HOL

Lately, I've been reading a series of books, The Mortal Instruments (by Cassandra Clare), and I've discovered that there is a huge uproar saying that she copied the story lines of another author. I tried reading the book(s) of the other author, to see if there really was a similarity between the two, but couldn't get into the other person's books, so have no idea (from my own looking into it) if this uproar has any validity or not.

Thing is -- there is so much in the world of fiction, science fiction, fantasy, adventure stories where it is so much the same.

Some folks have written that all epic fantasy stories started with J. R. R. Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings books. But ... didn't he use a lot of the myths and legends of earlier centuries in his writings? Yes, he created a LOT of his world of Middle Earth, but even that is said to be equivalent to the term Midgard of Norse mythology.

This topic isn't intended to start a lot of disparagement of different authors and their works. What it is intended to start is a discussion of similarities of general story outline -- who has done this? When?

Start with Shakespeare! What books and stories have been written which point directly to, or appear to be based on something he has written?

I look at Romeo and Juliet ... and see West Side Story. Yes, they are the same ... and yet, oh so different.

Excellent post, Tarma

I think about this a lot and it's one reason I had to take a break from fantasy-I was getting too critical because my brain had reached saturation point with all the similarities between books.
I think I abandoned 'The Sword of Shannara' because I'd read Tolkien so much that the quest narrative involving many races to journey to the place of darkness was just too wrapped up in LOTR for me to accept it in any other way. (Which is silly because it's one of the most common fantasy plots there is)

Now I'm slowly getting back into my favourite genre with a new apreciation for what works and why many people use what is ostensibly the same thing. I'm re-reading Eragon which is quite Tolkien-esque but also similar to Star Wars (the journey of a farmboy with a massive destiny and his mentor) and have a far more ambivalent reaction to books like sword which I was too quick to brand as unoriginal. And that's because I use recognisable forms in my own writing: I'm not an original, boundry pushing writer (if any of those truly, truly exist-we all have influences!). I'm one who writes stories people enjoy and borrows from the rich wealth of cultures we have at our fingertips.

We've all seen the year long controversies about the elements of Harry Potter that people think are too similar to other peoples work. Whether or not they are is a matter of opinion. But my tutors always tell our writing seminars to borrow shamelessly and through borrowing, we'll realise how to make what we borrow our own.

I'm not quite in agreement with whoever said 'If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism. If you steal from two, it's research.' or Picasso and his 'good artests coppy, great artests steal' approach but I think drawing inspiration is totally justified, providing it leads the way into your own story. (That being said, I had someone truly steal my work last year and it was one of the worst feelings in the world).

Shakespeare is an interesting example. I think that's mainly because people feel justified in announcing that they're writing something inspired by Shakespeare whereas announcing that you're writing in the mode of an author nearer to your own time is somehow less permissible.

After talking extensively about characters from Discworld in one of the classes, and some prompting from my friends, I've decided to take a look at Terry Pratchett's novels. At first I was alarmed by the sheer amount of books and picked the first book available going from #1 from the library. It was Wyrd Sisters, #6 in the Discworld series. At first I was afraid that it won't be easy immersing myself into the world well after it was established, but I didn't struggle as much as I thought I would.

Immediately I noticed the similarities with Shakespeare. The book introduces us to Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick - the three witches. King of Lancre is murdered by his cousin. The crown and the king's baby are given to the three witches, who then hand them over to a group of traveling actors. While waiting for the child to grow up, people get angry, so the witches move everything forward in time.

Just the theme of three witches is glaringly an homage to Shakespeare's Macbeth, even repeating the play's first line in the book, spoken by one of the witches:

When shall we three meet again?

The three witches in Macbeth are also known by the names of The Weird Sisters, so the parallel is also in the book title 'Wyrd Sisters'. There are also several pieces of dialogue in the book that are almost word for word from Macbeth (Magrat: Can you tell by the prickling of your thumbs? vs. Witch 2: By prickling of my thumbs. Something wicked this way comes.) or allude to other Shakespeare works, such as Julius Caesar.

