The Art of Imitation (Or maybe just bad writing?)

"There are no originals ideas, there are only original people." --Barbara Grizzuti Harrison.

I wanted to post Letter #5 here. I really did, I had ever intention of revising it over the weekend and then posting it Monday evening. That was my plan. But then . . . but then I read over letter five and I realized it's a mess. A sticky mess. Not to mention it has some huge plot holes. It needs some major reconstruction. I was particularly struck, not only by the bad writing, but some awfully familiar images. What's this about an elven ring?

Here, let me quote the part: "The ring was very old and thick. It was a smokey gray with a tint of red, when I moved it in the light. It had been looped through a simple string."

A few sentences later, Ange's mother says: "It's an elven ring, given to Winding many years ago. Your grandfather kept it first and now I'm giving it to you. It will help protect you in Geyona. . . . Never put it on your finger Ange, unless you are in grave danger."

When I originally wrote this letter I must have recently watched the Lord of the Rings movie. I'm not quite sure how to fix this, but it got me wondering about that fine line between imitating and stealing someone's ideas. And that in turn led me to think about cliche and then plagiarism and whether originals ideas even exist.

I've heard it before that "there are no originals ideas." And recently I read a review that touched on the subject of originality.

It was a review of new Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In it the reviewer complains about the cliche imagery, comparing it to other blockbuster movies like Star Wars, and Harry Potter, even though he also makes the comment that "It’s hard to blame the movie for stealing—after all, Lewis had these ideas long before Rowling, Lucas, et al." 

(Here's the review if you're interested. I just realized I haven't even seen the second movie.)

Oh, and while we're on the subject of originality, I also found some lovely blogs about legally stealing ideas and recycling writing ideas.

Of course, there is no excuse I can make for bad writing or poor imagery. If you write well enough you can get away with breaking the rules, or borrowing images. Retelling fairy tales is all about borrowing a story and reworking it into something new and, hopefully, better or at least more entertaining than the original source. I'll just have to come up with a way to fix the elven ring problem. Perhaps I can just change the way I describe the ring? Or maybe I should take a journey to a mountain of doom and gloom and just destroy the ring. Anyone want to come along?

What I've realized is I have a lot of fixing to do before I can post letter five. I better get started on it.

And so . . . coming soon.