mckitterick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mckitterick) wrote2012-04-10 05:28 pm
mckitterick) wrote2012-04-10 05:28 pm
Writers: How do you deal with accusations of, "You stole my idea!"
Today I've been dealing with a guy who feels I used his idea for a recently published story of mine. (Just to be clear: I didn't.) Anyhow, it seems that this guy has a similar setup for a novel he's been working on, and someone who read his novel and heard about my story wrote to him to say it looked suspicious, and the third-party guy thought I had this similar-story-guy in my summer SF Writing Workshop (I didn't - he was in Kij's Novel Writing Workshop, so I never saw the book, outline, or any of that).
So I wrote to the similar-story-guy to clear things up, and now it appears that he thinks I'm a liar and a thief.
Egad, Charlie Brown.
He went from accusatory and "shocked" at my taking his idea to passive-aggressive a-hole during the course of the conversation. I feel I could have handled this better, but at least I did delete such phrases as, "your Machiavellian little mind" before sending the messages. Ahem.
As I publish more and teach more writers, I expect this kind of situation will come up more frequently. I imagine that John Scalzi hears from half a dozen writers every day with similar accusations.
Writers: Have you had to deal with such situations? If so, how did you handle it? I'd like to be the paragon of gentlemanly and instructive without telling the accusor to piss off.
Thanks,
Chris
So I wrote to the similar-story-guy to clear things up, and now it appears that he thinks I'm a liar and a thief.
Egad, Charlie Brown.
He went from accusatory and "shocked" at my taking his idea to passive-aggressive a-hole during the course of the conversation. I feel I could have handled this better, but at least I did delete such phrases as, "your Machiavellian little mind" before sending the messages. Ahem.
As I publish more and teach more writers, I expect this kind of situation will come up more frequently. I imagine that John Scalzi hears from half a dozen writers every day with similar accusations.
Writers: Have you had to deal with such situations? If so, how did you handle it? I'd like to be the paragon of gentlemanly and instructive without telling the accusor to piss off.
Thanks,
Chris
no subject
I have an "idea file" with dozens of one-line summaries of ideas that I could develop into screenplays (or prose fiction), if I got my butt off Livejournal and Facebook and actually wrote them out. If a situation comes up in conversation that reminds me of something in the idea file, I'll share it freely; if someone wants to realize the idea as a book, screenplay, or whatever, it's theirs. I would hope that I'd get a little acknowledgement, if they think the idea is worth something, but I wouldn't claim they owe me credit.
With rare exceptions, ideas are cheap. The artistry is taking an idea and realizing it as a complete story. Occasionally one comes up with an idea so irresistible that the story writes itself once the idea comes into the author's head. For example, I would imagine that Arthur C Clarke pounded out the first draft of "The Nine Billion Names of God" about as fast as he could type. Likewise, Isaac Asimov no doubt wrote "The Last Question" as fast as he could type (but that's how he wrote everything). But such ideas are rare, and any writer who gets one is likely to feel compelled to write it – and once it's written it's too late for anyone else to steal it.
So what do you do? It sounds like you tried to do what I would have tried to do. First, I'd point out that I had no knowledge of the supposedly stolen idea, and even if I had known about it the real work is realizing the idea, not thinking it up. Then, in support of the point that ideas are cheap, I'd point to the fact that copyright law offers no protections for ideas, only their realization.
But that obviously didn't do the job with this character, so my reaction would have been wrong for the situation. I concur with others who replied that ignoring the guy would have been the best course of action.
One new thought I can add to this discussion is a means of protecting yourself against legal nonsense, in the event that someone wants to bring lawyers into the picture. First, when you're writing, save lots back-up copies of early drafts of your writings (and your idea files, if you have them). Disk space is cheap, and having a collection of drafts proves your work is yours – and they're more reliable than any word processor's "undo" feature. Second, when dealing with beginners in classes, hand out a quick summary of copyright law that emphasizes that ideas are cheap, and the hard work is expressing them, and spend a few minutes advising them to take a look at the hand-out.
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I do keep old drafts just in case I want to compare versions, but in this case that wouldn't help, as he apparently started his novel before I started my story.
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I was totally going to write a post on this topic, btw, but you clearly stole the idea from me. You're evil.
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Also, you stole my typewriter icon!
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...and I'm replacing my typewriter with another stolen from teh interwebs, only this time I'll use BOTH character AND tech.
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Given that I've been kind of a slacker on writing lately, my idea file keeps getting bigger too. I completely understand why writers responding to fans sometimes get exasperated by the number of times they're asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" For a writer, ideas come from everywhere, in far greater abundance than one could hope to write. The more interesting question along those lines is, "How do you choose which of your ideas to run with?"
The fact that he started his novel first still has several answers:
1. You never heard about his idea.
2. Ideas are cheap.
3. You took the idea in a different direction.
4. Your expression of the idea was a good short story.
5. His expression of the idea was a not-so-good book. (OK, I'm just guessing about this one.)
If his book is good, it doesn't matter whether the idea is the same, or whether one of you got the idea from the other, got it from a common source of inspiration, or conceived it independently. If his book is good, your short story doesn't make his book any less good; lots of good (and bad) stories can be written with the same idea as a starting point. For example, lots of stories have been written about superior civilizations encountering humanity and finding human violence to be a hazard that must be resolved before humanity is advanced enough to endanger other civilizations. Lots of them are good, lots of them are bad, but none are any better or worse because other stories are centered around that idea.
Anyway, grumbling about the incident on your journal is one good way to deal with the situation. It isn't going to change the guy's mind, but at least it releases a little steam.
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Totally! Thanks.