Plagiarizing Yourself

[Candy_Kane54]

Have you ever discovered that you have plagiarized yourself? I've caught myself a couple of times writing a passage in a new story and then re-reading my other published stories and finding a similar passage in them.

Any tips on how to avoid it? Or does it really matter if it fits the story?

 

[SamScribble]

Not sure that I've ever caught myself doing it. But does it matter? Hey, if you're going to copy, copy from the best.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

In academia, many of us considered it grounds for failure of a student's paper unless the prof agreed to it in advance. Unfortunately, I've found colleagues guilty of autoplagiarism in as many as seven published articles.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

No I have not.

 

[Blind_Justice]

A beta reader for my current Geek Pride project said it was a lot like "Mud & Magic". I don't really think so. The tone is different, the setting is different and I didn't kill, disfigure, maim or rape any member of the main cast. Yet. Only 15k words to the finish.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Fairly constantly. I have a set of tropes that I use regularly because they always seem to work, to feed the mood of a story. I change them around some, I suppose, but a good song is a good song, no matter how many times you hear it.

 

[LAHomedog]

Doesn't every author plagiarize themselves eventually if they write enough?

Taking it out of the Lit context, I love to read detective/mysteries like Spenser and Bosch even some of the oldies but goodies like Doyle or Hammett. They all repeat themselves. Spenser and Susan sit down for a meal and it is the same dialogue every book. Stephanie Plum repeats herself with the two guys all of the time.

Feels different to me than academia or some kind of research paper, or non-fiction.

 

[Emirus]

Have you ever discovered that you have plagiarized yourself? I've caught myself a couple of times writing a passage in a new story and then re-reading my other published stories and finding a similar passage in them.

Any tips on how to avoid it? Or does it really matter if it fits the story?

If it’s a good passage and it fits in with the story what does it matter? Unlike the universe the imagination of a writer, or that of any person, is limited.

 

[KeithD]

No, by definition, you can't plagiarize yourself. Plagiarism is stealing passages from someone else.

 

[jaF0]

How many ways are there to describe someone dressing or undressing? You're pretty much bound to repeat if you scratch out two or more tales.

 

[tomlitilia]

I definitely reuse similar wording for similar activities across stories. Especially around explicit sex scenes, the connotation of specific words or phrases can make or break the scene, IMO, and I wouldn't pick poor ones merely because I used up good ones in a previous story.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I worry that some of my good phrases have been used before. Recently I did copy about 300 words direct from a story into one for a different site - it was scene-setting for the same location, no reason to change it, and I was feeling lazy and it wasn't like I was being paid, so why not?

It made it quicker to get to what the characters were doing there - which was very different in both stories.

 

[PennameWombat]

Last year I released a triptych of stories, each of which focused on different main characters but all interleaved events and many of the characters crossed over. A long set piece at a birthday party took place in two of them and was described using the POVs appropriate to each of the stories. I copied large amounts but altered bits depending on whose POV.

I’ve in other stories copied selectively from myself. I’ve also used famous phrases, such as “There are more things in heaven and earth…” without citing them.

But I’m not doing academic treatises.

 

[KimGordon67]

No, by definition, you can't plagiarize yourself. Plagiarism is stealing passages from someone else.

Actually, you can. Source.

 

[DanDraper]

How many ways are there to describe someone dressing or undressing? You're pretty much bound to repeat if you scratch out two or more tales.

I agree. Especially when you have particular writing style, you can't help writing things that are similar to what you've already written. We often do it without really thinking about it.

Maybe it doesn't make you as creative as you would like, but for most of us it's not like we do it intentionally, it's how these words and phrases get stuck in our heads. Maybe we just need to be a little more aware of it for the future.

.
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[SimonDoom]

The ethical rules against plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, apply to academic writing, but not here, I think. I see nothing wrong with cribbing from one's own previous stories, if one wants to. It shows a lack of creativity, but not a lack of ethics. I don't know if I've done it or not, but it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Thanks to everyone for their views. I feel a little better about it now.

 

[TadOverdon]

Does Stephen King plagiarize himself?

Seriously, it's a bit of a problem when you write hard-core, at least for me. How many different ways can a gal struggle to get the biggest dick she's ever seen into her mouth?

Okay, a few. But if you write more than a few such scenes, it gets to be a challenge. For me.

I don't reuse sentences and paragraphs ( that I'm aware of). Similar phrases do repeat.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I do it all the time. But I don't think it's called plagiarism as there are just so many word in the English language I'm bound to use some in the same combination over and over again.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Actually, you can. Source.

It's too bad that your source is only about acidemia and not about fiction writers. So, maybe in acidemia they think of it as plagiarism, but reusing passages and things you have written in other works isn't as it is mine and I can't really, no matter how hard you try to tell me I can, steal from myself.

 

[AlphaLyon]

Plagiarizing from others is stealing.
Plagiarizing from yourself is establishing connective themes and motifs.

 

[SimonDoom]

Taking this in a lighter direction, this thread has got me thinking it would be fun to come up with one distinctive sex-scene based sentence and stick it every one of my stories, and see if readers notice. Something like "His steaming love train plunged into the darkness of her honey tunnel." Only not quite that ridiculous.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

It's too bad that your source is only about acidemia and not about fiction writers. So, maybe in acidemia they think of it as plagiarism, but reusing passages and things you have written in other works isn't as it is mine and I can't really, no matter how hard you try to tell me I can, steal from myself.

I do like the notion of acidemia; where were you when Dr. Tim dropped out?

By the way, it is possible to steal from yourself; it usually comes under the rubric of 'embezzlement.'

It is, however, a major mistake to think of plagiarism as 'stealing.' In academia (and perhaps acidemia as well), the issue is not about taking someone else's work; it is about presenting work as original when it isn't. The rules for using your own previously published work are the same as for using the work of others: you are required to cite it. It is not uncommon to find in an academic article phrases like "as I noted in an earlier paper . . ." followed by a quote or paraphrase of the author's previous work. It is particularly important in publishing works since most journals require that submissions be original.

The same rules may not fully apply in fiction, but they do in published fiction: if you re-used your own work in a new piece for a different publisher, the original publisher is likely to sue you and your new house. Of course, reviewers will note your lack of creativity and readers may become bored with your repetitiveness.

Plagiarism really has nothing to do with stealing and everything to do with identifying and acknowledging where words, information, ideas, interpretations, and analyses come from.

 

[KeithD]

Actually, you can. Source.

That's just that source's opinion. Plagiarism is a legal term. There is no self-plagiarism in legal terms that I'm aware of (and I work in this area).

But perhaps you can cite a self-plagiarism legal case. There could be one that changes the established definition.

 

[KeithD]

I
The same rules may not fully apply in fiction, but they do in published fiction: if you re-used your own work in a new piece for a different publisher, the original publisher is likely to sue you and your new house. Of course, reviewers will note your lack of creativity and readers may become bored with your repetitiveness.

A citation for this? "Is likely" should produce several examples.