83
votes
My friend says that the story of my novel sounds too similar to Harry Potter
Harry Potter wasn't a particularly original story. For people who read a lot of fantasy, many of its themes, settings and characters were deeply familiar. But Rowling did a very good job bringing her ...
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41
votes
Accepted
Can I write a book of my D&D game?
Plagiarism would be taking exact text from the various game manuals and representing it as your own. So don't do that.
But you probably weren't going to anyway, because you want to tell a story, ...
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33
votes
My friend says that the story of my novel sounds too similar to Harry Potter
Your friend is wrong. That's not nearly enough like Harry Potter to be a problem. My guess is that your friend has read Harry Potter but not any other urban fantasy; many, many urban fantasy stories ...
- 451
28
votes
Do I need to cite ChatGPT in published writing?
It looks like you can't use it at all, to be honest.
From the OpenAI Terms of Use
You may not: ... (v) represent that output from the Services was human-generated when it is not;...
Given that ...
- 3,129
27
votes
Borrowing Characters
I am not a lawyer, but you really should not do this. Orson Scott Card (OSC) and any partners he has (publisher, movie studios) own "Ender", and you cannot profit from it in any way whatsoever. OSC ...
- 99.6k
22
votes
Accepted
How can you prevent your work from getting stolen?
The law is your friend:
Legally, the work does belong to you. Once you start freely distributing it in places where you are clearly giving up control, good luck enforcing that. Copyright doesn't ...
- 13.5k
18
votes
Do I need to cite ChatGPT in published writing?
The article you linked to is rather misleading, in fact the guidelines direct from Nature say this:
First, no LLM tool will be accepted as a credited author on a research paper. That is because any ...
- 539
17
votes
How do I know which elements I can use from the work which orginally inspired me?
Don't steal the plot, Don't steal their made-up words or made-up references, don't steal their (imaginative) tech, don't steal their characters or their unique combination of characteristics that make ...
- 99.6k
16
votes
My friend says that the story of my novel sounds too similar to Harry Potter
I'm sure that Todd J. Greenwald's friends might have told him that his idea for what later became the Disney Channel TV series Wizards of Waverly Place was too similar to Harry Potter, but apparently ...
- 2,469
16
votes
How can you prevent your work from getting stolen?
Your book is going to be stolen. Just get used to that. Sometimes they are stolen from the printer with the camera-ready pages (or PDFs nowadays). Some of my books were on pirate sites before they ...
- 259
15
votes
I noticed that several already-existing poems used the same highly specific puns and phrases that I used. Is this unintentional plagiarism on my part?
You're being overly sensitive. Any combination of two words, no matter how original, could be already used elsewhere. That's not plagiarism, that's statistics.
The only slightly worrying case is ...
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15
votes
Borrowing Characters
This probably should have been raised over on law.se, but I hang out there, and can answer. (See this question and answer from law for more on fair use.)
The literary homage in which one alludes to ...
- 4,337
14
votes
Same plot but different story, is it plagiarizing?
It's all been done before:
I am not joking when I say I think I've answered this question before, but I can't seem to find the reference. The fact is, every possible story has been done before - at ...
- 13.5k
13
votes
How can I know that I'm not plagiarizing?
El ver mucho y el leer mucho avivan los ingenios de los hombres. (Seeing much and reading much sharpens one's ingenuity.)
~ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Your fear of plagiarism is a common anxiety ...
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12
votes
How does one avoid inevitable influences being obvious when writing something like superheroes?
You cannot stop people from drawing comparisons between your work and earlier, similar works. Readers are going to do it no matter how original you strive to be. You cannot cover up an influence that ...
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11
votes
When does inspiration across artforms become plagiarism
Do Songs and Paintings have the same rules and protections as Books
and Film for copying (into written form).
Songs and paintings are protected under copyright laws, but it might be helpful to ...
- 27.1k
11
votes
How can I know that I'm not plagiarizing?
You are allowed to reuse ideas, but you are not allowed to reuse exact characters, names, or blocks of text.
Let's take The Lord of the Rings as an example. You're not allowed to use the character ...
- 311
11
votes
Accepted
What really is considered as plagiarism?
In short: Everything you just listed is completely fine.
There's nothing wrong with taking a specific plot point in a book and then having your own unique spin on it. Nobody can plagiarize you for ...
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10
votes
Can I write a book of my D&D game?
I don't know about the legality of it but this has already been done. A bunch of french players and their dungeon master turned their stories into comic books.
In french it's called "Chroniques de la ...
- 201
10
votes
Accepted
Is my story too similar to others?
Firstly, I think it would be funny if the characters couldn't remember if it was five or six realms.
But seriously, if you are worried about some fantasy trope being used before then you're going to ...
- 278
9
votes
Accepted
When does satire (parody) become plagiarism?
First off, you're mixing two things: copyright violation and plagiarism. They are completely different.
The point of copyright law is to protect the financial interests of the writer. If you copy ...
- 25.5k
9
votes
Accepted
How can I Include a verbatim passage in my fiction without plagiarizing it?
Don't plagiarize, paraphrase. Take the paragraph, figure out the main idea, and express it in your own words. If it's important that it be exactly as it was in the original, quote it and cite it. In ...
- 56.5k
9
votes
Do I need to cite ChatGPT in published writing?
Academically... No. You cite the work of people, you can't plagiarise an algorithm. You wouldn't cite a piece of software that did a linear regression for you. ChatGPT is essentially the same, just ...
- 667
8
votes
What's the best way to cite non-fiction in fiction?
They should rewrite it. If the character is supposed to be smart enough to be lecturing on the subject, the words should sound like the character anyway and not like Wikipedia or wherever. Also, if ...
- 1,830
8
votes
Accepted
If I unnofficially create a theory and use it in my story, will it have any validity that I'm the author of such theory?
Generally the manner of publication makes no difference. If you have published it, you are its author and have the right to get credit for it. This is actually one of the rights that are covered by an ...
- 1,875
8
votes
How do I know which elements I can use from the work which orginally inspired me?
I haven't read "Blood on the Stars", but I don't think the details of that story matter here, so I'll plunge ahead.
Maybe I should distinguish the legal issue of copyright from the artistic issue of "...
- 25.5k
8
votes
I may have unintentionally copied a TV series
Having similar ideas to someone else is not plagiarism. For example, if I describe to you a book about an 11 year old boy with a name beginning with "H" and a mark on his face going to a boarding ...
- 259
7
votes
What exactly is the "five (consecutive) word" plagiarism rule?
You need to remember that plagiarism is not just about words; it can also be about ideas.
So a key point here is that even if you change virtually all of the words, you still need to make sure you ...
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