Some of you may have noticed that, on a quite a few of my fiction and fan fiction ideas, I've put up a notice that someone else is free to try it out. My father is staunch in his belief that such a thing will inevitably lead to someone taking my idea and making millions off it. (If they can, power to them. It's better than I would do, anyway.)
Yet I've also heard that posting ideas publicly helps to enforce that they belong to me. With all of the other posts I put out here, it would be hard to argue that a posted story idea was actually posted after someone else started writing that story—even if I can change one timestamp, it's obvious whenabouts I posted that idea.
At the same time, I'm posting all of my Fragments, which are so little and vague anyone could take one and slip it in without drawing suspicion. And that's okay. I've already taken an idea from a friend and then given it back to her. I don't mind. Just because these thoughts entered my brain doesn't mean I have irrefutable claims to them, or responsibilities to write them. It just means I had an idea that I can treat however I please.
As I just mentioned, I take ideas from others. Of course I do! There aren't really any new ideas; it's just the combinations. And if I use ideas from others, why shouldn't others get to use ideas from me? Half of them they'd find elsewhere, anyway; I just thought it would be nice to get them all in one place.
Basically, writing is more of a social occupation that it seems like it should be. I could probably lock myself in my room and just ideas from other books—and indeed I will do this—but that's not enough. I have to get a few ideas from living my life, and, still, that's not quite interesting enough to get me all the material I need for an original piece, anyway (considering I do, in fact, prefer to lock myself in my room all of the time). So I get a few ideas from others' lives and the stories they've read. We bounce all of our ideas off each other, and both of us can come out of it with stories that never would have occurred to us otherwise. Maybe there is some competition when it comes to publishing and such, but writing to me just seems like a team sport.
What do you think? Enjoy sharing your ideas? Enjoy seeing others'?
"Just because these thoughts entered my brain doesn't mean I have irrefutable claims to them, or responsibilities to write them. It just means I had an idea that I can treat however I please."
ReplyDeleteI agree 100%. It irks me when people claim the sole right to pretty much universal ideas, acting as if just because they thought of something, it's somehow just 'theirs.' I can see if a story is exactly the same, then it's definitely plagiarism - for example, "look at my new Hetalia story! It's called "The Orders" and involves them getting trapped on a desert island and having to kill each other! It's not plagiarism, though, because I changed the kill order and some of the chapter titles, lol!" - but something that blatant rarely occurs. As you said, there aren't really that many new ideas out there, so saying something is 'unoriginal' by comparing it to a previously established work is pretty much a moot point, at least in my opinion. It's not about what ideas one comes up with; it's about how one uses them.
This is pretty controversial, but I kind of have the same thoughts regarding art theft and stuff on DeviantArt. I mean, I'd never repost someone else's stuff without their permission, but honestly, if someone reposted my stuff on Pixiv or Tumblr or used it in a YouTube video without telling me, I wouldn't care. It's not like I'm making any money off of it, and the point of art is to have it circulate, so why be upset that it's reaching more people? Of course it would be more polite to link it back to the person, but honestly all I'd want is to have a link to it so I could the comments. *Shrugs*
Yeah, it kind of ties in with my rambling about "crossovers" in that way.
DeleteI'll have you know that I laughed at "The Orders."
That's a good point. I guess I feel the same way about my art, since I just do that for fun. As long as no one else is claiming it's his or hers, and no money is being lost by the rightful owner, it seems all right. I haven't thought too hard about that, though.