Writing workshops open up many fears for new writers. One of them is submitting copies of original work to complete strangers. I have been in workshops where not all students handed back a critiqued manuscript of my work. Did it end up as recycled paper or something more nefarious? With the advent of cyberspace, the threat of bits of ourselves being  turning viral is even more plausable. We all want to believe our work is unique and plagiarism-worthy, but I am reminded time and again that no human thought is original.

According to Christopher Booker there are only seven basic plotlines within the canon of human literature, authors merely rework them is new ways. Slumdog Millionaire, based on a novel, Q & A, by Vikas Swaroop has won accolades. Critics have devoted columns to the narrative of the ‘new India’. While the culture of the story was alien to movie-goers (including most Indians), the spine of the story, a popular US game show, was relatable. Amid the hype what was overlooked was that the Cinderella plot was ancient and intimately familiar.
For the last two decades commonwealth writers in Diaspora have enjoyed an interest in their work. For a century we endured colonials like Kipling and Forrester writing about India. Now, as Salman Rushdie put it, “The empire writes back.” We are told that the most original stories in the UK, Canada and the US are coming from the immigrant experience. But wait, isn’t ‘the stranger coming to town’ motif a tried and trusted one? Wasn’t the normalcy of the Bennet household in Pride and Prejudice disrupted by the arrival the stranger, Mr. Darcy? Wasn’t Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire a stranger to New Orleans? It is a good way to introduce the reader to a world he may not be familiar with. Or a familiar world can be critiqued with fresh eyes.
The only aspect of literature that is unique is the author’s voice. Weak writers imitate others’ voices, strong writers cultivate their own. Editors are always on the lookout for an original voice because they know an original plot is impossible.

Perhaps because of this very fact, no copyright law exists in Canada to protect writers from stealing ideas. Sarah Sheard’s novel Almost Japanese (about a young girl’s obsession with a Japanese musician) came out almost at the same time as her friend and neighbor Ann Ireland’s, A Certain Mr. Takahashi (about a  young girl’s obsession with a Japanese pianist). Co-incidence? Legally speaking, yes.

Sometimes when reading works of fiction I am stunned by the similarities between one of the characters and myself. Mostly this speaks to the author’s talent for touching upon universal truths. But when the writer is a friend, the resemblance feels more suspicious than empathetic. “Every author steals from others,” says Wayson Choy. “But make sure you only steal from the best.” Wayson maintains that as long as we are personalizing whatever incident, sentence or detail we borrow, we are not plagiarizing. What is being handed down is a template, from one generation to another, from guru to disciple.

What if we recognize specific details about ourselves in a fictional character who is none too flattering? One American non-fiction author laughed, “Aw, Honey, I’ve been sued so many times I’ve lost count.” I was surprised to learn that anyone, even Mel the plumber, may sue a writer for “defamation of character” if he is portrayed in an unflattering light. This applies to fiction also. Despite the disclaimer at the start of the book—this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to living persons is purely co-incidental—a person who recognizes specific and indentifying details in works of fiction may sue the author. When Seinfeld became popular, a man claiming to be the real George Costanza sued (and lost) Jerry for $100 million.

Then there is the prickly issue of quoting others’ works. In my writing group recently I submitted a story where I quote a few lines of song lyrics. One of the group expressed concern of the legality of this. I investigated and found the legalese to be beyond my comprehension. The only part that made sense to me was:-

Copyright protection exists from the moment a work is created in fixed—or tangible—form, and authors automatically hold the copyright to their material (authors may thereafter transfer their rights to other parties, as they commonly do in publishing contracts). Protection, however, exists only for the particular expression of ideas, not for the ideas themselves, so only verbatim use of copyrighted material need be cleared. Yet authors are free to quote even verbatim small amounts of copyrighted published material under the doctrine of “fair use.”

…Although there is no precise definition of the concept of fair use, there are some informal quantitative rules of thumb that we can apply:  it is inadvisable to use more than three or four lines of poetry or song lyrics without permission. If the material quoted—poetry or prose—represents a significant portion of a work, permission must be secured regardless of the total number of words.

Clear? Don’t quote me on it though.