Finding inspiration vs plagiarism
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
This quote is attributed to Mark Twain, and he’s not the only notable author who felt this way; in Sister Outsider Audre Lorde wrote “For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.”
In school, we heard so much about plagiarism; why it’s wrong, and what the consequences are for committing it. As a writer, the thought of committing plagiarism is abhorrent to me. Not only do I consider it morally wrong, on par with theft, but I’ve seen people have their book deals cancelled and their careers tanked when they tried to get away with it. I don’t believe that Mark Twain or Audre Lorde were speaking in support of plagiarism when they wrote the above quotes. I believe that they were talking about finding inspiration. But what’s the difference, really? How do we distinguish between plagiarism and constructing our “mental kaleidoscope” out of old ideas?
What is plagiarism?
The Oxford dictionary defines plagiarism as “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.” As I went down a little Google rabbit hole to define plagiarism, I discovered that it came from the Latin plagiarius, or “kidnapper.” So, literally, it’s kidnapping someone’s work and ideas. The University of Oxford has a much longer definition of plagiarism on their website, but here’s a snippet of it: “Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement.” Notably, they include the use of AI in their definition: artificial “intelligence” is a bit of a misnomer because AI is not capable of original thought, and is only able to repurpose language or images that already exist.
So, if we are to break down the definition of plagiarism from these sources, we would find that plagiarism is
- Passing off someone else’s work or ideas as one’s own
- Done with or without the consent of the original author
- Done without full acknowledgement
In academic work, plagiarism is easy to avoid: cite your sources, be honest about your own ideas, and you’re fine. But what about in creative work, where it’s not quite that cut and dry?
Finding inspiration for creative works
In many creative industries, the use of “comp titles” is common when pitching or marketing a product. Every time I write a book, either me or my agent is expected to pitch it by comparing it to an existing title. This helps editors know what to expect from the book, as well as help them know how it will fit in the market. And, often, these are titles I’ve drawn real inspiration from.
It’s happened to me more than once that I’ve read a book (or watched a TV show or listened to a podcast) and suddenly my mind is buzzing with inspiration. I’ve noticed elements I want to include, subjects I want to explore, even clever uses of language that I want to emulate. As Mark Twain and Audre Lorde made clear, this is normal. There are no new ideas. There are, however, new ways of “making them felt.”
Not to keep making you go back to the dictionary, but I found this definition of inspiration from Oxford Languages: inspiration is “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.”
When you find inspiration in another artist’s work, their work is mentally stimulating you to do something creative. Their work sparks something in you and inspires you to create something of your own. When you add your own twist to it, create something new, or make something original, you are not plagiarizing. Remember, plagiarists directly “kidnap” the work of others.
If you, for example, copied a line or passage directly out of someone else’s short story, that would be plagiarism. If you feed their artwork into AI and have it make a “new” image, that’s along the same lines. But if you connect with a specific metaphor in their prose and it inspires you to create something new that plays with the same themes? That’s finding inspiration. If you watch a movie and fall in love with the setting, and decide you want to include something similar in a totally different story? Inspiration.
The good news is, if you’re nervous about committing plagiarism and vigilant about not allowing your inspiration to cross over into that territory, you have nothing to worry about. Give credit where credit is due, allow your creative mind to morph the things that inspire you into something new, and you’ll be absolutely fine!
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