Recently I followed a poet whose work I really, really liked until I read something about her accusing another poet of plagiarism just because the other poet wrote in short sentence fragments, like she did.
The poet admitted that, while the other poet did not plagiarize her words, she plagiarized her style.
Can we plagiarize style?
This question has followed me around the last two weeks. And, at the end of them, here is where I land:
Words are one thing. Style is another.
I don’t even know how many writers and artists have informed my style of writing. Cormac McCarthy, Maria Rilke, William Faulkner, Erma Bombeck, Julia Cameron, Maya Angelou. Toni Morrison. I’ve always loved her. I want to be her when I grow up.
There are many, many more.
They all live in my work—in my sentence fragments and the intentional run-ons and the lyrical bend. But that doesn’t mean I plagiarize, because they did not invent sentence fragments or intentional run-ons or lyrical bends. They just used them.
I knew early on in my writing life that there was nothing new under the sun, that I could not invent anything that hadn’t already been done, somewhere, at some point in time. I knew that my voice might be unique, because it is mine and it is an intricate hybrid of all the writers I’ve read and studied over the years, but my words and my topics and my style have all been done before.
As artists, we are a sum total of the artists we have known and loved and studied. We read books, and we cannot help but become better for that writer’s style (if it’s a good book). We study paintings, and we cannot help but absorb some of that painter’s technique. We listen to music or watch dances or sit in a comedian’s audience, and we cannot help but be informed and changed by that art.
Plagiarism is a serious charge in the world of art. It cannot be claimed lightly.
We have to take care not to attach too much of our ego to our work. When we start thinking that what we’ve done is great and that we’ve invented something really unique and beautiful, we begin to think that it belongs to us and we forget all the people, all the influences who have come before, who live in us still.
My words belong to me. My art belongs to the world.
Just the other day my husband told me that Marvin Gaye’s children won $7.3 million in a court case against Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke because their song, “Blurred Lines,” sounded too much like Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got to Give It Up.”
We are musicians, so we sat down and listened to both songs. Neither of us thought the songs sounded similar enough, with the exception of a similar drum beat, for a price tag like that one.
Can you plagiarize a drum beat?
We didn’t think so, but a court did.
Ego can make us quick to think we are the first ones to have ever written in that poetic style, with the all lowercase words and the short sentence fragments, or the only ones who have ever played that beat, or the only ones who ever thought to draw a stick person inside a comic book and call it art.
When we start seeing art as mine and not as a humble gift to the world, we start losing our feet as artists.
We cannot own a style or a beat or the way a paintbrush swishes across a canvas any more than we can list our influences and say that pieces of them don’t live in our art.
Art is mine to give. And, sure, I need to make a living at it, but never at the expense of another artist. Never, ever that.
Because we are a community. We belong to each other. This isn’t a war about who invented it first, because it’s all been done before.
Someone has walked here before.
We weren’t the first, and, if it’s good art, we won’t be even close to the last.
What do you think? Can an artist plagiarize style? What is your definition of plagiarism?
Welcome to The Ink Well Creative Community.
The Ink Well Community is evolving. While this used to be a place where I posted a prompt for writers to share their creative works, I have been receiving several inquiries about my process, how I create and read and manage a household with half a dozen little ones. So I thought we could turn this into a community of people who share about the creative process in all its many facets, from where we find our inspiration to when we find time to create (especially if we work other jobs). I’ll be sharing struggles about my creative life and logistical information about my particular creative process and what I’m learning about creativity, among many other things. I hope you’ll weigh in with your own struggles and observations and lessons. Let’s start a conversation. Let’s encourage one another. Let’s live the creative life together.
And if you have your own questions about creativity or process or inspiration, feel free to visit my contact page and send me a note.
