To the SDMB Writer-Types- How Would You Feel About This?

Several years ago, probably about 2008, I started the rough draft on a book I was tenatively calling ‘Coming Around Again’. It was a love story revolving around two souls brought together repeatedly through reincarnated lives that meet once again in the present day and their previous lives start coming back to them through dreams and flashbacks. I didn’t have a LOT written on it bacause I was doing a lot of research to get facts for the time periods straight, etc. but I always intended to finish it, I loved the concept and what I had already done.

At the time I had become ‘friends’ with an artist I met thru MySpace, and she & I had long phone conversations about our projects- she was a painter & sculptor. I had told her about the book I had in the works, discussing at length with her my ideas. She suddenly severed the ‘friendship’ for no reason and refused to speak to me again, I never knew what happened, just wrote it off to general flakiness.

The computer I was using to write ‘Coming Around Again’ died, and I stupidly did not have it backed up; it-and all the research notes I had- are now trapped in a dead computer, but the story never left my mind, I always wanted to go back to it, re-write & finish it.

A couple weeks ago, a mutual friend e mailed me and said she had just found out that ‘K’ had self-published a book thru LuLu Press, called “Even If I Die”. Curiosity got the better of me and I downloaded it. You guessed it- it’s a couple that go thru several reincarnated lifetimes together, even using one of the SAME lives I had used, during the Spanish Inquisition. I hardly think that is coincedence.

Now… I know there is nothing I can legally do about it. She has “her” story fully copyrighted, and MINE wasn’t even fully written yet. But I certainly cannot finish it now as I intended because it would look like I was stealing her idea.

I feel betrayed, gutted, like she stole a piece of my soul. It is a part of me that will never be brought to life as intended now.

No real question here, as I am sure nothing can be done about it-live and learn I suppose. Just would like to get others’ general feelings on this situation.

Judging by your story, it sounds as though you abandoned the project. Were I the other person, I certainly would have asked you permission for the project, mention that I wanted to keep going with it, but it doesn’t change the fact that it sounds like you stopped writing for three years.

Things happen like that, of course. Other “real life” obligations get in the way of our book dreams. It’s happened to me, before, though thankfully no one’s stolen any of my ideas for a novel…yet.

As a point of clarification, did your hard drive die on you? Because if the file is literally “trapped” inside a non-starting computer with a working hard drive, that is (pardon my French) a shitty reason to stop writing. Any computer techy could pop your hard drive inside a USB shell and have you up and running in the course of a day. Not three years…:confused:

ETA: I didn’t read that she completely severed ties with you. Certainly kicks up the “skeeze” meter a few notches!

No, I didn’t abandon the idea… I always have several ideas going at the same time, had another calling my name and quite frankly, needed to take a break from the extensive research involved with that project. It was during that ‘break’ that the computer dies. I am not computer savvy enough to know what the actual problem is- just know it stopped working and I haven’t had the money to take it in to see if anything can be salvaged from it.

IANAW, but from what I’ve heard/read from those who are, it’s not a good idea to talk in any detail to other people about your work in progress. Not so much because of the danger of what you describe happening, but because it takes away the energy and momentum from actually writing. It’s as though your ideas have to come out somehow, either through talking about them to other people or through writing them, but not both.
My other inexpert opinion is, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go ahead and write your book, if it’s important to you. What will make it good, if it is, will be not the basic idea(s) but the implementation. (See threads like this one about the relative unimportance of ideas.

That sounds shitty, PapSett. I doubt you can do anything about it, except write it and get it published legitimately. It’s not an original idea (which I’m sure you knew), but that she stole parts of your story just sucks. Can you write around those parts?

IANAW but my husband is. Unfortunately it sounds like you’ve learned a tough lesson - keep your ideas to yourself. My husband has a team of beta-readers who read and comment on his edited draft, but by then the book is nearly complete and ready to be submitted, so it’s not like anyone would have time to write their own rip-off version.

But you have my deepest sympathies, that’s a really shitty thing to do to another person.

No, I know it wasn’t a totally original idea, but I like to think the way I was presenting it had a bit of a spin on it. The Spanish Inquisition life that she stole was actually one of the most important segments of my story, and seeing her claiming it as her own idea was especially hurtful. I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I had put into the research on that segment alone. Without it, my book isn’y MINE anymore, if that makes any sense.

Not to be a c-word or anything, but this really isn’t the most original idea in the world. And that was just the first thing I found in two minutes of googling “reincarnated lovers”!!

So, I’m not sure you can hold it against her that she wrote a story using what I suspect is a very well-known and ancient plot device.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious Kimmy, but as I said above I was doing my own spin on it and I think the fact that she USED MY TIME SEGMENT says a lot.

Since you don’t know the entire story line I had in mind, perhaps it would be better for you to refrain from telling me how unoriginal my story was.

There are only so many variations to be written, y’know? Are there any TRULY original ideas left? But blatently stealing from a ‘friend’ is pretty sucky in my mind.

