(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

While it does seem that a certain author of Draco-centric fic has been taking more liberties than she should have with other people's work, I'm beginning to feel that some of the specific instances she's being hauled over the coals for are unreasonable. As snorcackcatcher has said elsewhere, allusion to other literary works, and yes, even 'stealing' ideas from them is a standard part of writing even original fic.

It occurs to me that, by this standard, Gaudy Night, which is one of the finest and most principled novels I know on the subject of intellectual integrity - would, on these measures, be deemed plagiaristic. Peter Wimsey scarely opens his mouth without uttering a quotation or a witty allusion, Harriet is nearly as bad, the SCR at Shrewsbury seem to regard this as part of normal discourse, and even Lord St George, who is fairly bird-witted, has a go at it. In fact, I can't think of a character who doesn't (unless it's Harriet's boring ex-best friend). More than that, the narrator uses bits of Shakespeare and other writers, which I daresay she expected the reader to spot. And no, I would not dream of counting this as plagiarism, and I don't think it needs a footnote. Neither, despite the tremendously unhelpful notes, does The Waste Land, or anything else by TS Eliot.

I was recently looking at a Sandman novel (I'm afraid I forget which one), in which a character told what I recognised to be the Scottish story of the lady of, I think, the Gordons, whose husband was murdered by the Gregora. The MacGregors, being not only callous but not awfully bright, went off to the man's house carrying his head in a bag, which they then dumped on the table and drew their swords to deal with his wife. She, however, by sheer sense of character and skills as a hostess, got them to sit down, and had a dinner served to them with lots of wine. Until the moment that the men of her clan slipped very quietly into the room, when she said 'But here is my man without wine or food. Give him to drink!' and the men of her clan immediately cut the Gregora's throats. And afterwards one of her men asked her how sha had kept her countenance and saved herself, in front of yon fell thing on the table, and she replied "He was a fine man and I am sick at heart to have lost him. But I am a woman of the Gordons, and the day that I cannot keep my countenance and work my will upon men, that is a day that you will never see." I read it first in one of George MacDonald Fraser's novels (one of the MacAuslan ones, probably The Sheikh and the Dustbin), but I never thought that GMF invented it. Nor do I think that either GMF or Neil Gaiman are plagiarists, and my reaction to its appearance in Sandman was one of pleased recognition.

I wonder if the plagiarism policies of the universities are at the back of this, where people have been left feeling that unless you cite everything, you can expect to be sent down (not, in fact, that people always do this, and not like far more blatant plagiarism has been eradicated). Or maybe it's just because people are happy to see an overrated fic cut down, on whatever grounds. But while the use of Pamela Dean's fiction, and some of the other examples cited, are clearly unacceptable, I really don't think it's necessary for everyone to start footnoting the odd reference to The Waste Land or the Archers or whatever. On the other hand, what a read through of the Draco stories confirmed for me was: you can overdo the allusion, and if someone is going to turn into a heavy user of quotations, then it ought to be in character for them to do so. But those are literary sins, rather than matters of honesty and dishonesty. An overuse of lines from Buffy, Blackadder and Prattchet doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. It will, however, almost certainly make you a bad writer.

ETA Just to clarify, this is not to say that I think either the acceptance of gifts (particularly such valuable ones), or the heavy-handed and unpleasant way that criticism of Cassie has been dealt with in the past is right. It clearly isn't.

Comments

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

However, *smirk*, the TOU for Fiction Alley state very clearly and explicitly that you should cite all provenance that is not the work of your own imagination as part of your disclaimer.

There is a default disclaimer for HP, which is formatted authomatically, according to their rules, all other stuff "not your own" has to be mentioned in the disclaimer.

unless you are the boon companion of the owner

Of course, I suppose CC and her supporters might argue that the database field provided was unfortunately too small for the citation space needed.

There are a number of issues. First, it is wrong to plagiarise. And that is what she's been doing.

Second, she and her chums have done little but threaten those who did clearly call the plagiarism.

Third, she has clearly profited. As a result of her popularity, she at least owns an Ipod, and a laptop. I personally feel she can directly ascribe her publishing deal to her internet popularity. She's "in" with other writers who have praised her to the skies. She's publishing under her internet alias, and the one under which she wrote fanfiction. I'd say she's clearly jumped on the back of HP success.

