The goal is surely to create something as original as possible, and only the worst kind of cheat would feel good enough about stealing someone else's idea to carry it through an entire novel.

Who is to say where the muse will strike, Waxlyrikal. It could be something in the paper, someone pitching an idea or an anecdote down the pub. It the author has the stamina to carry it through an entire novel, then good luck to them - including JKR.
Although, personally I would stear clear of biographies, which are are a bit like buses: you tout one round the agents and half a dozen others come barreling down the road

- Naomi

Naomi, that's so true, isn't it. Sometimes it's because someone's died - or their spouse has, or the documents have been released under the 30 year rule, or whatever. But I do think it's a zeitgeist thing too - you have an amazing brainwave of an idea, but of course it's been prompted by some combination of external events and interestingnesses, and so quite likely someone else does too.

Emma

I think Picasso said something along the lines of: poor artists copy, great artists steal. I think there's quite a bit of truth in that.

On a couple of occasions a friend has come up with an idea or a story twist and I've asked if I can use it. Likewise, I've often helped others with the development of ideas. I guess on the smaller scale, this is all shared experience, so a kind of gentle plagiarism exists, and that's fine.

I suppose I'm trying to define the difference between what someone takes an influence from, and what someone steals wholesale. I disagree with Picasso, actually, I don't think openly stealing someone's work is justifiable at all, and I'm sure he was being his usual flippant self.

I look around me these days, and I see plagiarism all over the place. The industry and the movies are rife with it, from films like The Prestige, which is a blatant rip off of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, to books like HP and yes, yes, the DVC. I worry that people have given up seeking to be original, when there are cash cows to be aimed at instead, and I feel somehow that the issue should be addressed.

JB

I've been v. interested to read this Thread when today's Times features a story about Ian McEwan having been accused of plagiarising bits of Atonement from a memoir by Lucilla Andrews.

As others have said, there's no copyright in ideas - only in the expression. Accordingly and much as I loathe The Da Vinci Code, the judge's decision in the copyright infringement case brought against Dan Brown was a solid one. However, where someone reproduces distinctive text that was first produced by someone else, then the original writer deserves at the very least, an acknowledgement of that fact because plagiarism is determined by whether you are passing someone else's work off as your own. I note that Atonement does provide an acknowledgement to Lucilla Andrews and Ian McEwan apparently talked about her work as having helped him in producing the book.

I don't think McEwan ever pretended he hadn't used her book, did she? I think she had been a nurse, so her novels would be, sort of, primary sources.

The irony is that those parts of Atonement are horribly info-dumpy and the least convincing part of the novel, which otherwise I love. Just shows, even if it is a novel, you shouldn't write with your pen in one hand and your source in the other - it's always a bad idea.

Emma

<Added>

I mean, did he, of course.

And yes, the DVC decision was the right one. The two HBHG authors who brought the original case are said to be appealing. I hope someone succeeds in changing their minds this time.

<Added>

And yes - on Front Row this evening - it's her memoir he used, which counts as research, not plagiarism, or so John Sutherland opined. But the couple of short passages that were read were more-or-less word for word copies. My quarrel with him is on the grounds of aesthetics, not morality.

I like the Japanese outl;ook where to copy is regarded as the way to learn, it's an honourable path: find the best, copy it, and then go further and make it better still. They've done that with almost everything. I don't see why someone shouldn't pinch a story idea if they can write it ten times better than the original cos people will then get to enjoy it ten times more.

Z

The two HBHG authors who brought the original case are said to be appealing.

Really Emma? Are they single?

Good points here, yes. I can see how imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I can also see how lots of untalented people are making huge amounts of money off the talented, and that sucks. O, to live in a perfect world, eh?

JB

Just shows, even if it is a novel, you shouldn't write with your pen in one hand and your source in the other - it's always a bad idea.

Very good point.

Oh yes. Entire sections of my edit-in-progress novel have had to be 'humanised', because a lot of research went into the book, and in some parts, it really did come across like an 'info dump', copied in a more fictional language from some old tome or other. I think it's important to reinterpret these things in your own voice as much as possible.

JB

The industry and the movies are rife with it, from films like The Prestige, which is a blatant rip off of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Er, doesn't The Prestige novel by Christopher Priest predate Susanna Clarke by nearly a decade ? Anyway you can never have too many novels or films about magicians. Brian Moore's last novel The Magician's Wife is fabulous. And I understand that Mitchell and Webb are doing a comedy movie about magicians in the new year. (Let's hope it'sup to the standard of Peep Show and better than their recent sketch show.)

But even if The Prestige had been an original screenplay which postdated JSAMN, surely the point is that there is a great deal more to a piece of work than a basic plot, such as "two magicians feud". (Which come to think of it, describes The Magician's Wife as well, to a lesser extent). If one of us spent a year of our lives developing a novel or a screenplay around the premise "two magicians feud" I'm sure the end result would be something vastly different from any of the above sources and (I feel) that any subsequent accusations of plagiarism would be somewhat unfair.

This is the latest offering from Macmillan New Writing, courtesy of Grumpy Old Bookman:

"M.F.W. Curran: The Secret War

The year is 1815, when angels and daemons walked our streets.... So that's straightforward enough. Fantasy. To be precise, historical fantasy, beginning at the battle of Waterloo. And this book will be published on 5 January 2007.

Captain William Saxon and Lieutenant Kieran Harte, survivors of Waterloo, become involved in a secret war between Heaven and Hell. Daemons and angels, vampyres and knights, clash for the future of mankind. And the Vatican, needless to say, has clandestine ambitions. The Vatican always has clandestine ambitions. There must be a book somewhere in which it doesn't, but I've never come across it yet.

Oh, and by the way, this one was fifteen years in the writing. I just thought I'd tell you that to encourage you."

Summarising novels is never fair, I know...

Emma

So following that post I went and read Grumpy Old Bookman, which I've never visited before - great blog by the way - and I was struck by the rather mean-spirited comment attached to today's entry:

More distressing than MNW is the way writers compete to come up with the most incredible bios with which to impress readers. Mr. Curran, a writer since age ten, had to have been 17 when he started this book, yet in the meantime also wrote another “book,” another novel, a dozen short stories, written for a magazine, worked for a bank and the government and (huff, huff) been a freelance journalist. All by age 32.

Mr. Drapes shows a bit of humor in noting he has written for chocolates since age nine, but maintains he is an “award winning” short story and travel writer who is “widely published,” yet has no visible presence on the internet.

Ms. Grosser, at least, is a halfway believable personality who, while she too has written since infancy, at least took a decade or two off to travel and do “life.”

To think that I wasted so much of my childhood on childish things.

Which sounds to me like so much sour grapes but I suppose makes a point about applying a little restraint when composing author biographies.

I must admit the fact that The Secret War was started when the author was 17 and finished when he was in his early thirties worries me somewhat. Now I know lots of novels have long gestations (didn't The Crimson Petal And The White take twenty years or so?) and very talented precociously young novelists do exist (how old was Zadie when she wrote White Teeth ?) but that one piece of information in the author bio substantially puts me off reading the sort of book I might otherwise be prepared to try (hey I've never read much historical fantasy and it sounds interesting...).

O griff, I feel like such an ass, but I bet it's not the last time that I open my mouth without knowing what the hell I'm talking about!!!

I didn't realise The Prestige was a book before it became a film. I also found myself dragged along to the movie on Monday night, and my word, what a great movie! There I sat, eating popcorn and humble pie, sinking into my seat with wonder and shame. Apologies to all concerned.

JB