SOMETHING BORROWED

SOMETHING BORROWED

I have blogged a bit about this already but it seems worth saying something else on the subject at this end of the year.

I recall some long years back, before I had anything published, showing a writer acquaintance some poems I had written… bad poems, I can see that now. She made some kind comments and that was it. Except that a year later I attended a book launch of hers. We who had worked with her, even if only peripherally, scoured the pages of her work to see if we were somehow in it. We were mostly disappointed. Then I noticed that two lines of a poem I had written had found their way as prose into something she had penned. I was elated. Not feeling robbed or hungry for revenge. I still had my poem, so it was not robbery; and what she had done with the lines was in a different context in her work and so not the same. I felt uplifted that my words had found their way into her work. Uplifted, not in the least wronged. Nor would I have felt wronged if I had found something of myself in her work. Yet there is a great deal of hysterical nonsense talked about property and ownership when it comes to words and ideas.

I have just read a brilliantly lucid essay on the subject by a clear thinking writer called Malcolm Gladwell. His analysis of complex subject matter is always interesting and thoughtful. His books ‘Tipping Point’, and ‘Blink’ and ‘Outliers’ ably display his intelligence and his accessability. In his essay called ‘Something Borrowed’ (from his book, ‘What The Dog Saw’) Gladwell discusses the matter of plagiarism. It is an essay that many writers and editors would do well to read and read again. He talks about how some of his words had been used by a playwright; the same playwright using the life of a person Gladwell had written an article about. The essay does a good job of making sense of the issue. He too did not feel robbed. He felt it was some sort of compliment.

Ideas are free and should be free… that is what I have always thought and explains why I am not ‘Outraged of Scotland’ when I find someone has used something I have written to inspire something they have written. Gladwell’s conclusion chimes pretty well with my own. He does sympathise with the feelings of the writer who feels robbed, but does not conclude that robbery has taken place. Artists and writers have always been inspired by other artists and writers and their respective works… on a basic level how else do we account for a proliferation of teen-vampire books on the back of the success of that first teen-vampire novel and then film? The point is that when we talk about ownership of ideas, it is absurd to say someone owns a particular structure or theme or event in a fiction. More than that, as Gladwell says, it is nothing short of dishonest to claim a ‘virgin birth’ for ideas… actually he goes further and claims this for words and the order they are given. The chains of influence exist for every writer and every written piece… there is honesty in acknowledging that. I am a writer who freely acknowledges that my writing is open to influence from all over the place... I say 'all over the place' because I do not always know where my ideas come from till long after I have written a piece, and in some cases I am certain that I never know.

Gladwell says it is  ‘dangerous to be overly vigilant in policing creative expression’. Yes, straight replication of another’s work has to be unmasked; but it is the differences that are to be looked for more closely, for in the differences we are likely to see the artist at work and something original will be there.

And for the person who thought it unethical for a writer to borrow from another writer/colleague… art is not ethics. Gladwell points that out too.

It is refreshing to find someone putting into words the thoughts that have been in my head for years. I left a writing group because I did not share their view on ideas… for some of them in the group, ideas are something to be kept secret and hidden in case someone else ‘steals’ them. For me, ideas are something to be shared and if they go on and inspire someone else then that is a reason for celebration not litigation. Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law Professor, in his book ‘Free Culture’ says it best:

‘He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.’

Calling all intelligent and thinking writers everywhere, go read Gladwell for sense on the subject. For hysteria go read the bloggers who claim to tell the 'whole story' without any sense of their own limited perception.