<p>The real irony here is that all this free publicity might well help promote sales of both authors’ novels, notwithstanding the dubious claims to literary merit of the whole “chick lit” genre.</p>
<p>In any case, if it was a case of accidental “internalizing” the language of the other novelist, it seems to me only fitting–at the very least–that Ms. Viswanaithan use some of her money to pay the costs associated with editing and printing a corrected version of her novel.</p>
<p>Yes, cloverdale I was being sarcastic in my earlier post #40, at least that was my intent. 
</p>
<p>The passages certainly don’t sound like an accidental repeat from the original author’s book. If she loved and internalized that original book so much, I would have thought she’d recognize the passages once she reread what she wrote. I wonder if she’s being told what to say by her publisher. </p>
<p>Also, I totally agree with a comment you made earlier (post 29), the other writer’s material was so much better. It made me want to read that book.</p>
<p>composers and painters ‘lift’ freely from their influences. How do a handful of lines out of thousands necessarily contaminate the whole? My favorite book titles often turn out to be borrowed from Shakespeare. Popular music often disguises classical phrases. Impressionists quoted from the Japanese. Not that I really care about the fate of this particular person but when it comes to creativity it annoys me that people get so angry and anal about ‘originality’ or even so militant with the line between fiction and fact,…could it be a case of resentment, getting duped in our quest for the ‘new’?</p>
<p>yes, that struck me --how she took really excellent writing and made it so clunky and unstylish. Sorry, with so many people sympathetic to this young woman, I thought you were among them. I have been in thr business for many years --I have never seen anyone pick up material like that accidentally. But I have ordered Schecter’s book, I am always willing to stand corrected and learn something new. It’s hard to believe that in her particular case it was unconscious, because the language she took was so idiosyncratic and particular, so memorable and stylish one would not lift it wholecloth and yet FORGET that one had read it elsewhere. It is possible that plagierism can sometimes be unconscious, but a different style of plagierism. Nope, don’t buy it. It is not believable to me.</p>
<p>rorosen --lifing complete lines like that is stealing. Period. Writers who do that are fired. That has always been the standard of the mainstream publishing industry. I have seen writers lift lines like this plenty of times. I have never had the experience of that writer not being fired. I am glad you are not setting the new standard for publishing: Ethics are challenged enough already without someone setting even lower standards.</p>
<p>cloverdale7, I agree. This could not have been subconscious. The details are too specific. This is what I think happened. She got stuck, went to the novels, perhaps outlined the next chapter based on them, closed the novels, went back a couple days later and “created” her material. </p>
<p>That is my most generous theory. The least generous is that she is lying now. That she blatantly took sentences from the novels, changed specific details and word order to “make them her own.” </p>
<p>Both ways of doing this are stealing. I’m sure that her lawyer has advised her to say that it was subconcious/inadvertent. But I don’t buy it either. You can lift a writer’s style or subject matter, rhythm even. But you don’t lift the kinds of details the Harvard Crimson listed.</p>
<p>cloverdale, your sentences march like tight frightened privates,…</p>
<p>cloverdale, in your professional opinion, will she get to keep her advance? Or is it contingent on producing a second book, which I would think is probably no longer in the picture. </p>
<p>What is the appropriate consequence for this type of thing?</p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know how honest it is, but it is a defense that others have used to deflect some of the blame - George Harrison for example:</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sweet_Lord[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sweet_Lord</a></p>
<p>Rorosen–you may perceive it that the titles “turned out to be from Shakespeare” but believe it or not, the writers in those cases assume an educated audience who recognizes the quotes. These are allusions to masterpieces that the reader would be expected to know. That’s hardly the case here.</p>
<p>If you can’t see the difference, then I don’t know how to explain it further. What would you consider plagiarism, or do you not believe it exists?</p>
<p>However it has been reported that the plot could have been taken from Megan McCafferty’s “Second Helpings”, in which the heroine from “Sloppy Firsts” applies to Columbia. </p>
<p>Kaavya has a lot of 'splainin to do.</p>
<p>I’ve asked why it is permitted for composers and artists to quote from their influences and not writers. I know about footnotes. You can alter lyrics while retaining a melody or paint a moustache on the mona lisa but the ethics change with language. It can’t simply be the clearer recognition implicit in words, in that you can easily compare one work with another. I am curious just how modern this sentiment is. I realize there are forgeries in art but that isn’t the same as passing off anothers work as ones own, in fact that is passing off ones own work as anothers. It seems an interesting subject and I noticed everyone assuming this borrowing to be somehow inherently a crime whereas I ask how it came to be considered so. People get so easily offended when they sense advances upon their precious territories. I refer to those who have been editing for many years. Authors often consider it flattering to have their words usurped,…which doesn’t mean they shouldn’t shake the tree to see if anything besides lawyers fall.</p>
