WRITING: Plagiarism

Uh-oh. It looks like a creative mood has set it. Mr. E must prepare himself to read through the bs on that paper after all.

In writing another story beginning this morning and posting it below (Can’t help it, ideas must be written before they are lost, no matter how scattered and unintentional), one thing kept bothering me for the half hour it took to coalesce. The idea for the story and the title is an obvious offspring from previous ideas posted here on method of writing. But it is just as obvious to me that the title was withdrawn from memory of “The Things They Carried”, a well-known short story by Tim O’Brien which I read last year in Creative Writing.

Just as obviously, I would never, if ever completed, submit this story without changing the title, but it does reflect the constant nagging doubts I have as a writer that I am simply lifting ideas from what I’ve read and so, inadvertently plagiarizing.

There are certainly millions of ways to put words together to come up with different combinations that result in different thoughts. More so than for instance, the possible number combinations using only six out of the forty-four lottery numbers to come up with a winner.

I suppose we have to go with the flow and hope to pick up on these connections before we make fools of ourselves, but I would think that it still adds a burden to the mind of any writer.