Friday, December 26, 2008

Second Day

On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

False Facades Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 have been reposted.

By the way, I've already gotten a few messages again about how the story reminds them of a certain manga, anime, TV drama, movie, etc. Yes, it may remind you of certain stories, but please don't leave a message with this underlying implication that I had somehow plagiarized another story. After I've had my story plagiarized several times myself, I don't take accusations of plagiarism too kindly.

The notion of copying someone's idea was one of my pet peeves back when I first uploaded this story and I'd like to kindly remind readers that just because a story has certain similar elements to another story doesn't mean that the author necessarily plagiarized. Based on your criteria, this would indicate that all cliches are basically copies of each other - all those vampire with mortal girl, best friends falling in love, step-sibling love, rivals-turned-to-lovers stories should all sue each other for copyrights.

Plagiarism is the exact copy or near rewording of the same exact scenes, lines, and dialogue. A post on the non-infringability of plots and/or ideas by published author Justine Larbalestier summarizes points from blogger, Candy, most succinctly: "You can’t copyright a plot or an idea. You can only copyright the specific expression of that plot or idea as recorded in some sort of tangible form. Think about the nightmare of attempting to nail down and legislate a plot or idea for a story. How specific would you have to be before you could declare something unique enough to copyright? i.e. 'An angst-ridden story about a vampire falling in love with a human.' Dude, if you can copyright that and collect a small fee every time somebody published that story, you could have your own giant pool of gold coins to swim in, Scrooge McDuck-stylee."

Please keep an open mind. I can swear on my life that False Facades is an original writing of mine, from its characters to the dialogue, and I will never copy someone else's hard work.

I honestly never even heard of Hana Kimi before I published False Facades on Fictionpress. And to those who have told me that the story is a copy of "She's The Man", the movie came out in 2006, way after I put up the story in 2003.

And I believe that asides from the crossdressing girl, the plot line isn't really the same as these other stories. I think.

But you all are entitled to your own opinions and the more I try to defend the writing, the more I may seem like a snotty know-it-all or something. :) So in the end, I can only say that I hope you'll still enjoy the story as it is. That's all!

Thanks.

6 comments:

  1. That is so true! I've had people tell me my story reminds them of a movie, and that kind of annoyed me too. Anyway isn't She's the Man based on Shakespeare's play the Tempest?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Marina
    its a reference to Twelfth Night by Shakespeare.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ahh, that's right... sorry for the mistake x.x

    ReplyDelete
  4. :roll: People really need to learn.

    Don't they realize that some of their favorite movies/animes have been based on books/ideas of other people?

    For example, Shakespeare. Like O is based on Othello? 10 Things I Hate About You on Taming of the Shrew?

    I could go on. But whatever.

    Personally I'm very happy you're posting False Facades up again! Thank you very much! Also due to this I'll finally learn the 12 days of Christmas. xD

    ReplyDelete
  5. Basically, besides the romantic comedy aspect and the girl crossdressing, the storyline and plot of both Hana Kimi and She's the Man are very different from your False Facades. On involves a girl entering an all-boys school to meet her favorite high jumping hero and the other is about a girl cross dressing as her brother so that she can prove she plays soccer better than guys. Between personality and situations, none of it is in anyway the same as Sammy's.

    You're right, concepts are used over and over again, and that's how you come up with an idea to base a story off of. It's how you use that concept and write your story that makes it unique and original.

    False Facades has been one of my favorite stories since I stumbled across it one random night. In no way did I ever feel like it was a copy of another story, even though the concept has always been around. All of your characters, Will especially, are so unique that I could never find another story character like them.

    Anyway, I just can't wait until your final draft is finished. I'd definitely buy it.

    Keep up the hard work, because you have a lot of readers out there supporting you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. bah, stupid people. Your work is obviously different than the other's referenced... my gosh, all the Asian dramas/fiction are all just different incarnations of themselves anyway (not that that's bad, it still full of gooey lovable drama)and really, as others have said, everyone's just copying Shakespeare.. Twelfth Night anyone? I read it...
    Anyway, LOVE you and LOVE your fiction. <3

    ReplyDelete