What I believe, but naturally cannot prove, is that it has been done in a fairly cynical and unrepentant way.

Legend and stuff is out of copyright. You should still allude, I believe unless it is a very made over retelling. Take for instance a Celtic/Arthurian legend: Tristan and Iseult. I used this for a fanfic, and indeed so did a best selling historical novel: The Far Pavilions, by MM Kaye. That story (dressed in a british Raj setting) is Tristan, as I live and breathe.

Eliot used references that were so old, they were almost certainly out of copyright. I agree it's a thin line, but CC was way over the other side of it.

The Sandman is the recent collection of stories. That particular episode is the "Desire" story.

I've very little sympathy for CC. Mainly because of her propensity to let Heidi play official rotweiler. Though I feel that people threatening to carry the war into her real life is a bit heavy.

[tree_and_leaf]

You're right, of course - the profiting from fan-fic is completely out of line, as is the threatening behaviour. I should have made it clear that this was my opinion in the post (I've done a small edit, now), and I certainly have very little sympathy for either CC or Heidi.

Thanks for pointing out the business with the TOC - this had escaped me, and I agree, it's pretty rank hypocrisy.

And thanks for the Sandman reference.

I seem to recall...

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

... a very funny, if darkly so, story regarding the US publishers insisting on - was it footnoting, or editing? No matter - something of Waugh's because of copyright panic over an allusion.

God knows I allude to the whole corpus of letters when I write, we all do, half the cliches in the English language are Quotes From the Plays Wot Shakespeare Wrote. I agree that a plague should be invoked on both houses in this feud (see! There he goes again!).

But I wonder to what extent the fever for attribution-picking and both the misuse of and the persecution of allusion, proceeds from the sad fact that the common culture today - and how appallingly common it is, at that - no longer supports the casual tossing about of references that would, in our grandparents's day, have been immediately recognised as part of the common cultural store. In short, the need to footnote may reflect the modern stupidity and sub-literacy of the general reading public (my readers and yours and all fen excluded, naturally), who want to be led by the hand to an allusion and told in a loud voice, 'He's paraphrasing John Bunyan, you sodding halfwit!' (and then of course one must enlighten them as to who the devil Bunyan was).

Re: I seem to recall...

[tree_and_leaf]

But I wonder to what extent the fever for attribution-picking and both the misuse of and the persecution of allusion, proceeds from the sad fact that the common culture today - and how appallingly common it is, at that - no longer supports the casual tossing about of references that would, in our grandparents's day, have been immediately recognised as part of the common cultural store. In short, the need to footnote may reflect the modern stupidity and sub-literacy of the general reading public (my readers and yours and all fen excluded, naturally), who want to be led by the hand to an allusion and told in a loud voice, 'He's paraphrasing John Bunyan, you sodding halfwit!' (and then of course one must enlighten them as to who the devil Bunyan was).

There may be something in that. Contemplating the amount of things which editors feel the need to annotate in the Oxford Classics Buchan editions is quite mind-boggling.

Mind you, I am terrified by the things even theoretically well-educated people don't recognise. In another connection, I was discussing a fourteenth century letter from a priest to a group of laywomen with a mixed group of post-grads and academics, all of whom were mediaeval specialists of one sort or another. (I should add, in fairness, that they had only seen the text the night before). The letter contained a passage in which the priest described himself as a hen sheltering the laywomen like chicks under his wings. At which point someone commented that it was interesting that he used such a feminine image of himself, only why hens? General silence. I said 'But it's an allusion to the gospels.'

Blank looks, until I explained about Luke 13.34 and Christ's lament over Jerusalem. I was rather shocked, given the amount of interest gendered imagery gets in modern criticism - you would have thought someone would have recognised it. I don't know my Bible as well as my great-grandmother would have, but I can catch references to the Gospels or Saint Paul easily enough.

Regular churchgoing does wonders for your ability to read, apparently, but given that virtually everything is a quotation from Shakespeare or the Bible (OK, so I exaggerate a little bit), I dread to think how much of pre-1960s literature sails over the average modern reader's head.

