Avoidance of plagiarism - Literary snobbery aside - the
conscious Vs the subconscious when penning historical novels.
I dare any author of historical tomes to deny they
have read books (inclusive novels) and historical accounts of their chosen period, and all before they began
painting pictures with words. No matter what we read, whether it's a fiction novel, a biography or
indeed historical records etc., we glean and thus we gain knowledge. As authors our imaginations can run rife and our
subconscious will log details whilst the conscious mind is distracted by all
manner of things.
However, when we finally settle to the task of writing our novel the "subconscious" jogs the "conscious" and then, as we consider the opening sequence, is it merely our imagination taking hold or is it a memory of something we read, some aspect having struck us as unusual, brilliant or beautiful?
How often have you seen similar opening scenes, or a man riding into the sunset ending?
Take a common occurrence as seen in numerous movies and described in swashbuckling tomes where, at a predestined point, a duel with pistols or swords will take place...
A train leaving the station with a soldier leaning out of a window, and a woman kissing him or waving good bye...
A rake clambering out of a bed, a tussled whore left in his wake, all the while his heart and mind is supposedly centred on the luscious Lady Fairbottom who seems oblivious to his handsome hide...
A widow less pining of late departed because he was cruel, and she's vowed she'll never give her heart to another rogue male. Her resistance to a charming rogue duke or earl lasts one chapter, perhaps two...
Yep, all the above are encountered numerous times in numerous openings of historical romances written by famous and not so famous authors, each a tried and tested formula.
But, and it's a big but, that one word "Originality" is bigger than it looks. Originality is when a scene is "recognizable" but is nonetheless original in every other context, whether as an opening scene, a middle scene, or end scene!
But how can that scene be original if the scene is basically the same? Well it can, because how it's described can be utterly unique, completely one-off, stunningly different! The watchword, if you think a scene you have written is brilliant, capture elements of it and and place it on your Internet search platform and see if other novels crop up as keywords. You can then check to make sure you are not remembering another author's scene action-for-action, same backdrop, same dialogue.
If you were inspired by a wonderful scene and wish to convey a similar incident, make sure it is an entirely different environment in reference to surroundings, characters involved, and the reasons for the action sequence.
It doesn't matter whether you read a novel which was penned four hundred, two hundred, or a mere 20 years ago, or whether it is indeed Fan Fiction: if you use original text or original dialogue in original format it is plagiarism. There is no excuse for plagiarism even if the author is dead and the work is out of copyright. There is no worldly reason if you have the skills of authorship to write fan fiction with new text and dialogue and instead of copying, enrich the reader with prequels, complete variations on original plot by mastery of invention and new original concepts, or go for sequels.
Jane Austen Fan fiction is a mass market money maker, the Bronte Sisters similarly becoming fashionable in the Fan Fiction sector of ready-made characters, ready-made plots, thus authors can expand on or kill, as some ardent fans of the former will tell you is a crime against classical prose. But each to their own entertainment and expectations of re-makes and re-runs of old stories.
No excuse exists for copy/pasting material from books etc., and that goes for everyone!
Publishing dates are key, and authors have every reason to inform readers within books when the first edition was published with ISBN or other, whether it was pre-published by another publisher, whether its title was changed etc.
There have been occasions of plagiarism set against mainstream published authors by other mainstream published authors - not least Georgette Heyer Vs Barbara Cartand, and other famous authors caught cheating. Lists of accusations of plagiarism can be found on the Internet. Some are classic defined plagiarism, other cases deserving close scrutiny such as publication dates: which can and do raise questions as to why publishers have a standard cop-out clause:
"We receive hundreds of manuscripts and the coincidence of similar story lines is commonplace" or words to that effect.
That statement/caveat in itself passes the onus of plagiarism onto the shoulders of their authors, and in most cases the publisher will back the resident author. But what of the small time author who submitted a manuscript to a said publisher, was turned down and is convinced their plot was stolen and even has proof their version of a novel was written first, with excerpts pre-published online with web site date proof that book was the original version, even Amazon Kindle books published long before a big named author book hit the Amazon shelves? Yes, it happens. The small author doesn't stand a chance against big-named authors or big named publishers.
But, when scammers and cheats are abroad the whole word Plagiarism unearths a can of publishing worms and highlights more than many authors would wish for.
The old phrase, "By the Grace of God go I" was never more apt than in the world of publishing today.
Ghost writers have always existed, not least as the hand behind famous celebrity auto biographies, written papers et al. Likewise ghost writers have, and do write novels. Many were commissioned years ago to pen in-house books, serials for magazines and comics alongside illustrators, sometimes they had ludicrous pseudonyms, but nothing they wrote was stolen material, and there were those who ended up writing genre novels.
Be honest, beguile readers with your writing not by stealing but by pure unadulterated love of creating your own worlds within worlds. The difference in work written by those who love their craft, who love specifics, and who love set periods in history - as opposed to those who write for profit - is markedly noticeable to discerning readers who love and have an eye for the unusual: that little nuance of emotional input, or a one-off expression never heard or read before and yet, a learning curve in its own right with knowledge gained of another author's country and unique sense of place one had no prior concept of, nor of regional dialect/phrases.
So yes, Beware in your writing.
