How Kaavya Viswanathan Got Famous, Got Accused, and Got Me Worried About My Own Author Issues
Another discouraging moment in the literary world, for a variety of reasons. First of all, I want to give anyone accused of plagiarism a benefit of the doubt, but given the text comparison in the press, I’m afraid Kaavya Viswanathan will be hard pressed to claim that she never read McCafferty’s book. To be fair, one issue with chick lit and young adult fiction is that many titles share very similar themes and sensibilities, and, yes, the adage that “there’s no such thing as an original idea/sentiment/metaphor/simile” is doubly true here.
What’s even more disheartening coming off of the JT Leroy scandal is that the publishing world is likely to be more skeptical of prodigious young authors. Even worse, scandal has a way of generating publicity and brand recognition for people who don’t deserve it. So I’m torn on this one. I don’t like being the first to leap on the skimmity-ride bandwagon (think Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge) and I’m especially curious to how the initial investigation by the Harvard Crimson came about. But irrespective of anyone's agenda in generating this hullabaloo, it's inconceivable to me that someone hasn't been "inappropriately appropriating" copyrighted material. If it’s true that McCafferty’s regular readers were the ones who raised the question of similarities — dang. It pays to have a cult following. With all the midlist titles glutting the publishing houses each season, there is probably quite a bit of “inspired originality” that passes unnoticed. On a personal level, Opalgate is yet another reminder of how careful I must be not to make the details or text of my own manuscript too similar to someone else’s – or at least devoid of originality. Every day I wonder if the next breaking news story will mirror the yet-unread story too closely. And I’m always finding that someone else has already used a great line I just conjured up. What if coincidence is interpreted as deliberate plagiarism? Somehow I think the villain in my next nightmare is going to steal the thoughts right out of my head. (Memo to self: lock thoughts in at night before going into Rapid Eye Movement.)
