Or, you could invert the question. Douglas Hofstadter, in METAMAGICAL
THEMAS wrote several essays about the nature of originality and
questioned whether really is such a thing at the pure level.
Best,
Glenn
On 6/24/2013 20:34, Deirdre Saoirse Moen wrote:
My take on things, worth what you paid for it.
1) No policy is going to prevent conscious plagiarism.
2) Sometimes unconscious plagiarism occurs; policy won't prevent that.
See: Patton Oswalt:
http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=167
3) One author riffing off another in a non-plagiarizing way is the way
the world turns.
The exercise that convinced me it really typically wasn't a problem was
one I had in grad school (Lawrence Connolly was the prof). We were given
a myth broken into about a dozen plot points. Our goal was to figure out
which element to start with (our eventual story would include all of
them, but not necessarily starting at plot point #1).
We went around the room and the 25-ish authors read what they'd worked
on during our half hour of writing time.
Every one was distinctly different and we'd all started with the same
prompt. Some were science fiction, some were romance, a couple were
mystery. Mine was comedic fantasy.
I've read slush for four different venues and never been asked to sign
anything.
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