Hi everyone,

I'm new to this industry, the writing industry I mean. My name is Pamela and I'm a drama school graduate. I already work as an actress since graduating this year however, I also write, hence why I've joined this website.

I just wandered what everyones thoughts are about sending out plays for competitions and anything else e.g agents, or to fringe theatres to see if it could get commissioned. I'd really like to take these stepa but I've heard so many things about work being copied or exploited without permission. can anyone out there please help with any advice???

Thanks

Pamela

Hi, Pamela, and welcome to writewords.
It is a common fear of writers that their work or ideas will be used by other people. You hold the copyright of anything you write down and submit to literary agents or competitions, but ideas are not copyrightable, and it's amazing how many people have the same idea for a story at the same time - which is possibly why so many people think their work is being copied. It's not, honest. As the old saying goes, 'there's nothing new under the sun'. Go ahead and submit, and good luck.


- NaomiM

Hi Pam
I've just this minute joined this very site so I'm even newer than you!

Thanks for asking the question because it was going to be my first one anyway.

While at College we were all told about plaguarism from WWW. sources in particular and warned that it would invalidate our eaaays and such like. This seems to be a real concern among those that submit work via the "net".

I know that this doesn't actually answer your question but I hope you'll appreciate that others share your concern.

Plus all the answers you get from people with more experience will apply equally to me. So once again thanks Pam

Hi, Rex, and welcome to WriteWords

I have to say there is a big difference between quoting chunks of other people's work for a College essay, and adding chunks of other writers unpublished works into one's own novel. It would be pretty obvious if you did: prose is like fingerprints, everyones' is different.
There are thousands of unpublishable manuscripts doing the rounds of Agents slush piles - would a writer really pinch bits of them? These are unpublished novels, full of faults and typos....ask youself, would you bother pinching an unpublished writer's work?


- NaomiM

Hi N

Thanks for the welcome and my apologies for not getting back sooner but things were getting burnt in the kitchen!

I can definitely see your point but I don't KNOW if someone would pinch bits'n'pieces of someone elses work and claim them as their own. Neither does Pam which is why we're asking.

Now, though, thanks to yourself I get the picture.

I'm a trial member at the moment but if you and Pam are indicative of the membership then I WILL upgrade.

So thank you again and once I manage to suss out navigation around this wee world of ours I'll look forward to reading some of your work N

Big sook ain't I.

Thanks Naomi for all your comments. Rex, welcome to the forum. It is good to know I'm not the only one. It' a pretty good forum, very supportive so you're in a good place.

Pam

xxx

Coming a bit late to this to say hello, Pamela and Rex, and welcome to WW.

Naomi's quite right, it's something that a lot of writers worry about when they're starting, but it's noticeable that the longer they're in the game, the less they worry. Not only do you hold copyright in your work, but it would actually be extremely difficult to integrate some small 'borrowed' bits from one work into another - more trouble than it would be worth, in other words.

The only thing to worry about is that if you put your work online and open to the whole of the net, it can count as 'published' when it comes to submitting work for competitions or publications. So if you're posting on WriteWords, for example, you might want to restrict it to being read only by members, or group members, or whatever.

Emma

Hi, and welcome to both of you. I'd just like to add my reassurance; while I suppose it's possible that a piece of writing might get copied by someone else, in practice I have never heard of any such thing happening. The benefits of a critique group (web-based or face-to-face), far out-weigh the astronomically minimal risk of having your work copied.

A couple of things you can do on WW, to limit the risks even further, is
1) when you upload, set your work to 'viewable only by group members)
2) don't upload the whole thing. Half a play is no good to anyone.

If you're still worried, imagine what would happen if you, yourself, tried to steal someone's work off the internet. Leaving aside any moral considerations, it's just not that simple. How do you find a piece of writing you're sure will be accepted by a publisher? (Not so many of those kicking round on the web...) How do you work that piece of writing into your own novel? Or if you try and lift the whole thing, and by some unimaginable stroke of luck get it published, what happens when you get asked to write the sequel?
'Hooks', or 'ideas' are theoretically easier to steal, but really - honestly - there are no original hooks. Think of one and I'm sure you'll find five books that have done it already. Vampires? Tick. Pirates? Tick. Vampire pirates? A Tick. An idea is nothing on its own, it's the execution that makes it any good.

Steerpike's sister, thanks for the insight. You are totally right, half a play is no good to anyone and as the old saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun, it has all been done before.

Thanks again to everyone for their contributions to my questions.

Pam
xxx

Hi Pam and Rex, and a belated welcome to WW.

We all start off by worrying that someone is going to steal our work, but the brutal truth is that, with very few exceptions, when we’re at the plagiarism-paranoid stage our writing is generally not worth nicking. The paranoia seems to decrease in direct proportion to the improvement in our work. So keep at it, OK?

Dee

Hey there, I totally know how you feel - I was a bit freaked out about sending my book off to people I knew online and the like, because of the worry that somebody might read it and try to pass it off as theirs.

However at that stage my book was only a first draft and a lot of it actually turned out to be really rubbish lol. I'm not too worried about it now.

By the way, I would have no idea how to write a play - that[s really cool! What sort of stuff do you write?