Writers: How do you deal with accusations of, "You stole my idea!"

[mckitterick]

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

Comments

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Can't say I've ever been there, amigo--I don't think anyone's ever accused me of stealing their story, which is a bit surprising, really. But I think if they did I'd just politely point out that ideas are a dime a dozen and parallel development happens all the time, and tell them I'm sorry they think I somehow stole their idea/story/material but that certainly isn't the case. There's nothing more you can do, really, but stay calm and polite and not let them bait you or make you lose your temper. Because, honestly, unless they have some kind of proof and take you to court the worst that can happen is it can damage your reputation--and that's a lot more likely from blowing your top at them than from them running around saying you ripped them off.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I doubt he'll sue, because - what? He'd get all the profits from my short story? But, yeah, I had the same feeling and finally withdrew from the online argument and just vented here ;-)

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Exactly! So I think you handled it just fine.