About writing "fiction", "original work". What do you think?

in #writing3 years ago (edited)

Hello!

When I read the rules of The Ink Well before posting my short stories there, I didn't find anything that would have prevented me from posting (or cross-posting) my own posts that I had personally written, and that were purely a figment of my own imagination, as in reflections of my dreams.

Still, I got this response to my short story "Vertigo" from @jayna:

And it got me puzzled.

If dreams are not "original work", or "fiction", what are they?

You could of course argue, that personal experiences are not fiction, but I'd wager that'd go in the face of many fiction writers who use their own experiences of the world in their books.

Also you could make the claim that since a dream is not something I can fully control, it isn't an "original work", but you'd anger those who painstakingly went through each memory or figment of the dream and cultivated it into a working, readable story.

In the case of plagiarism, there is always the possibility that someone has written something similar, and that's frankly the risk you are willing to take when you 'put the pen on paper'. You just can not be sure. And I for one am not going to read through everything ever written just to check if someone has written something similar. I don't have time for that.

Now that someone took it up, I got worried, and run the text through a plagiarism checker.

Turns out it wasn't plagiarized. I am quite relieved now.

Update: Since we apparently weren't in the clear yet...

I got a reply from @Jayna, where she apologized for the confusion, and told me that I broke the rule #4 for crossposting previously posted content.

I wanted to be sure so I re-re-read the rules, again:

I still don't see my old post as a rule-breaker. There is clearly an exception to the rule #4, and my post falls perfectly in line of that particular exception.

I wonder what the problem actually is. This is a bit silly if you ask me.

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What if you dream about writing Hamlet? ;D

Perhaps it is the framing that makes it a work of fiction or the retelling of an experience. Grey area for sure though. I don't think @jayna is just picking on you though and I prefer active community moderators that try to make their community stronger. I am guessing she will reply when she wakes up :)

Well if I dreamt of writing Hamlet it would likely be a lot different from the original, also since Hamlet is in public domain, any reproductions would fall into transformative works. I could see myself making a recording of myself reciting Hamlet verbatim, and no-one could claim it wasn't my own interpretation or the original.

There's one way to argue it wasn't an original, and that would be to claim I am not the same person I was 3 years ago. Although I think it is negligible at best.

Well I'll see what happens next...

I fully agree with you.

The origin of your dreams is your own brain. You created your own dreams, although perhaps not through a deliberate process. But then again, your dreams are not what you posted to the community. That would be impossible. A coherent story based on your dream was.

But then again, your dreams are not what you posted to the community. That would be impossible. A coherent story based on your dream was.

My thoughts exactly. It wasn't as if I was able to write everything down to detail, and while some of it I had to fill-in from faded memory, but I tried to be as accurate I could. But like any story, the story does change a bit with every iteration.

Weird. I would say dreams are fiction and orginal work.

They might have a bit of reality in them, but thats all.
I know my dreams aint real, but they do have elements of real life items :D

Yes that's what I thought so too. It's weird for sure.

This is the first time I've been accused of plagiarism though. It's dobly weird because I work mainly with copyrights and copyrighted content. I must be aware of any copyright or plagiarism related issues by now.

You have plagiarized your own subconscious mind. :D

As far as I know, there is no copyright law on Earth that stipulates only the subconscious mind as a separate entity from the conscious mind as a copyright holder.

Maybe if the presupposition is that I am no longer the same person I was 3 years ago... If it is true that every cell in the body will die within 7 to ten 10 years, I could be somewhat different person in 3 years, anything from 3/7 parts the same to 1/3 the same person.

If it had been 10 years since I wrote the original text, would I be plagiarizing it from another me, if I published it again?

Interesting question. It has been found that when sufficient time passes, people may score differently on tests that measure persistent personality traits.

It appears that my post now breaks a rule that prevents from reposting older content from anywhere else than from my own Hive blog.

Haha you should properly have the upper hand here :P

The only problem is that Jayna is an admin and can basically do what she want even if its untrue :c

Hopefully she will answer you

She did.

Apparently I wasn't plagiarizing, or posting non-fiction as fiction, but breaking a rule that disallows reposting from anywhere else than my own Hive blog.

What I'd assume they meant is that 'fiction' would be something that has characters that aren't a part of the real world. Only way I can wrap my head around it. Your dreams would involve you and people around you that aren't fictional characters. That's the only way I can make this make sense. And to a point it does but the stories itself would be fictional and original work, if they interpreted in writing.

Apparently it was not about it being fiction or not, nor was it about me plagiarizing anyone.

She corrected herself, stating I was breaking a rule that disallows reposting content from anywhere else than from my own Hive blog.

Sue this man right now! How dare he copycat his subconscious adventures and pass it off as an original work. You monster. Your subconsciousness worked so hard to create it.

It appers it was neither plagiarism nor about it not being fiction. I got a reply from her saying she made a mistake and I was actually breaking this rule:

Oh, I see. Well, I wasn't really paying attention. I'm here just to write some random bullshit huehuehue.
Also do you really need to be accepted by any group or a writing community if you just want to start writing.

Nah, I just don't want to be bothered by overzealous community leaders if I do.

I will likely not be writing for The Ink Well from now on, though. Their loss.

I mean, dude it's like whatever. But I have a feeling it was just a misunderstanding though.

@gamer00,
Ask him define "the fiction" lol :D
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Cheers~


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