I read an article some years back that this is the way many authors have progressed. Some read and store it in the mind unknowingly and others-like myself-blatantly jot them down.
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| Click to enlarge to see my scribbles if you so wish! |
'Your lips are the colour of a rose'...this is one example I came across. Now the actual statement jumped out at me for a different reason. Me being me thought...ugh her lips are yellow!
However, I liked the concept, re-hashed the words and have used it like this:
'Your lips- I once saw a rose the same soft pink and just as luscious'.
I am not a plagiarist or copycat, I am merely a re-hasher of words. All authors are precisely that. We re-hash words to make them our own novels/stories.
Now I have that off my chest I feel so much better.
20 Comments:
Ha! We get inspired in big and little ways. I think this counts as a little way. I worry when I change something little that during editing I'll wind up tweaking it to the original by accident!
Oh, gosh Theresa, I hadn't considered the tweeking it back thingy! Better stay on my toes. :) Thanks for dropping by. x
I've heard of people doing this before - getting a note pad and jotting down words or phrases they like. I don't think there's anything wrong with this!
Also, you have beautiful hand writing!
Hi Glynis .. nothing is new - no word, nor idea .. and we can credit the person if necessary - or recreate new ideas around the old.
Quite a few of my posts start from something I've seen or read and then get combined into another thought process .. or an interlinking of a different idea.
Don't get me writing! As Kathleen says .. no problem - it's chunks of work mostly isn't it ..
Cheers Hilary
That's just copying ideas, not words. Like how they say there are only so many storylines out there - but it's our way of expressing them that makes it different.
Yellow lips - yuk!
Every writer re-hashes words as you so aptly put it.
Oh, you bad girl! No, seriously, I think we all do it at least, like you said, unknowingly. I've caught phrases when I'm doing revisions that sound oddly familiar to something else I've read.
This reminds me of something I read a long time ago. I think Hemingway is quoted as saying: Good writers borrow; great writers steal. And I think it was Shakespeare who lifted a whole section of one of his plays directly from one of the ancient authors--Plutarch comes to mind--and put it into blank verse. Or something like this.... (wish I had a steel trap memory!) :-)
Ann Best, Author of In the Mirror, A Memoir of Shattered Secrets
I think we all do this with phrases, plot ideas, etc... after all, lips like roses make more sense than lips like chrysanthemums!
Recycling - how green! Surely it's better to consciously use other people's words as a starting point than unconsciously copy them from books we read a decade ago? There are only so many combinations of words that make sense, after all.
Sorry I do not have time to respond to you individually today.
Thank you all for your great comments and for your continuing support. x♥
Haha I wouldn't have remembered the first by reading yours.
Glynis, about your notebooks -- I mean really, that n-e-a-t? I wish mine were that neat. :(
Ah, Mary, thanks! My writing depends on the pen I am sure. Thanks for visiting. x
I don't see a problem with what you have done here - in fact you improved on the original to the extant that the two sentences were only linked by the subject.
Plus, Mr Wilde had something to say:
Oscar Wilde: "I wish I had said that"
Whistler: "You will, Oscar, you will."
...and so!
I was once in a pub with a few friends having a drink and a debate about something which I forget but we noticed a chap near us scribbling down everything that was being said. I was volunteered to ask him what he was doing and why and he told us he was a writer and that our conversation sounded like one which the characters he was currently writing might have!
He said he was taking down the notes to get more of a feel for his characters in the flesh.
We told him to carry on! :-)
I have been experiencing a lot of the "I wish I had written that" lately.
I like that "rehasher of words" concept. There's more of us out there. ;)
Kathi
When you read like crazy, it can be hard to keep track of which ideas stem from something you've read and which are genuinely you.
Glynis,
We're birds of a feather. :) I write down passages I love, too. I haven't used any directly in my mss, but I love to linger over imagery and see what I can conjure up on my own. It also helps me polish my own writing. So I say hash-on!
Shannon
RJ, wise words that remove my guilty feelings! :) Thanks.
Thanks for visiting me and leaving your comments. It appears I am not alone in my mischief! LOL X
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