Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Style...Influenced or Borrowed...ok?

This is topic Style...Influenced or Borrowed...ok? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by MarkJCherry (Member # 3510) on :

Alright,

First off, I want to appologize for my absence recently...I was active for a while a few months ago, then some stuff cropped up forcing me to move(yet again) and I've been busy with work.

At any rate, in trying to flesh out my story that I posted the First 13 of a while back, I came to a realization: I want to tell the story of what happened, not what happened after.

So I've begun a complete rewrite of my story. I'm going to keep the old one in case I want to go back to it, but for now I want to write this...

So, my question:
The story I want to write is about the End of the World with a nuclear war followed by a fallout-generated pandemic. However, I don't think I can make the changes I need to make to society go so quickly. I want to break it up into four parts(white, red, black, pale) set many years after eachother, often abandoning previous characters. Now, I got this idea after reading "A Canticle for Leibowitz"(great book by the way) and was wondering if it would be in poor taste to follow in the same style as this book? I feel that while I'm inspired by it, I'd be 'stealing' a very interesting plot design.

What are peoples thoughts?

Thanks,
Just me, Mark

Posted by sojoyful (Member # 2997) on :

It's not a new idea. Check this out, for instance. So you wouldn't be stealing it from anyone, just choosing one particular creative form.

On the other hand, your story has to be unique, or it will look derived. But if your idea is fresh and you take a new perspective, that should be no problem.

Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :

As long as you tell it your way, it's fine. Think of West Side Story vs. Romeo and Juliet.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

We've been retelling stories for years. The Mists of Avalon is, after all, just a retelling of the Arthur legends but from a different POV. It is the POV shift, in that case, that makes all the difference in the world. Execution of the idea is everything.

Write it and see where it takes you.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

I'll tell you what a certain SF pro told me when, after reading about six of his books, I mentioned that I was going to end up writing like him. His answer: You can't. No matter how you try, it will always come out sounding like you.

So, don't worry about it.

Posted by MarkJCherry (Member # 3510) on :

Thanks guys, that's helped me decide.

I wasn't sure if it would be right to use the style. Specifically, the fractioning of the main story into 3 seperate parts with different characters. The story I want to tell takes place over the course of about 200 years, and I couldn't figure out how to break that up smoothly. This is the answer I needed.

Thanks again,
Just me, Mark

Posted by LPMcGill (Member # 3923) on :

Hey, Shakespere wasn't the first person to write Hamlet. He was just the best. Besides, no matter what, unless you copy the book line for line, the end product will be purely you, not someone else.

Posted by MarkJCherry (Member # 3510) on :

haha, no the only semblance between this and Leibowitz will be the 4th (final) section being after the bomb (where Leibowitz starts after the bomb) and the layout(Leibowitz is 3 parts, mine will be 4, but both seperated by a span of decades in my case and centuries in his)

I was just worried that it would be poor taste to use the layout similarly. I'll be using it to my own end and differently, but already everything has fallen into place. Basically it will be 4 shorter stories that tie into eachother, each influencing the next in a large way.

Mark

Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :

I learned in writing class
that if 20 people write from the same ideas,
they would have 20 different stories.

I use concept when I post my story ideas on line, an idea a day for over seven years.

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

Not only is it allowed, it sounds like a pretty sweet book to me. If the back cover told me what you've told us here, I'd plop down eight bucks for it (assuming I had eight bucks at said time, which is quite an assumption. I'd probably actually wait until it hit the used book stores and pick it up there. The point is, I would definitely read it.)

One suggestion that I usually use in this kind of situation, take it or leave it: You may want to wait and give it some time for "Canticle of Whatever" to fade into the back recesses of your mind before you write this, to keep the style theft to a minimum. There are certain authors whose style I tend to pick up autmatically when I read them (Henry James for instance, although he is WAY better at it than I am. Steinbeck is another one.) I try to avoid them when I'm writing, because if I pick up their style too much, I'll just be a pale imitation of a master instead of developing my own mastery of writing.

[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited October 13, 2006).]

Posted by MarkJCherry (Member # 3510) on :

Whoa! Alright, hold on one moment...I just noticed something. It seems I didn't do a good job conveying my meaning when I said, " Now, I got this idea after reading "A Canticle for Leibowitz"(great book by the way) and was wondering if it would be in poor taste to follow in the same style as this book?"

Please, allow me to elaborate. I got the idea to fragment the story from A Canticle for Leibowitz, not the idea for my own story. I was reading Canticle to get me in that mindset, of the apocalypse.

Now, that clarification made(I hope) I want to thank all of you for your support on this. I was worried that I might just be stealing a great idea, cause it's not something I've run across in any other book(Speaker for the Dead doesn't count, that was a seperate book from the first and still had the same character thousands of years later)

The comment from Willy that you'd buy it, really encouraging. Lets me know that the plot itself is a catch. I've been writing all day, and only have a few paragraphs written. I need to just plow through it before going back and correcting things, but I'm already finding glaring problems with the first 13(a POV shift after the first paragraph, for instance) that I need to fix before I post even that. I'll post it[the first 13] tomorrow night though, promise, let you guys take a look.

Thanks again for the encouragement,
Mark