Literary Plagiarism Revisited

[alfreda89]

http://my.ev1.net/english/news/newsarticle.asp?articleID=50258751&subject=entertainment

One of the things that irritates me the most about this is, why in heavens' name didn't this young woman write her own book, using the tropes of a transition family from India? I can see the owner of my favorite Indian restaurant coming up with a plan to Get His Granddaughter A Life -- it's pure culture.

Instead, she not only mimicked books from her teen years, she apparently borrowed entire passages wholesale.

And some editor paid her six figures to do this? Do you realize how many books a novel in this price range has to sell for the publisher to make any money at all?

I certainly hope that that editor is around when *I* release my next manuscript to the NYC Wars.

Comments

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that editor will probably be finding another line of work soon.

I do not understand how that much money got attached to a project this questionable. What was it, Eragon effect?

I suspect it will be hard for the editor to overcome this -- even at the most simple level, why hasn't s/he read more of the books in this sub-genre they're courting?

I have not read Eragon -- I've heard it's derivative (as in solidly based in several well-known branches of fantasy without stealing from any of them) but that he's not a plagiarist. It does surprise me that something this blandly derivative (Eragon) succeeds so well when NY constantly encourages us to write something unique.

Perhaps we need to discuss the question a few of the blogs have brought up. If schools are assigning projects so difficult the parents have to not only help, but DO the project, how can we explain to our children that you don't "borrow" in a whole-hog fashion when creating something? I know I didn't understand that until junior high -- and that behavior is much, much worse than when I was a child.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Eragon is not plagiarized, it's merely derivative. I was speaking of the effect of the mid-teenage author with influential friends or family, buying enough shelf space to turn a bad book into a monster bestseller. Child prodigies sell.

As for the difficulty of school projects, as far as I can tell, education in general is drastically dumbed down from what it was when I was in school; between that and constant teaching to endless standardized tests, the whole thing is a sorry mess.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

between that and constant teaching to endless standardized tests, the whole thing is a sorry mess.

A friend interviewing lately (many credentials teaching HS) says one of the two questions they ask is "How do you teach to the TAKS test?"

This</> is education?!

Child prodigies are always news. Maybe we need to find our own hook. We can put Pook in your author photo -- that will sell books! ;^)