the characters and guessing what direction (possibility tree,) the author is going to go with the answers from among the many possible answers they can imagine. As the author answers those questions the author set up, a reader who guessed right might be happy about that or annoyed by it, and vice versa. (Or they might not understand the answer the author is giving at all and see it as a totally different answer/interpretation.) If the author leaves some questions unanswered at the end of the story, some readers will love that and others will hate it -- or not really care since getting all the answers is not necessarily the point for them in reading the story. Often characters and their emotional journeys are a lot more important to many readers than what you do with them via plot, (see t.v. shows.)

So instead of concentrating on and trying to control reader reactions to the outcomes, the answers -- which is impossible -- authors are working on the questions, the clues to the answers and the answers that interest themselves, crafting an experience using story characters. And then they are hoping that enough readers' personal interpretation of that experience and of their written use of language is positive enough that they'll want more stories from the author. Which is often the case if readers discover the book's existence and are willing to give the story a try, a situation that involves many factors that are outside the story itself.

So SteveW writes a rogue story, and it will be his rogue story, with his characters and their thoughts and actions and speech, and he will pose his questions in the SteveW way and set up a plot pathway to the answers that are the answers that SteveW picked in the setting that SteveW designed. And that's all you get -- total uncertainty. You can construct what you think is the most used, trite, predictable plot ever, and there will still be people who find parts of it different and fresh because of how they interpreted the experience and the characters and guessed on answers, and/or enjoy the experience and the characters or not.

And don't count on them all to share your preferences -- some may love your story because they are rooting for a monster to win or at least like that character/creature best. Or they may sappily love the sub-plot romance you didn't particularly care about creating between two supporting characters. They will totally miss your brilliant allusions to Aristotelian logic axioms, or they will love your book for its nihilistic philosophy that you didn't put in but that's what they experienced/interpreted, (ask an author whose work gets called grimdark.) If you write a fantasy story -- any kind -- you will be accused of ripping off a well known author by some readers, even if you yourself become a well known author. Again, you have no control over the reactions, which will vary. You only have control over the construction.

 

[hscope]

I think the movie analogy works just as well for novels. Look at any major agent/publisher who publicises what they are looking for and they invariably reference other works. Like movies, familiar themed novels are easier to sell.

Many readers have favourite types of books that are very similar and comfortable. For instance, I'm a big fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels and I have read all 20+ of them, even though each tells pretty much the same story with little variation from one book to the next. It's a credit to his skills that I automatically buy each new title (fortunately, he has a different title on each to tell them apart).

I can't speak for other writers, but my goal as a popular fiction writer of various genres is to connect with as many readers of those genres as possible and give them (as well as me, as I'm a fan of popular fiction) what they want in my own particular style.

Telling stories is telling stories, whatever the medium.

 

[jason10mm]

IMHO if you find that you are subconsciously following the plot line of a relatively well-known product, use that to deliberately set up expectations and then subvert them! A lot of "twists" in books and film are just audience expectations, set up by endless previous iterations of a concept, that are then turned around (hah, it WASN'T the butler after all!). What you have is a good, well known first act trajectory that sets up some basic predictions (protagonist will initially succeed, the two sides will fight but eventually figure out protag is tricking them both and turn on protag, protag gets upper hand after suffering a loss, etc) so now you have the job of anticipating this and writing around them in clever ways.

 

[Michael B]

IMHO if you find that you are subconsciously following the plot line of a relatively well-known product, use that to deliberately set up expectations and then subvert them!

I second this. If you can completely flip the ending then go ahead.

 

[KatG]

The "flipped" ending is also common; it's just the alternate flavor/choice. Half the audience will guess that choice. There's really no need for the OP to flip anything if not desired for the OP's story. If the OP looks at the draft and finds it's too close to the movies/short story that originally inspired, that it doesn't feel like it's the OP's story enough, that's one thing and revisions and plot changes can be made. But otherwise, trying to write what you don't want to write and feels wrong tends to get you a bungled narrative.

Y'all are trying to find a magic key to keep your readers from being bored and there is no magic key that will do that and produce a plot for all the readers, all of whom bring different things to the party. There is no one "commercial" writing style, no one type of "popular" fiction plot. Agents and editors who talk about what they want to see or think sells are giving you their set of preferences and assumptions, which is fine, but they don't all like the same things either. And quite often they end up liking something that they originally said they weren't really interested in seeing. You may pick something and it may work out, but it's not because you picked one plot choice over another. If you flip the ending, there will be another movie that has that. Certainly there will be lots of written stories that have that.

Again, it's going to be easier for you as authors to stop trying to control and bulletproof the outcomes of your story and reader reactions -- because readers will not react how you tell them to necessarily -- and concentrate on what you want to do with the bones of it and with your characters and with your use of language to tell the story. And it's a good idea to get used to being rejected, being held in contempt, and being denounced as derivative and trite by some readers -- especially if you are writing fantasy fiction, where it's considered part of the field to treat fiction authors like competing basketball teams no matter how illogical that is. Be prepared to pick the most carefully researched, most "commercial" ideas you could possibly think of and learn that many consider you not commercial or appealing at all. Learn to pick the most non-commercial, non-common, flip out of the box plot points you think you can find and have readers denounce you as a knock-off, cliched, unimaginative, commercial mainstream, etc.

