Plagiarism and Sour Grapes

First of all, an update as to the status of my writing. This semester has largely been nothing but a dried-up well for me, with all of my energy being pushed toward academia and planning for my trip to London this summer, but that's not much excuse; full-time workers and single parents write best-sellers, or so I need to make myself believe, so I can hardly blame school for my persistent lack of progress.

At any rate, on Saturday I decided it was pointless to put it off any longer. I sat down with a list of literary journals and systematically went through websites, reading submission guidelines and sample stories from various issues, until I found four markets which were applicable to my two currently finished stories. I wrote cover letters, addressed envelopes, and today I spent roughly $7 mailing everything. I feel as though I've made progress.

I've also been trying to get back into the swing of reviewing over at Zoetrope, because I should (hopefully) have a story to put up soon, depending on how the ever-present drama of my life unfolds. And while at Zoe, I was alerted to the new uproar in the Literary community.

So here's the basic story. An Indian-American student named Kaavya Viswanathan was assisted by a college counseling firm to help write her Harvard application. While there, her counselor learned that she was writing a novel, and asked to look at it; she was "charmed" by it and sent it to her agent, who solicited it around a bit and landed it a publishing deal at Little, Brown & Co. where Viswanathan signed a $500,000 two-book deal; the book, titled "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life," is currently a best-seller and DreamWorks owns the movie rights.

Now, rather recently, there's a sudden surge of problems--because author Megan McCafferty (former Cosmopolitan editor and author of YA fiction) has two books out which bear remarkable similarities to Opal, and they were published first. The similarities aren't so much in plot as in language--so much so that there are at least 13 areas of Opal which appear to have been lifted word-for-word and altered ever so slightly to fit the context of the new novel.

Read up on the issue:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512968
http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9906

Now, my take.

First off, before the issue of plagiarism ever comes into play, I have my hackles raised about this. I've been writing with intent to publish since I was 11 or 12 years old and started collecting rejection letters in my teens; when I graduated high school and got into college without any publishing credits, it was a devastating blow to me because one of my dreams had always been to be ground-breakingly successful at a very young age, something which becomes less possible every passing year that I haven't published my first novel.

So whenever I read one of these success stories about young people who've gotten published, I get interested--and then I get angry, because invariably these authors didn't succeed based entirely on their own merits, but rather because somebody higher up was pushing for them. In the case of the author of the Eragon series, it was his parents, the independent booksellers, who self-published the book that would later be picked up by a big name publishing house at a book fair. And in this case, it's a student whose book was picked up by her guidance counselor's agent and then groomed into a marketable piece. I can't help but think, reading this, that I too had a novel manuscript (or three) when I was a highschool senior; I wasn't particularly proud of it, it wasn't up to my personal standards, but it was certainly better than what I've seen of this best-seller. And if I had mentioned this to my counselor--and if she had publishing creds--I too could have gotten a book deal. But I didn't, because the situation wasn't lucky enough for me and because I believe in playing fair.

So perhaps I'm predisposed to being a bit unfair to her. Nevertheless...the similarities in the novels are too striking to ignore. Although she's currently claiming that the influence of the former author was present but unintentional, that she sub-consciously lifted the passages, the whole thing just seems unlikely; and even if it were the case, it bothers me greatly that this would happen. The only way I can imagine having that many subconscious similarities to another book is if that was more or less the only book you've ever read in your life, and you've set out to write a novel. And if that's the case, what in god's name are you doing writing--and more importantly, what are you doing being paid a half a million for it?

At the same time, I'm reminded of the idiocy of the publishing world...which will take anything and turn it into a best-seller when good, high-quality fiction goes unpublished every day, where what matters is who you know, not your own talent, when books can be outsourced for "write-for-hire" organizations.

It makes me sick, and makes me lose some of the optimism I have for my future as a writer. If this is the way the world works, I'm not sure I want to be part of it.