I do not mind if people take inspiration from older works or even contemporary ones. As long as it is obvious it is your story. So, the way Pratchett took inspiration or paid homage to Shakespeare, I don't mind, I even think it enriches the story, but there are some people that just take the story and run with it (Juliet Immortal, Ophelia to name a few) and it is unbelievable. Yes, Shakespeare is in public domain, but seriously, use a little imagination.

The book I picked up, hoping it would be something else entirely than what it was, felt like a copy of Alice in Wonderland. The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver is a children's book that focuses on a young girl who goes on an adventure to the Below to save her brother's soul that has been stolen from these spider like creatures called The Spindlers. While the book does have its own plot line that is different than Alice, Liza still comes across a rat, much like Alice gets the rabbit, and she also meets a bunch of interesting creatures and must go through challenges by using her own knowledge.

I wouldn't say I got bored reading this book, as I didn't, but it was too closely tied with the Alice storyline for me that it didn't feel like an original story. I felt like I had read it before. Others have compared it to Coraline by Neil Gaiman which I am ashamed to tell Tarma that I have yet to read. Though, I have it on my reading list.

The Spindlers is a dark fantasy with "horrors" mixed in, but I think the point of the book is to show the power of friendship as well as what a person can do if they set their mind to something. It also points out many things that people take for granted or don't think about such as animals having feelings (which I really liked). It brings in hope and how it can be planted in others by just a little love and also how too much knowledge can be very dangerous. It does have lessons in a way that children can understand, maybe a little more than Alice did though I still prefer Lewis Carroll's telling of this well-known adventure type story.

I decided to go ahead and read Coraline next so I could understand the similarities others were seeing with it and Alice in Wonderland. Truthfully, I only saw mild similarities in comparison with when I read The Spindlers. While Coraline does involve this "other" world where we see a talking cat much like the Cheshire Cat and a world kind of turned upside down in a way, what I really did like about the book is that even though Neil Gaiman, the author, may have drew from Alice some, the book kept me interested. It had a dark side since it was made to be a horror story for his daughters and really felt like it stood apart.

My favorite part of the book though, and I think what makes it fall under the modern classic genre, is that it has such a crucial point for children and adults alike. There is a quote in the book where Coraline says, "when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.” That stuck out to me so much in reading this book because I've been down that road recently, and I remember thinking, I'm not brave for going through this and being scared. But truthfully, I really was being brave because I was so scared and did it anyway. Another quote that made it stand out is this one, "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” Someone very important to me gave me a dragon that I named Norberta. It's a miniature figurine of a gold dragon, and it was to represent that I could beat the dragons in my path in order to get the treasure in the cave I sought. It's all metaphorical of course, but always a major life lesson.

If you like the Alice in Wonderland story type, I highly, highly recommend you to read this book. While The Spindlers was okay, it was nothing in comparison to this wonderful piece of literature.

I finished reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and realized once again how much I love this book. The way ome thinks as a child is often lost among adulthood and this book really helps me get in touch with that again. All of the puns and riddles and poems in the book are mind boggling but also so very freeing that they're not what they're supposed to be unless they are what they're supposed to be.

However I was very upset at the end when Alice is woken up from her whimsical dream by her sister. I wanted the story to continue. And it shall in the second part which I will be reading shortly.

I think this story set a backdrop for many stories to come later on such as the others I posted about earlier in the school year because it was so well written and thought provoking while allowing one to live "outside of the box" and experience the joy of childhood again.

I finally finished Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There and was able to see many connections that may have inspired parts of Neil Gaiman's Coraline which I read a few months ago.

After reading the first and second book of Alice's adventures, there was one thing that I noticed. Alice, in both books, loses her identity and begins to wonder who she is. In the first one, it is based on how often she changes. In the second, she enters a place in the wood she can't remember her name. It makes me wonder if some of this is synonymous with children in an adult world and growing up.

Some could be from my own experience of being a child yet being forced to be an adult and confusion settling in on who I was. And Alice dreams such nonsensical things to make sense of a world that makes none.

Either way, Alice is certainly a Ravenclaw as logic is favored yet thinking outside of the box is what really helps in solving riddles. After all, she did dream up all the poems, riddles, and stories herself in the end.