Plagiarism vs. Inspiration

While I’m excited to get a page together detailing Kittyinaz and my exploits in Las Vegas at The Vampire Diaries Convention, I am saddened that I came home to a bit of a situation and now must focus on that instead…

As we know, plagiarism is something that happens in the fanfiction world no matter how vigilant we try to be to catch/stop it. What some do not know, however, is that there are many instances of plagiarism that are – generally speaking – done accidentally because they were inspired by a story they read.

Let me be clear – Charles Caleb Colton claimed that, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and to some extent there is truth to that. But when you take a person’s plot and ideas and present it as your own, even if in your own words, and without giving credit to the original author, then that is not imitation – it is plagiarism.

When you google plagiarism, here’s the definition you will find:

• pla·gia·rism
  ˈplājəˌrizəm/
  noun
  noun: plagiarism; plural noun: plagiarisms
  the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.

I’d like to emphasize the word ideas. While you may not be copying/pasting someone’s story to pass as your own, if you steal their ideas – even in your own words – then that is considered plagiarism and a very serious issue.

Several readers brought it to my attention that there was a story up on fanfiction.net that was eerily similar to Set My Soul Alight, and after reading it, I have to say I agreed. While the wording was different, literally everything up in the story in question happened in Alight. In fact, it read as a poorly written summary of it. When I contacted the author, they maintained they had not plagiarized, but when pressed, the story was thankfully removed – not without some nasty comments, though those have also (for the most part) been deleted from their profile.

Still, I find the situation very concerning, because while I do not believe the actions of this author were intentional or malicious, their defensiveness and the fact that they still have many other stories up that are eerily similar to many others, shows a lack of understanding about the situation at hand. The authors that may have had their work copied have been notified and hopefully their situation will be resolved soon as well.

Though we do not get paid for our stories, we fanfiction authors put a lot of time, effort and heart into our original plots even if we, too, are borrowing from someone else’s work. But we also give credit where credit is due. Never do we claim ownership of the recognizable characters/plot points/ideas we use from the original creators of the works we dabble in. We do, however, claim ownership of the ideas we create within those same stories. If you would like to use them, then all we want is for you to ask and give us the credit we deserve for coming up with them.

There is a fine line between plagiarism and inspiration – if you read one of my stories and feel inspired to use some of my ideas to create one of your own, then fantastic! I can’t think of a bigger compliment, to be honest. Just please approach me first and give note to me as the original source of any ideas/plot points you would like to use from my stories. It’s as simple as that. There’s no reason we can’t all get along and be mature about this, and I’m sure my fellow authors would agree.

While there is no easy solution to situations like these, I suggest that we as a fandom stick together. If you notice something is being stolen/borrowed/plagiarized from another author, please notify them immediately. I confess myself more saddened and disappointed, rather than angry (though I am that), at this situation, but I am eternally grateful for the people that brought it to my attention.

To end on a high note, I’ll be working hard to get the next chapter of Thirsty out for you all soon, along with a page detailing my many shenanigans at The Vampire Diaries Con… Ian Somerhalder hugged me and Steven McQueen flirted with me (and everyone else, lol, but still)! There’s much to be happy about even when stuff like this happens 🙂