You don't exaggerate all that much.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

I believe it's fair to say that 'virtually everything' really is an allusion to the Authorised Version, Bunyan, the Prayer-Book, or Shakespeare, with perhaps Walton on angling in the next place. The impact of those sources on our daily lives and language is incalculable.

[gramarye1971]

I've been trying to figure out what irks me most about the 'quotation' and 'homage' aspects of the Draco Trilogy, and it seems to boil down to this: there's a difference between throwing in allusions and quotations from works that your characters might be expected to have read or seen (as Lord Peter and Harriet do) and quoting from or alluding to works that there's no way your characters could have known about (does anyone really think that Draco's been whiling away the long hours watching Blackadder and Buffy?).

When I'm with friends, I tend to toss out quotations and allusions and references all the time. If the people I'm with are also familiar with the works, it becomes something of an in-joke. But there is really no reason for any of the HP characters (especially Draco the pureblood who hates all things Muggle) to be spouting lines or variations of lines from television shows or books. It's not witty or clever or a good use of dialogue; it's as jarring and out of place as Harry listening to Linkin Park or Ginny being a fan of Big Brother.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, absolutely. As I was trying (possibly incoherently) to say, I don't think this aspect was a matter of poor morals, but of poor writing.

[gramarye1971]

*nods* Though I think there's a bit of moral shadiness as well, though -- particularly once people started calling her on it and pointing out the lack of citations all the way back when. The Trilogy itself suffered from poor writing, but the response of the author and various fans to criticism of it showed some lacking in...I hate to use the word 'integrity', but I think it sums up what I want to say.

[tree_and_leaf]

Agreed - other aspects definitely seem morally dubious to me, but what interested me here was the trilogy as such and the question of citiation in fics, not the 'extra-textual' stuff, which, as you say, was a bit lacking in integrity.

[windtear.livejournal.com]

An overuse of lines from Buffy, Blackadder and Prattchet doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. It will, however, almost certainly make you a bad writer.

True. However, the part that irks me is that she never stated "Certain lines are taken from Buffy/Blackadder/etc." And when someone said to her, "Oh, I really liked it when Draco said XXXX, that was so funny!" she would say "Thanks, I thought it was good when I wrote it too," NOT "Yes, it was, wasn't it? I borrowed it from Buffy/Blackadder/Terry Pratchett/Red Dwarf."

It is not that she used quotes, it is that she used quotes and then claimed them as her own original phrasing. Once or twice is excusable. 60% of the fic is not. I'm sure that at no point does Ms. Sayers state or imply that all the quotes and bon mots Lord Peter and Harriet drop are her own phrasing.

[tree_and_leaf]

Certainly, at least at the point where someone compliments you on your (borrowed) wit, you ought to point out that, actually, you didn't make it up yourself.

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm sure that at no point does Ms. Sayers state or imply that all the quotes and bon mots Lord Peter and Harriet drop are her own phrasing.

Of course not. The reader is supposed to be able to spot them, and to enjoy the game. Of course, CC seems to have tried to imply that a game of that sort existed with her fics, but it looks a bit ret-conny to me, especially if she was happy to take credit for other people's wit.

I suppose what I really meant is that I think a happy medium between what happened in the Draco trilogy and footnoting everything - and it's sad if, as a result of this, footnoting everything will become necessary. Some people (not CC) have a highly allusive style, without being plagiarists, and I enjoy that sort of writing. But I'm really not trying to defend the indefensible.

[snorkackcatcher]

An overuse of lines from Buffy, Blackadder and Prattchet doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. It will, however, almost certainly make you a bad writer.

Sounds about right. I never really encountered the plagiarism policies at uni (as I read computer science, not an essay-based subject), but they sound rather stringent.

[mrs-wolf.livejournal.com]

Amen to all of it!

I have heard speeches by some individuals in the literary world (as everyone has) and I am a little amazed at how much connection they all have to each other. There are several books out that are in many ways married to each other because the writers are all close personal friends. They communicate and they seem to all know each other even if they have never met face to face. You know one person and the word is going to get around.

And they give credit where credit is due. "My dear friend [insert famous writer's name here] was the inspiration for this paragraph, which was an expression of this feeling from such and such an experience." Isn't this what we do in fan-fiction? I mean, that's art!

I am not familiar with the writer you are speaking of but I definitely agree from my perspective.