<p>Xiggi…post #33 was hilarious! Thanks…cleverly expressed. </p>
<p>I see that some new posters didn’t know you are a college student. I can see why. Your maturity and eloquence with words, let alone your intelligence, are at a very high level and it is obvious to any reader who may even be reading your posts for the first time.</p>
<p>A standard publishing contract would probably include a warranty (promise) by the author that the submitted manuscript will be an original work of authorship not infringing on works protected by copyright. If she doesn’t fulfill her contract to produce a new, copyrightable work, the publisher doesn’t have to pay her. That means she would have to return her advance on future royalties. So it may be that Ms. Viswanathan has to pay for all the corrective actions that are promised by her most recent statement. And there may still be further consequences, as this literary property is now something that lawyers for publishers and movie companies will examine very closely indeed before any further deals are contemplated. </p>
<p>The [latest</a> stories in the Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513000]latest”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513000) have fairly good discussions of the legal issues involved, but I would point out, contra one of the experts quoted in one of those articles, that there may indeed be a copyright infringement case despite the short length of the verbally identical passages, because protection of “expression” in a literary work is much stronger than for a nonfiction work. For sure, the author didn’t fulfill a contractual obligation, and that could mean she loses all her money.</p>
<p>“I am a huge fan of [McCafferty’s] work.”</p>
<p>These two books are of the young adult novel genre that my 14-year old daughter reads while she eats her snack each afternoon.</p>
<p>For an ambitious writer, these books are good examples of what appeals to a certain demographic, but certainly an Ivy-league student would blush to admit being a “huge fan.”</p>
<p>Cloverdale -I have a question. How do “formula novels” fit into plagarism or not? I’m thinking of say harlequin romances that are basically the same story told over and over again with names changed to protect the innocent. If the sequence of events is basically the same, how much can the language be the same and not be plagarism - how does an editor know? If you write the same story over under different pseudonyms, is that plagarism? I’m asking in general, not in reference to this particular case, where inadvertent or deliberate, she obviously reworded whole passages.</p>
<p>I think a novel needs to be as original as it claims to be by its genre. Harelquin romances are intended to give their readers the same thrill over and over in slightly different guises each time. Novels in non-formulaic genres are supposed to be original fiction invented by individual authors who are re-presenting their perspectives on life as filtered through an individual consciousness and creative talent. Quoting is o.k. if it is not disguised as originality. Wicked is a novel that deliberately piggybacks on The Wizard of Oz but it is very original.</p>
<p>This writer adapted sentences and unique phrases and dialog that form the true substrate of another artist’s creative work. Just tapping the same theme is not enough imo to hang someone, I mean, so much came from the Bible anyway. No one owns the air. Just tapping a similar structure is not enough: How much on that score can be completely original, anyway. We humans have ben writing narratives for a long time. Brown for instance has been said by some to have borrowed the architecture of another book for the Da Vinci Code --but he did not take sentences, he did not take the language. He was exonerated in court --legally he did not go far enough for the other author to prevail. Writers may be referential to famous works, as rorosen has pointed out. Nothing wrong with that. It is common, and perfectly okay.</p>
<p>What happened here is different --the lifting of personal, artistic imagery and unique idiosyncratic dialog. This is more serious. More serious than Blair Hornstine. I cannot imagine she will get to do the second book, so she may have to give back half the advance, but if royalties on this book mount, the windfall to her could still be sizable. </p>
<p>She is not going to be hailed as the next chic lit genious into the future --I am fairly positive that is over for her.</p>
<p>This was clearly plagiarism. My older son is a very talented writer. He wrote a story as a HS freshman that was inverted (last scene first etc.) He had just seen the movie Memento which uses this trick. His story was completely different and all his lines completely original. Since that plot device wasn’t even original to Memento, I had no criticism of his story. If georgemma’s review is corrct, it appears some lesser talent here got published by having the right connections.</p>
<p>This story is on the front page of today’s Boston Globe:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/?p1=Header_TodaysPaper[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/?p1=Header_TodaysPaper</a></p>
<p>From the big smile on her face, I conclude that negative publicity is better than no publicity at all.</p>