Brain Drippings

Do Zombies commit plague-arism?

So I was getting caught up on the new show iZOMBIE last night, which I thought was a play on the ‘White Trash Zombie’ series by Diana Rowland, but come to find out is actually off of a comic book series by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, published by DC Comic’s Vertigo in 2010 and it reminded me that I hadn’t updated my blog in a week. “ARGHHH!!!!” *cough*

So here I am.

But since the inspiration came from where it did, let’s run with it! Yes?

Inspiration vs. Plagiarism

I used to write for a different site for a while and while there I was accused of plagiarism. The basis for this accusation was that we were both writing stories that had black dragons in them.

For me it was a “Wait, did I?” moment.

It was very confusing because there were linguistic barriers involved and the author accusing me had removed his story six months before the accusation was made, so no one could compare if the stories were similar or not. Once the site moderator got copies of both the stories, it only took a day to say, look this is not what plagiarism is.

Later that year, I had stories that were actually stolen and republished by someone else on another site. It hurt and it made me feel violated. (You can check this to see if this has happened to you by copying a sentence out of your story and seeing what comes up in Google.)

I quit writing for a while.

Since then, I am a little gun shy and I cringe a bit anytime I see stories where descriptions might resemble a story I am working on. Especially since most of what I write is in the Urban Fantasy/Science Fiction genre. I mean how many times can you have a witch/zombie/vampire detective with a fairy/werewolf/necromancer sidekick who ends up falling for the succubus/demon/mermaid villain who ends up not being the real villain because the real villain is the self-righteous boss who is a wannabe dragon/minion/troll? I mean really!!!!

When is it inspiration and when is it plagiarism?

Let’s get technical.

Plagiarism as defined on Dictionary.com:

1. an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author

2. a piece of writing or other work reflecting such unauthorized use or imitation.

So basically you can’t copy someone style and you can’t copy someone’s ideas. So since Diana already wrote about a zombie who became a coroner does that mean that Chris and Michael plagiarized her?

No.

Although both iZOMBIE and the White Trash Zombie series have zombies and coronary science in common, that is where the similarity ends. They did not imitate her. I have no idea if they have ever read or seen her stories, but regardless of whether or not they had, inspiration is not the same as imitation. And thank goodness for that!! Can you imagine if Bram Stoker’s Dracula was the only vampire book you would ever get to read? *shudder* or if Night of the Living Dead was our only reference for zombies? *gasp* THE HORROR!!!!

Instead we live in a world where good little nerd boys and girls can watch Star Trek Next Generation and think…what if the generation after this is from an alternate reality where elves and dragons go into space and boom -- Farscape is born. (Disclaimer….i have no idea how Farscape was born, but the show rocks. I highly recommend watching it.)

It’s impossible to copyright a concept or idea, but once we get words on paper they became tangible pieces of art. They can inspire others, but they belong to us.

Let us celebrate our inspirations, cherish them and revel in their muse-like abilities, but once we are sufficiently motivated, set them aside so that our work is truly our own.

Zombie Survival Tip of the Day:
Just because the Zombie is small and cute, don’t think it won’t eat your brains.

References:
iZOMBIE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IZOMBIE
White Trash Zomie - http://dianarowland.com/zombies.html
J K Rowling – plagiarism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_disputes_over_the_Harry_Potter_series
Farscape - http://www.henson.com/fantasy_scifi.php?content=farscape