Maybe you could write a story about a couple of sworn enemies who keep finding themselves reincarnated in the same time and place?

I don’t know how self-publishing works or if it’s a legitimate business venture in the Amazon.com era, but I always assumed that would mean you’d sell 15 copies if you’re lucky, and end up with a whole lot more up to your eyeballs at home…

Don’t get me wrong. I do feel for you. But I don’t know if the book she couldn’t get published (And self-published for a novel, at least for me, reads as “could not get it published”), should hold you back. Was it well written? Did she use your characters, your story, exactly as you had intended?

If not, save up a hundred bucks or so and see if you can’t salvage that hard drive. The files should still be there. Don’t edit or modify them so you have a date stamp as to the last time they were accessed. Make copies of them. Then go and write your novel and see if you can’t kick some serious ass!

And if you do, and she somehow has the audacity to challenge your New York Times bestselling behemoth, so be it. It seemed like for a period of a year, there was a new woman every week (and they were all women, IIRC…) that claimed that J.K. Rowling had ripped off their self-published e-book, “Scary Flotter and the Magician’s Willy,” or something like that. And yet she seems to be doing fine. Stand your ground and stubbornly stick to your story, if that’s still an option!

Rereading, I think I came off harsher than I meant. I say write it anyway.

To quote the Zuckerberg character in The Social Network: “If they had invented Facebook, they would have invented Facebook.”

She stole your idea? So what, come up with a new one. Good writing is in the voice of the author, not the specific plot points and researched settings. Put more energy into writing something new (or writing the same idea) and less energy into worrying about some self-published piece of garbage that resembles yours. It’s possible she doesn’t even realize she stole your idea.

Slightly off topic, but years ago I was working at a law firm here in Las Vegas and a woman was working as a temp - very bright woman, but had moved around a lot and just returned to Las Vegas.
Anyway, her tale of woe:
She and another guy used to work for a local newpaper here in Las Vegas doing the crime section - calling police to see what crimes had been committed and which would be good for that edition of the local news.
One day, the guy says to her, “These stories would make a great TV series.”
She was in a mood and sarcastically said, “yeah, right…” and ignored him.

Fast forward a few years - he is one of the producers of CSI Las Vegas.
She was a temp.

Missed oppotunies…but he went out and did it, finished it, hawked it and sold it.
That was the difference.

First off, what she did was a shitty thing to do. The friendly way to handle it would have been to ask you if you had actually abandoned the idea before writing her own book.

That said, you can’t copyright an idea. There is no legal barrier to you writing your own reincarnation story exactly the way you originally planned, so long as you don’t actually duplicate her specific language or characters. And, in fact, your own story was copyrighted from the moment you committed it to a fixed medium – paper, computer disk, whatever. A piece of creative work does not need to be published or registered to enjoy copyright protection (although both steps do make it easier to argue an infringement case).

Salvage what you can off your hard drive and get back to work!

I really want to thank you all for your input on this issue. It has just been gnawing at me ever since I first found out she did this. I cannot begin to say how angry and hurt I am. It would be the same (to my way of thinking) if I took a piece of her artwork and claimed it as my own.

I definitely hope to get the stuff on my hard drive extracted, that is not the only partial novel in there.

I am a writer and I would be furious. ‘‘Don’t steal other people’s ideas’’ is kind of a Writing 101 concept. It would be different if she had asked and you had said okay, but she didn’t, so she’s a jerk.

This is the reason why big name writers don’t read unsolicited manuscripts sent to them.

Oh, she KNEW I would have never given permission. That story was very special to me. The big irony in this whole thing is she never showed any interest in writing at all in our conversations. In fact, we had at one point discussed doing a children’s book together, with her doing the illustrations and me the writing. When we would discuss plot point and I would ask for an opinion, she would always say ‘you’re the writer, I just draw’.

I am still having a very hard time dealing with this whole thing.

On the friendship side: that was a shitty thing to do. No two ways about it.

On the book side, though, it doesn’t make any difference. Like other people have said, this isn’t a brand-new idea, which is actually a good thing - it’s had plenty of incarnations (yeah, I know), there’s room for yours too. Also, if/when you write yours, I’d bet it’ll actually be nothing like hers. What makes a book isn’t the plot - it’s the style, characters, flow, pace, tone, thematic development, a million things. Give five writers the identical idea and you’ll get five totally different books. Emma and Clueless are basically the same film, except that they’re not.

Yep, that’s my impression too: that it’s unlikely her book will be read by more than a tiny handful of people she doesn’t know personally. Wherever yours ends up, hers won’t get in the way.

If you still want to write it, write it exactly the way you would have if she had never written a word.

I’m not sure why anyone would think this is sex-specific, but no, they’re not all women. The ‘Willy the Wizard’ guy wasn’t a woman. Neither is the guy currently suing Stephen King for imaginary plagiarism.

Also, ‘Scary Frotter and the Magician’s Willy’ would be even better.