(no subject)

[beccaelizabeth]

I skimmed through a thingy on plagiarism in fanfic, about someone saying someone plagiarised bunches of pop culture by quoting all the best bits.

Made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I mean, Buffy does pop culture references a lot, and I try and write Andrew, so there will be quoteage. And while Andrew does tend to chapter and verse it, I doubt I always would. So where is the line between 'intentional pop culture reference' and 'plagiarism'?


I also use whole chunks of Buffyverse dialogue and change the context. Like in RFJ0 I gave a lot of early Giles lines to a different Watcher, and in RFJ1 I gave a Buffy speech to the nearly-Slayer character. And I did that assuming that (a) readers would catch it and (b) they'd know I'd know they'd catch it. Because what I wanted to do was re-examine certain aspects Watchers or Slayers, so by using the quotes I brought in all those connections and context from earlier episodes.

Only now I'm thinking, should I actually reference it? Put little quote numbers in and point at episodes? I've read authors doing that for non-quote info, like giving background historical research. But I didn't think to do that for quotes, on account of figuring people knew.

Which, you know, with a couple hundred episodes to have memorised, is maybe not so much the right thing to figure.

I think it also matters that my stories are like fifty thousand words between those two, and the quotes are a few lines each. I'm not building my stories with only other people words.

I've seen fics that take all the on screen dialogue for a scene and fill in around the edges, tell new things about what people were thinking or something. Er, have I seen that? Maybe I've seen fics that were a bit like that in parts. ANYways, those seemed like just fanfic, or kind of like what vids do with the editing.


... It is 0720, and I meant to go to bed many hours ago, but I decided to read a chapter of a new book and, well, we all know how that goes. So anyways, no sleep, so I'm not at my most coherent.

I'll post this like this and hope its in, you know, English.

Comments

[antennapedia.livejournal.com]

When I'm in reader mode, I kinda don't like the footnoting approach. References are a game. If I get them, great! My appreciation of the writing is enhanced. If I don't get them, no problem; the writing can still stand on its own. (Or it should.) If the writer feels he must credit every single little Shakespearean tag, I'd prefer all that at the end. No interruptions to the story itself.[1]

Extensive borrowings need to be noted in front matter, like for episode re-tellings. But the odd reference? Nope. And I kinda don't want to know about the historical research, either. Just give me the damn story! Oh, I am a cranky reader this morning.

[1] Terry Pratchett footnoting is another art form altogether.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

Two things to keep in mind:

With Cassie Claire, she took entire passages, verbatim, from published fiction. Also, she was putting Buffy lines into the mouths of characters from Harry Potter. It wasn't just that she wasn't citing; she was using the quotes out of context. That's why people noticed it so much.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I think switching lines within a universe counts as a 'what if'. Pop culture references are good when it's fairly obvious that that's what they are, ie the character would know the ref and be quoting it deliberately. The problem comes when the character says something as if it's completely original to them. Like eg someone from before Shakespeare's time speaking lines from MacBeth.