Please advice about how not to worry of plagiarism in my work of fiction

Cafe Society
1

Perhaps the title is a little confusing, but I’ll try to explain.

I’m working in a novel of fantasy/science fiction and its plot is openly (I mean consciously) based in another novel of fiction, althought it only takes the basic premise. The development of the actions is slightly similar, but everything happens in another context, another country, another time and it definitely deviates from the original, in the climax. Obviously all the writing is mine.

I consider it a homage to the original work, which is one of my favorite novels and got it as an excelent idea to develop with another results (hey, I could even write an entire TV series with that premise). But I’m worried that it would be considered plagiarism of the novel that is based on.

Because I don’t want that to happen (some reader may spot the similarities and think I’m stealing), I have inserted some subtle clues that point to that novel. Those clues are not important for my plot; some are references to the title, some are references to the author (in the form of a non relevant character), and some are vague references to certain situations. They are sort of puzzles for the readers: if they know that novel, they may identify the allusions and acknowledge that I’m accepting the inspiration.

It is something like this: a group of persons are involved in a key event with an antagonist. This event (which does not has a real scientific explanation or justification) leads them to a whole situation that is completely abnormal (impossible according to our vision of the universe) and they struggle to figure out how to escape from that situation. That’s where the similarity ends. All events that unfold after that one are different. If I may use an analogy, it’s like the similarity of the movies Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow: same setup but different scenarios, parallel rising action but different climaxes and dénouement (don’t get this wrong: the novel is not about a day that repeats over and over).

The question is… should I explicitly declare (in an introduction or final text) that my novel is “inspired” in the other work? Or should I leave the clues there for someone to discover them? What would you do?

2

First of all, it’s not plagiarism unless you copying the actual text. Authors base their books on other books all the time (e.g., Starship Troopers and The Forever War).

It’s up to you what to say. You can indicate the inspiration, or you just write it and see if anyone notices.

Ultimately, from what you describe, I wouldn’t worry about plagiarism.

3

(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer nor a fiction writer.)

As RealityChuck says, this is not plagiarism. However, rewriting someone else’s story is incredibly lame, don’t waste your time, or more importantly, your reader’s time, on such an endeavor. JJ Abrams gets away with it, but you won’t.

4

I would remove the clues.

5

I’m not rewriting the story. As I said, it’s the same kind of story, with the same premise, but the events surrounding them are different, even the example of Groundhog Day vs Edge of Tomorrow is somehow more evident. Example (however this is not the case): the first story is a group of scientists trapped in a time loop started by a failed scientific experiment and they had to restore the flow of time by spotting a specific event. The other is a group of young men and women, in a little town, trapped in a time loop started by malicious prayers of a sadistic priest and they have to restore the flow of time by spotting a specific event. I would swear that there are tons of plots like this but some stories are more entertaining or valuable than others.

My story adresses another kind of philosophical issues, the important theme here is not what and how this happens but the repercussions, and how they struggle with the problems that arise.

Please provide more examples of stories mimicking other premises but with different treatment, if you know them. As RealityChuck did with Starship Troopers.

6

You’re not going to have a problem. Pretty much every work of art is in some way a remix. Hell, 50 Shades of Grey is literal Twilight fanfiction with the names changes.

7

Bill the Galactic Hero was a commentary on Starship Troopers a decade before Haldeman. Most of fantasy since Tolkien became a bestseller takes LofR and moves it one step left. YA fiction is even more derivative.

You cannot be accused of plagiarism from your description. The real prospect is much worse. If its done badly you may be accused of hack writing. For that the clues may be helpful. Or not.

BTW, why are you working so hard to hide the name of the original book? Are you afraid we’re going to plagiarize your idea?

8

Hell, look at all of the plot lines Shakespeare unabashedly stole, and he’s known as the greatest playwright in the English language, not some rip off artist hack.

9

The strange thing about Hollywood (and to a lesser degree all fiction) is that on the one hand they can’t be original but on the other hand they can never resist messing with the source material. After reading the reviews for the movie named “Steve Jobs” that gets all kinds of stuff about the titular character’s life wrong I vowed to never again see a biopic about someone who lived in modern times.

Just go read the synopses for a few dozen B movies in a popular genre. Keep a tally on how many different basic plots are used. You’ll soon learn that few people care about originality. As long as you don’t copy (nearly) everything from one source you’re fine. (Copy as in: do it yourself the same way. Not copy as in actually copying text. The latter would be plagiarism.)

10

Is the OP worried about being accused of plagiarism or copyright infringement? They are two different—although often overlapping—concepts.

Copyright infringement is defined by law and in most countries, it creates liability for the unauthorized copying of the original and creative expression of someone else. It explicitly makes a distinction between ideas and expression. Ideas are not protected under copyright law.

Copyright law permits the re-use of ideas, concepts, plot points, stock characters, situations, etc. What it prohibits is actual copying of someone else’s expression of such ideas.

(This gets somewhat complicated when it comes to movie scripts. You can conceivably get in trouble with a movie script even if you change details, names, dialogue, and specific shots. Art Buchwald famously won a breach of contract claim against Paramount over Coming to America)

Plagiarism, on the other hand, is usually not defined by law. It is a standard that can be created and enforced formally (for example, by an educational institution) or informally (by a community with common interests).

