5 ms·
I'm almost more interested in how a 20-something with no apparent prior pedigree lands a Simon and Schuster debut novel contract!
by pkd 10mo ago
I'm almost more interested in how a 20-something with no apparent prior pedigree lands a Simon and Schuster debut novel contract!
- thereitgoes456 10mo agoShe lost that contract after being found guilty of plagiarism. That’s why she avoids mentioning her considerable writing career at all
- jasonjmcghee 10mo agoIt's fiction what is she plagiarizing
- thereitgoes456 10mo agoWhat I just said is a fact. Look it up if you like
- defrost 10mo agoThe similarities are intriging but not compelling. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pPE6tqReSAXEmzuJM52h219f30oMDBWx80jlJ2KOCiY/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pPE6tqReSAXEmzuJM52h219f... Stories of "asian face" actresses with eyes taped back, prominent pieces of anti asian grafitti on walls and drawn in bathrooms are common tropes in asian communities, etc. The examples of plagiarism are examples of common story arcs, with an educated asian female twist, and use of examples that multiple writers in a shared literary pool would have all been exposed to; eg: it could be argued that they all drew from a similar well rather thn some were original and others copied. There's a shocked article: https://www.halfmystic.com/blog/you-are-believed https://www.halfmystic.com/blog/you-are-believed that may indeed be looking at more evidence than was cited in the google docs link above which would explain the shock and the dismissal of R.W. as a plagiarist. The evidence in the link amounts to what is common with many pools of proto writers though, lots of similar passages, some of which have been copied and morphed from others. It's literally how writers evolve and become better. I'm on the fence here, to be honest, I looked at what is cited as evidence and I see similar stories from people with similar backgrounds sharing common social media feeds.
- sarchertech 10mo agoOne of her publishers pulled her book from print, publicly accused her of plagiarism, and asked other publishers to denounce her for plagiarism. That’s pretty damning evidence. If a publisher was on the fence they might pull her books quietly, but they wouldn’t make such a public attack without very good evidence that they thought would hold up in court. There was no equivocation at all.
- thereitgoes456 10mo agoSaid publisher also claims Rona directly admitted plagiarism to them. That’s probably why they’re so confident.
- defrost 10mo agoThat's a pretty damning response, sure. The evidence, at least the evidence that I found cited as evidence, appears less damning. Perhaps there is more damning evidence. What I found was on the order of the degree of cross copying and similar themes, etc. found in many pools of young writers going back through literary history. Rona Wang, whom I've never previously heard of, clearly used similar passages from her peers in a literary group and was called out for it after receiving awards. I would raise two questions, A) was this a truly significant degree of actual plagarism, and 2) did any of her peers in this group use passages from any of Tona's work ? On the third hand, Kate Bush was a remarkable singer / song writer / performer. Almost utterly unique and completely unlike any contempory. That's ... highly unusual. The majority of writers, performers, singers, et al. emerge from pools that differ from their prior generations, but pools none the less that are filled with similarity. The arc of careers of those that rise from such origins is really the defining part of many creators.
- thereitgoes456 10mo ago[flagged]
- sarchertech 10mo agoIt is evidence because a strong condemnation raises the likelihood that the accusation is true. It doesn’t prove anything, but it supports the theory that they have seen additional evidence. After researching this a bit, it looks like someone from publisher says she admitted it to them. That certainly explains why they weren’t afraid to publicly condemn her.
- jasonjmcghee 10mo agoNo I'm literally saying - she writes fiction- how can you plagiarize a fiction book and make it work lol (I have no knowledge / context of this situation - no idea if she did or what happened here)
- typpilol 10mo agoYou can't plagiarize fiction? So if I copy paste Harry Potter that's ok? What kind of argument is that
- jasonjmcghee 10mo agoAbsolutely not saying this or making this argument. I just don't see how this could possibly work - how would slapping Harry Potter in the middle of the book your writing work
- sarchertech 10mo agoInstead of slapping Harry Potter in the middle of your book wholesale, imagine you lifted a few really good lines from Harry Potter, a few from Lord of the Rings, and more from a handful of other books. Read the evidence document another poster linked for actual examples.
- 1718627440 10mo agoTo me as a dumb reader, that would be fine, maybe the author could have mentioned that he likes these authors and takes them as inspirations. Also you can't really forbid books to never have references to pop culture. And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural sayings.
- sarchertech 10mo ago>could have mentioned Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism. References to pop culture are the same as lifting sentences from other books and pretending you wrote them. > And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural sayings In the actual case being examined the copied references certainly hadn’t reached any such level of famousness. Also there’s a difference between having a character tell another “not all those who wander are lost” as a clear reference to a famous quote from LOTR and copying multiple paragraph length deep cuts to pass off as your own work.