Karen Foley
Lynn Raye Harris
Ellen Hartman
Diana Holquist
Samantha Hunter
Shirley Jump
Dee Tenorio
Jeannie Watt
Inspiration: There's no such thing as a new story.
One question I get asked all the time is, "How do you come up with your ideas?"
The answer to that is easy: I steal them.
It was Picasso who said, "Talent borrows; genius steals."
Picasso, a true genius, understood that starting from scratch isn't only unnecessary, it's a waste of time and talent: the talents of our ancestors.
HOW TO TAME A MODERN ROGUE, my lastest release, is a contemporary romance about a grandmother who thinks she's living in a regency romance novel.
Recognize that plot? Where did I steal it from?
The idea came from the book Don Quixote by Cervantes. In that book a crazy man, Don Quixote, believes he’s a knight-errant in a novel he’s become obsessed with. It’s such a beautiful conceit—that the crazy see things more sanely than everyone else. Also, that a person can become so obsessed with a book, that his life becomes the book. I absolutely HAD to adapt it (that is, steal it) for a romance novel.
But in a romance novel, you can’t have a crazy hero (even though I really, really wanted to). So instead, it's the grandmother who's a wee bit confused. Her goal becomes to marry her "virgin" granddaughter Ally to a "noble" duke, Sam. Only Ally is no innocent virgin and Sam is no honor-bound duke. Or are they..?
Most of the reviews I've gotten for HOW TO TAME A MODERN ROGUE rave about the "originality" of the plot. I suppose for a modern romance novel, it is original. But the idea truly is as old as the hills. (Don Quixote is considered the first novel ever written.)
Genius? Or is it just plain old stealing? What novel have you read/written lately that has been "borrowed" from other sources? Does it bother you? Do you even notice?
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Don Quixote
I'm of the "didn't notice" school. Sorry. I'm not a careful reader, more of an emotional one. I can force myself to concentrate on structure, etc., but I prefer to be swept away.
For example, with Rogue, which I read multiple times, I got absorbed in your story and didn't notice the structure after my first awe-filled, "Man, that's some brilliant theft."
Of course, I never read Don Quixote. I know bits about it because one of my friends had the Picasso drawing in her kitchen when I was a kid and I stared at it so much. (It was horse art. I liked horses.) I was in a body cast in a hospital for several weeks in Wilmington, DE the summer their local theatre did Man of La Mancha and the commercials ran every 5 minutes on TV, so I know all the songs. And then, of course, there was Donkey Hodie from Mr. Rogers. He lived in a windmill. ;-)
I'm so culturally literate, it's astonishing.
Man of La Mancha...
...is probably how most people will know Don Quixote. What a great musical. My dad used to bellow, er, sing, "To dream the impossible dream" whenever he wanted to inspire us. I took my kids last year. They did the rape scene ON STAGE. Oh, dear....Forgot that little detail.
And then, of course, that brilliant picture by--who else?--Pablo Picasso is an icon.
I had to read Don Quixote in school, but it's over 700 pages of a VERY old manuscript. There was a lot of skipping going on...
...so don't be sorry. Doesn't bother me that folks think I'm original. Hee hee...
Skipping
One of my favorite authors (Laurie Halse Anderson) had this quote on her blog today:
I try to leave out the parts that people skip.
--Elmore Leonard
That should be the mantra of all good genre fiction writers, I think.
Hee!
I think I tend not to notice, but I do applaud ingenuity even in clever reuse of old plots as long as the author does it well and gives it her own touch. I think that it must be truly difficult at this point to come up with a brand-spankin'-never-ever-been-done-before plot idea, so it doesn't bother me too much if I've read it before. For instance, there have been more authors recently doing their own twists on fairytales or on myths, and I tend to enjoy reading those...
Not sure if that's what you were asking, Diana! :)
Love the fairy tales!
That's a great example of "stealing." How many Cinderella stories are out there? Doesn't matter, I love them all.
I almost forgot to mention: the author of the Regency Romance within HOW TO TAME A MODERN ROGUE has been pretty good about my stealing her plotline from her book, THE DULCET DUKE.
You can check it out here: http://members.authorsguild.net/dulcetduke/index.htm
Stealing Plotlines
It must be catchy. Broadway is stealing fairy tales from
books and Movies too. Such as Little Mermaid, The Shrek, The
Lion King, Grease and Billy Elliot, The Musical.
I wonder if any Blaze author has steel the plot line from
"The Wild Wild West?
Now that was unique western series.
Jane
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