So, a scientific researcher can commit plagiarism if she copies an idea that she read in someone else’s work and fails to properly credit (cite) the original work.

If this plagiarism is discovered, she might face consequences from her university, from an association covering her academic discipline, or from her publisher. But there won’t be any consequences under copyright law. (It is a possibility that there might be some other kinds of laws that might apply—such as fraud—but that’s a different question.)

For another example, a comedian who copies the premise of a joke but changes the words is not committing copyright infringement, but the community of comedians can use informal means to punish you for your breach of community standards regarding joke-stealing.

Some other considerations:

— It is widely recognized among writers that “there are no new stories” and that to some extent every story is reusing ideas from other works.

— There is a healthy tradition of reusing ideas, particularly in certain genres. The fantasy genre as it exists, for example, is heavily inspired by Tolkien.

— To some extent, there will always be people who will be quick to label anything a “ripoff” if it contains familiar elements. There’s not much you can do about that.

11

Spider Robinson made a career ripping off Robert Heinlein, so go for it.

12

Just google books based on other books. There are plenty of them, some quite famous and the fact that they are “stolen” is often not hidden at all.

13

Here’s an example for you: the play Clybourn Park is a direct continuation of the play A Raisin in the Sun, taking place an hour or so after the first play ends and including a character from Raisin. Clybourne Park won the Pulitzer Prize, so the usage wasn’t objected to.

14

Hell, Sharon Shinn’s Jenna Starborn is a direct beat-for-beat retelling of Jane Eyre. (And IMO a completely pointless read, because if you are familiar with Jane Eyre, there are no surprises at all and Bronte was a much better writer.)

You’re fine, OP.

15

The OP’s idea for a novel doesn’t sound to me like it would be violating anyone’s copyright, but it’s dangerously misleading to point to derivative works based on public domain novels as examples of what’s acceptable. Jane Eyre is in the public domain, so anyone can make use of it without the permission of the Bronte estate.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is basically an abridged version of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice with zombies added in – much of the text is copied almost verbatim from Austen. But Austen is credited as co-author of the book (so it’s not plagiarism) and Pride & Prejudice is in the public domain (so it’s not copyright violation). It would not be fine to copy this blatantly from a novel that is under copyright.

16

I disagree, unless you mean simply rewriting the same story in different words, in which case, yes, it’s lame. But that is not what the OP said he did. He said he came up with a new idea about how the story should proceed … some new twist on it, in any event, and wrote that. That’s not plagiarism, and is in the finest traditions of the English language. Shakespeare himself based some of his plays on Italian plays written a couple of hundred years before his works. And if you want to get to REALLY rarefied airs, my story “Slave Girls of Outer Space” is inspired by the movie “Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity” which I thought was a botched attempt at a very good movie, so I wrote the story as it SHOULD have been done, in the finest tradition of the greatest writers.

17

Based on the OP, it seems that the same character names aren’t being used. Doing that is a no-no. Similarly, re-using special terms and such invented for the original is something to avoid. E.g., don’t use “lightsaber” or “Jedi” (with “Droid” being surprisingly well protected term).

18

I seem to remember John Steakley said he wrote “Armor” thinking it would be great to have “Starship Troopers” without all the political philosophy bullshit. If so, he was right. It’s great.

19

I thank you all very much, it has been very enlightening to me.

I must confirm what Evil Captor said. My story only has the same foundations, but not the same characters nor places nor origins or the same conflict. It only has a similar argument structure. My first Groundhog Day mention is the best example. It’s like saying “An accident in a nuclear plant opens a void in time and people has to fight with anomalies in time” and “an accident in a failed magic experiment opens a void in time and youngsters has to fight with anomalies in time”, with different events and characters and situations but similar plot devices.

My main worry is not that it is plagiarism, because I know it’s not. I’m only worried that someone could think that. In the past I have had a lot of ideas that I later discover someone used them before, but not the way as I thought, so I believe this is fine.

I must said (I did not mention this before but I didn’t mean to hide it) that I’m mexican and my novel is in spanish, so when I had it finished I will invite you to read it, of course, if I can find the way to translate it to english or those of you who can read it in my language (I feel capable of writing here but NOT to translate my work to english, that has to be done by a professional translation service).

Be my guests to keep on commenting, your opinions are always interesting.

20

I thought I might add that using the same names can get you in trouble, because sometimes publishers trademark names (and trademarks can be held in perpetuity so long as they are renewed) to protect properties long after copyright has expired. For example, the Edgar Rice Burrough estate has trademarked the names “Tarzan” and "John Carter of Mars"even though early books in both series have gone out of copyright and are in the public domain.

This means you could legally republish those works on your own and resell them legally without so much as a by-your-leave to the ERB estate … but you CAN’T use the terms “Tarzan” or “John Carter of Mars” in the titles, or to promote them, though of course you can use the names in the book’s text, because it’s in the public domain.

It’s freaking insane, of course. And it’s the law … of course.

Even funnier, the ERB estate sued a comics publisher for using John Carter of Mars stories and one of the grounds was that the partial nudity on the covers damaged the repute of the ERB estate (who are clearly a bunch of greedy pigs.) In the original John Carter of Mars stories, Burroughs made it very clear that most Martians went about clad in chest harnesses and belts to hold their weapons and whatnot. They did not wear clothing. So, what damage did the comics publisher do, exactly?