# Inspiration: How much is too much?



## Half-Priced Pregnancy (Sep 2, 2011)

When you come across an idea you like, whether in professional media or in amateur work, how much inspiration from that idea would you consider to be too much? How close can you be to an original work before it's considered plagiarism?

Example: I came across a rpg today where an anthropomorphic cat species' culture was heavily steeped in racism & classism (if that's even a word). Basically, there was a division between 'wilds' (tigers, lions, cheetahs, etc.) and 'domestics' (tabby cats, calicos, so on), along with strong racism between the various, well... 'races' - those resembling lions were higher class than those resembling tigers, and so forth. 

I thought this would make for a great plot point in a story, but I feel as if I would be ripping off the creators of said rpg if I just took the idea and ran with it. Thoughts?


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## sunandshadow (Sep 2, 2011)

The idea of a race/class division between two groups is much too general to be copyrighted - I have a story like this myself, where the two groups are small flying feathered dragons and large flightless feathered dragons.  So, if you use different species I don't think there's any problem.  If you specifically wanted to use wild cats vs. domestic cats, eh, maybe you could do it in a different way, or change the setting, something to make it feel different?


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## Ariosto (Sep 2, 2011)

Orginality is almost non-existant. Nowadays everybody relies in different mixtures and takes of the same archetypes. Now, if you take someone's entire setting or one of his characters an don't give him/her due credit, then you're actually violating copyright laws.


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## Kamatz (Sep 2, 2011)

There's no such thing as a completely original idea.

I draw the plagiarism line like this: if you use an idea exactly as you found it, and add nothing new of your own, then that's plagiarism. As long as you add something to expand the idea into new territory you're good.


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## M. LeRenard (Sep 2, 2011)

Probably more a legal question than a writing question.


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## Kamatz (Sep 3, 2011)

Fuck the man, do it for the art. If there was a hipster shades emote I'd use it make a point of not using it because of how overused and cliche it's become.


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## Kindar (Sep 3, 2011)

if someone looks at what you did and is able to draw a direct line to the, in the case RPG, that inspired it, then you were probably didn't add enough of yourself in it.


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## BRN (Sep 3, 2011)

Don't be afraid to be inspired by media. Themes, philosophies and meanings aren't tied to a particular piece of work; you're not _stealing_ if you use them. Just don't copy the parts of the work that are the original author's.


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## Poetigress (Sep 3, 2011)

Orson Scott Card breaks this issue down pretty well here:

"On Plagiarism, Borrowing, Resemblance, and Influence"
http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/1999-12-20.shtml

(Mind you, I could do without the various political/religious/literary opinions he inserts in this essay, but it still does a good job delineating the differences.)


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## â™¥Mirandaâ™¥ (Sep 3, 2011)

Kamatz said:


> Fuck the man, do it for the art. If there was a hipster shades emote I'd use it make a point of not using it because of how overused and cliche it's become.



B)
(use a straight line | and it's sunglasses, but a bracket smile makes them automatically regular glasses because coolkids don't smile)

to the OP, Classism is hardly an idea that writer made up themselves. Go ahead and use it, just be consciously aware not to copy the other use of the idea word for word


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## Winter (Sep 3, 2011)

All ideas have been used and re-used, many even overused. What we can do is put an original spin on them, and take them somewhere they haven't been before.

To let yourself be inspired by the works of others is good, but you always need to use the inspiration in a novel way. Plagiarism is when you copy both the idea, the setting and the characters at the same time.


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## ampersandestet (Sep 4, 2011)

Poetigress said:


> Orson Scott Card breaks this issue down pretty well here:
> 
> "On Plagiarism, Borrowing, Resemblance, and Influence"
> http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/1999-12-20.shtml
> ...



This, a thousand times. Try to use, at most, 5-10% of the idea. Do not use the setting, the world, the characters. However, ideas are always good to form a foundation on, and from there create your own literary world and adventure, as it were.


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## â™¥Mirandaâ™¥ (Sep 4, 2011)

ampersandestet said:


> This, a thousand times. Try to use, at most, 5-10% of the idea. Do not use the setting, the world, the characters. However, ideas are always good to form a foundation on, and from there create your own literary world and adventure, as it were.



What if it's Fanfic :y


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## Antonin Scalia (Sep 5, 2011)

While completely original ideas may be hard to come by, you can still formulate your own by reading mounds of literature and compiling some jumping off points from them.


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## kitreshawn (Sep 5, 2011)

Tybalt Maxwell said:


> What if it's Fanfic :y


 
Fanfics are a completely different area that launch off from known source material but are not canon.  Thus it is given a lot more leeway.  For example, you could not have a Sonic Fanfic unless at least some of the major Sonic characters make an appearance.

In addition to the article already posted (it is very good) I have something that is much more of a rule of thumb:

The moment you start to be uncomfortable is when you have crossed the line and started to borrow too much from other sources.  This is doubly true when you start to worry about people identifying your sources too easily.  At that point it isn't your story anymore.  Yes every story element has been investigated already and it is typical to find that authors were inspired by several other sources and borrowed ideas from them to tell their own story, but that requires internalizing the borrowed elements and making them your own.  Simply finding a cool story element in one story and transplanting it directly into yours won't cut it.


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## ampersandestet (Sep 6, 2011)

Tybalt Maxwell said:


> What if it's Fanfic :y



I guess I am forever wrong then. :V


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## Bucephalus (Jan 22, 2012)

I think it's a matter of generality as well. The use of a particular story element can't really be called stealing because there are only so many such elements to be had. That's why a lot of successful adaptations of the Hero Archetype story are accused of copying plot points. They look similar to so many other stories because the idea of the hero's journey is older than print. Similarly, saying that any one writer invented the division of non-human species as an allegory for racism is ludicrous. 

The example I like to use for cases like this actually centers on a rather specific idea, but you can still make something original out of such inspiration. There's a webcomic called FreeFall (http://freefall.purrsia.com/default.htm) I follow that makes a point of a wolf character having difficulty drinking from a glass because of her muzzle. She has to lap out of a bowl like a dog. I thought that was an interesting idea, so I applied it to a wolf character of mine. The character is different, and the ways in which this leads into the plot and affects character interactions are different. Had I duplicated sections of narrative where this trait is discussed by the characters, or used some of the scenarios where this fact has come up in the webcomic in my own work, that would be plagiarism. Likewise, I'm sure that there are plenty of finer points to a broad concept like racial tension or class divide. Make sure that those come out of your head and not your inspiration. Meet in the middle as you write this into the story. Take the existing work and make the new idea fit to it. If you're altering the story a lot to accommodate this outside idea, that should be a sign that you're using too much content that's not yours.


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