INSPIRARE
Inspiration, the word, comes from the latin inspirare meaning ‘to breathe in’. The idea was that the gods breathed down on you and this explained where ideas came from, the inspired artist breathed in the breath of these benevolent gods.
Of course the gods have all left the world now and we understand a little differently what inspiration is. But, as is the way of the ancients, they come a little closer to truth than might at first be acknowledged.
I once read a blog post where a woman was saying how sad she was and how her partner had suggested she write a ‘happy thought’ down on a piece of paper before going to bed, which she did. In the morning she felt a little better and hung the piece of paper on the branch of a tree outside her house. I breathed in and was inspired to write a short flash around this to further cheer this woman and I ‘gifted’ it to the woman on her blog. Her comment to me in reply and still on her blog was: “Douglas - what a beautiful flash, I am honoured to have inspired you, thank you. (Although the "Tania" obviously isn't me, you ain't heard me sing!)”
And she was right. The Tania in what I had written was not her. That’s how inspiration works. We breathe in, taking inside us all that is around us; then we breathe out again and what is expelled is changed from what went in. That’s the creative process. I was so pleased with the flash and the positive response it had brought forth that I gave it to a magazine to be published so that more of the world would see the ‘happy’ and ‘positive’ message in the flash.
Some time later the blog writer woman and I fell out and she then said that I had been a thief to have so stolen from her life in the flash I had written. From one who was honoured to one now called thief, all in the falling out. She surely can’t have it both ways: that it is not her and then it is; that she is honoured by what was written and then crying thief!
Another writer, in explanation of his own written work, frequently says he just makes things up. I have taken issue with this before. It is not only a simplistic model of creativity, it is also a little wrong. He breathes in before he breathes out. He wrote a flash about a person with a whole life mapped out in post-it notes and thought he was just making something up. He had seen the film ‘Memento’ and no doubt various adverts that had walls of post-it notes in them, or noticeboards outside churches and in the windows of newsagents with post-its or small handwritten notices on them. Maybe there were other things in the air he breathed, too. But sure as eggs is eggs, he did not create his flash in a vacuum where there is nothing breathed in!
Once you understand this basic fact about inspiration (and about creativity) then the whole world of ideas in fiction becomes muddled. We see too plainly that ideas are the very air that artists breathe in and so the whole matter of the ownership of ideas becomes a web that even lawyers cannot really untangle.
I read a book of short stories once. I was not overly impressed (others were), but one story had a clever structure to it, told in reverse chronology. It was not a new thing. I had seen an episode of the tv show ‘ER’ that had employed the same reverse chronology and in very much the same way. I had myself, a year previously, made notes for a love story that I wanted to tell in reverse. I breathed in. Separately, I was also interested in a love story that involved one of the parties having synaesthesia (I thought it would give rise to some lyrical prose by the synaesthetic lover) and I made notes to that effect. My youngest son then told me one day that people struck by lightning sometimes experienced synaesthesia due to the damage done to their brains. I breathed in. When I eventually breathed out I had written a story called ‘Monday’s Smell of Burnt Toast’, a reverse chronology story of a man struck by lightning and suffering synaethesia and memory loss and not remembering that he had been about to throw his marriage away for another woman; now he was trapped by his synaethesia and his memory loss, trapped in a loveless marriage. My story owed an obvious debt to the reverse chronology story I had read in the unimpressive collection and I was not ashamed of that and did not try to hide it. After all, this was how creativity worked as I understood it. I had not copied this person’s story, not a single line of mine was hers. I had merely breathed in and breathed out. What could be wrong with that? It’s what all writers and artists do, and if they are being honest or self aware then they will know this and admit that it is true.
So, what is plagiarism then? Words have dictionary meanings and ‘baggage’. The dictionary says at its simplest that plagiarism is passing off someone else’s work as your own. In the using of someone else’s actual words it might seem that this is obviously plagiarism. In simply adding your name to someone else’s work, then this is clearly plagiarism. In the world of academia to use someone else’s research and ideas as if they were your own without acknowledgement of the source, then this is called plagiarism. But what of the world of literature where ideas are so much a part of the cross-fertilisation of creativity and in the very air we breathe? Does not every ‘Dracula’ book owe a debt to Bram Stoker’s original at least, (including the whole ‘Twilight’ series!)? Is this plagiarism? Does not ‘Harry Potter’ owe so much to ‘Billy Bunter’ and ‘The Four Marys’ and all those boarding school kids books that have been ‘in the air’ for so long? Is this plagiarism?
The ‘baggage’ that goes with the word plagiarism is a heavy load. It cuts into the fingers and draws blood, pulls bones from sockets and stretches tendons till they snap. People who use the word should, therefore, be very careful to use it correctly. I have challenged some of those people to define what plagiarism is – as they have used it. Not one has come here to do so. Not one has attempted to define it on their own blog. I have tried to say what it is not here on my blog. I have tried to look at the matter with a common sense approach. I accept that inspiration in art is something ‘breathed in’ and then ‘breathed out’ again and that influence cannot be escaped. So I say again here, who can tell me what plagiarism is when we are talking literature or art? And if it is just something all artists do (have to do) then why does the ‘baggage’ of the word weigh so heavy?
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