Film directors call it 'referencing, musicians call it 'sampling', agents of 12-year-old authors call it 'cryptomnesia' ...Is plagiarism the new creativity?

August 31^st – Speaking as a writer (here he goes, bloody show-off) speaking as a writer, I’m aware that it’s difficult to keep your mind clear of outside influences when you’re putting together the first draft of what you consider to be your highly original magnum opus. There are two main trains of thought on the process and it depends on your take on them as to which way you travel.

There are those who say you can’t be expected to write modern, relevant fiction unless you read what others have written before you, that way you see what the trends are which will help you create a contemporary piece that fits the genre you’re writing in. There are others who say that it’s not good to read other work as you’re style may suffer and what you thought was original can become a close relative of work that’s gone before and so not an addition to the cannon but just a puff of smoke on the battlefield. I’m of the latter category. I think I’m right in saying I’ve not read a novel since probably 197…2 possibly? That’s not a brag or anything, it’s just that I don’t want my own efforts to be inadvertently coloured by other writer’s work; maybe that shows a lack of single-minded creativity in me…whatever, it’s what I do. I prefer (much) to read factual stuff, world/British history, (am about half-way through Behind Closed Doors by Amanda Vickery, biographies (have just finished Lee Server’s book on Ava Gardener…that was some read, I can tell you) and British political/social history (am lining up Peelers to Pandas by Ben Beazley as my next read.

I think it’s ‘cos I’m really bothered about the possibility that I might get accused of plagiarising someone else’s book or idea; having had it happen to me I can tell you it aint nice when you find out someone’s stolen your idea or story-line and published as their own, not a nice feeling at all. Knowing how that feels, I steer as clear as I can of my being responsible for causing similar upset to another writer, hence my maybe sometime ridiculous stance of not reading anything fictional at all. Yeah, I know, I know…humour me, OK?

Plagiarism becomes known in two distinct ways. Deliberately, like when folk such as Stephen Ambrose and H. G. Wells, who both openly quoted story-line ideas and (cheekily) used whole pieces of text from other writers work and passed them off as their own. The second, particularly in the writing side of creativity can actually happen inadvertently, Cryptomnesia as it’s known; the point when forgotten memory interrupts original thought. Robert Louise Stephenson no less has admitted to such an aberration when he had finished and published Treasure Island as has Umberto Eco, he of The Name of the Rose fame. Now, if writers of that sort of stature can fall foul of the tricks of memory then I’d like to bet that I can sure as hell do the same, so I avoid it…like the plague.

In movies they call it ‘referencing’, the lifting of work by others by any other name, and in music they call it ‘sampling’…in the case of George Harrison’s recording of My Sweet Lord and The Chiffon’s earlier hit of He’s So Fine they called it subconscious plagiarism. On this day in 1976, Mr. Harrison was found guilty as charged and was given a sentence of…? Well nothing really. See, when you’re caught with your trousers round your ankles by the owner of the property you’re screwing there is only one way to go; buy your way out. Mr. Harrison solved his embarrassment by purchasing the publishing company that owned the song, He’s So Fine so…well, now he owned it he could do what he liked. Nice work, George, saved you the sweat of being original.