Because it is going to happen, especially if you get anywhere at all. Instead of trying to safeguard against negative reactions and chasing them in desperation to turn them positive (which again you don't have the power to do,) I again suggest trying to concentrate on what you think is fun, in the way that you think is fun, with characters you feel in writing them are fun, whatever that is for you. (Listen to input, but it has to be input you can actually understand and make use of.) That will more likely get you some positive reactions from those who connect with and enjoy it, and it's the positive reactions who will become the audience willing to invest in you further and spread word of mouth. But you can't insure that you will get them by picking Option A or Option B, and you won't know who they will be ahead of time. More than one author has been surprised about who they end up with as fans and for what stories, and by what they liked about those stories.

Uncertainty and unpredictability are part of the fabric of the field, especially written fiction. But they're a feature, not a bug. It gives you a wider field to play in. You can pick whatever you want. If you want to stick very closely to the same territory as a really big name author's work, you can do that -- and it may work or not work out. Or you can go in another direction (which will put you in the territory of other big name authors' work,) and try that. But what I strongly urge you not to do is block your brain when it wants to play with something. Maybe you'll never use it and it will have just been exercise, maybe you'll decide it's too derivative of something, or cluelessly off, or maybe you'll completely revise it or cannibalize it later on, but if your brain is enjoying creating something, let it do that for a little while, same as you doing the Flash Fiction competitions. It can't hurt. Your brain is not concerned with publication issues or lawsuits. It wants to make something. And it won't be nearly as clever and daring as you might initially think it is. It also won't be as trite and derivative as you think it is either.

 

[txshusker]

I'm coming way late on this, but I haven't dropped to the forum for a while. A million stories of have been written about the Hero's Journey - it's why it can be so well defined. The same basic stages. It is taught to screenwriters, as well. Plagiarizing Gilgamesh? Beowulf? A story from The Bible? In other arts like comedy or songwriting, they call it cryptomnesia. I was once asked why Silverado was one of my favorite all time movies... it's because it's every western movie trope rolled into one and it's done well. How many stories of teenage fantasy schools did we get after Harry Potter took off? But it all cases, it ain't the what, it's the how, IMO.

 

[txshusker]

So instead of concentrating on and trying to control reader reactions to the outcomes, the answers -- which is impossible -- authors are working on the questions, the clues to the answers and the answers that interest themselves, crafting an experience using story characters. And then they are hoping that enough readers' personal interpretation of that experience and of their written use of language is positive enough that they'll want more stories from the author.

This might be my favorite Kat quote of all time.

 

[KatG]

How many stories of teenage fantasy schools did we get after Harry Potter took off? But it all cases, it ain't the what, it's the how, IMO.

As many as the number of teenage and kid fantasy school stories that were put out before Harry Potter existed, including big ones like Diane Duane's 1983 So You Want to Be a Wizard best-selling series and Ursula Le Guin's famous Earthsea. And yet this did not stop Rowling from doing one, nor did the reams of British novels about boarding schools. But doing a British magical boarding school did not guarantee her anything either -- publishers and agents rejected it and her publisher did not expect it at all to do what it did when first bringing it out.

"Merit" in fictional writing is not objective. It is subjectively assigned by individuals, personal to them. Enjoyment, engagement, and assessment will be subjective. How people will view your work, how it will often be marketed or talked about or reviewed, how long will folks know it's there and care, etc. -- all things the author cannot control.

Which may be scary in terms of lawsuits, but again, it would have to be a very blatant point for point copy (and the book accused would have to do very well,) to get a film studio to bother to come sue you, because there's really not a lot in it for them and there would be too many suits to attempt. And for written fiction to written fiction, you cannot copyright titles or ideas and proving plagiarism requires showing actual narrative has been copied or nearly so from one work to the other -- and that the work accused of plagiarizing is not a satire or parody of the first work.

The most common lawsuits in this area are film companies suing other film companies for infringement or rights/credit money, or individuals suing a film studio for appropriating their work, either produced/published or pitched to the film studio as a treatment. That and various lawsuits against Rowling because her books were a phenom, none of which made any headway because they could not prove she'd copied them, etc. (If you get to that level, you will have good lawyers and probably be fine.)

There have occasionally been suits where a film company sued individuals for appropriating their trademarked property for cash, such as the recent lawsuit against the crowdfunded Star Trek fanfiction movies, where they were using the actual Star Trek stuff. CBS and Paramount loosened up in the recent decade and will let you make a fanfiction movie, but it has to follow various rules -- 15 minutes or less, under $50K to make, and anything you use of specific Trek licensed property like uniforms has to be from you buying their official Trek merchandise and not making your own. If you write an unlicensed novel about Spock, they may well come after you. If you write an unlicensed novel about Vulcan-like aliens called Vilcans, they may come after you if they can prove enough copyright infringement. If you write a story about people encountering a silicon-based alien life form, they are not coming after you because they don't own the idea of silicon-based alien lifeforms. And nobody owns the idea of a guy walking into a town, getting into trouble and playing people off against each other to get out of it or for a goal.

It's not that you're not going to have intriguing plot ideas or neat details of your story world. But you just can't count on all readers to see them as intriguing and neat. It's the hard first lesson -- nobody has to like your work just because you decided to do it a certain way.

This might be my favorite Kat quote of all time.

*Snort* Really, that one? Surely I've been pithier. Enh, well maybe not.