On Sat, 26 Apr 2003 18:22:48 -0500 Shalanna  writes:
> At 11:46 AM 4/26/2003 -0700, Lezlie wrote:
>  >[My opening] [s]ounds a lot like something out of the book by 
> Lousia 
> Teish, "Jambalaya".
> 
> Oops!  I've never read that one, but it would be worth picking up at 
> the 
> bookstore or library just to be sure I'm not treading too close.  It 

Or, rather, imho, NOT.
If you've never read it, you can't be tainted by it.
Which is REALLY dangerous when it's close.

> Still, it   scares me.

write what's in your heart and let the chips fall
If you obsess on "this has been done before" you'll gag yourself.
DEFINITELY don't go out and buy the "this reminds me of...." books until
AFTER you're quite, quite done.
IMHO.


> Here's what I've always feared:  ...I'm typing on one of my creations. 
It's time for a scene 
> break and 
> I ask myself, now what?  Where to?  My characters need to pop into 
> another 
> place and grow and stretch or solve the mystery with a clue or 
> whatever.  Suddenly a scene materializes as an image like a jewel in 
> my 
> mind.  The storyline flows without effort as a gorgeous paragraph 
> flows out 
> of my fingers.  The Muse is singing!  Hooray!
> 
> Okay, I finish and sell the book (obviously this IS a fantasy, isn't 
> it?!?!) to New York.  I read the first advance review and we get a 
> call 
> from a lawyer.  "You copied three paragraphs and a situation out of 
> I. P. 
> Frehley's _Yellow River_, published by Bantam in 1987.  Our lawyers 
> will   get with your publisher's lawyers."

except, NO ONE lives in the Ivory Tower.
We're ALL influenced by what we read and so on and so forth.
It's HIGHLY unlikely, unless you have a super extraordinary mind, that
you'd type out verbatum that scene whathaveyou.
And so and so probably cribbed from such and such.

As I say, and strongly feel, while we do the best to make whatever comes
out of our fingers OURS, it all has roots in our experience (real and
imagined). 

> Okay, that's extreme as imagined by the Worry Queen.  Still, what if 
> you 
> duplicated a metaphor someone else has used, or came up with the 
> same 
> phrase?  It must happen all the time.  

I am SURE of that.

> No one's sued over it . . . yet.

*Should* the situation arise, you ask around and get a good lawyer (or,
trust your publishing company to have a good legal dept.).

Or, give up writing because it MIGHT happen. 

Exactly. 
There are enough ways we chase our tails (and, for what it's worth, when
I'm actively writing fiction I *DO* stop reading that genre for the
duration to prevent inadvertant "bleed du jour.")

Yeah, the Ambrose debacle is fresh on people's minds, but that WAS
"cribbing" -- or, as *I* think/suspect (without having studied the
particulars of the case), sloppy note taking re: sourced mat'l vs.
original.
He mea culpa'd, the legal bits were straightened out..... and life goes
on.

But Inspiration works a lot like electricity -- instead of electrons
knocking other electrons loose, ideas knock ideas loose. 
The TRICK, of course, is to color them completely your own; and never
EVER intentionally steal (the line of steal vs "play off of" varies in
width across writers. Yours sounds like a freeway median, and that's
FINE. Just don't push yourself over the edge, if you can help it).


> when we see the British doing a certain new kind of book, we can't 
> get   enough of it and start to clone it!

Maybe Merlin's dreams come through more clearly in Britain.....

Anyway.
Sure, question your work re: sources, but don't craze yourself over it.
INTENT also counts, imho.

But that's *MY* mileage.....

I really LIKE your beginning -- don't strangle it with its umbilical
cord, 'kay?
====
It is amazing how frequently we march off to battle without knowing what
the war is all about. --Harriet Goldhor Lerner; "The Dance of Anger"
====
Of course, most of us secretly believe that we have the corner on the
"truth" and that this would be a much better world if everyone else
believed and reacted exactly as we do. --Harriet Goldhor Lerner; "The
Dance of Anger"

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha