One word- Wow! I thought the biggest fear, other than failure, rejection or lack of sales for any writer was to be accused of plagiarism. That’s a big bad word in my book. In high school and college, I constantly refrained from giving citations or quotations as often as possible. If I was required to give a certain number of quotes, I sure as Hell made sure I documented the crap out of them. And so while I love writing and working on my books and various rants (like this one) and reviews, I hate research papers because I am never completely sure what is rephrasing in your own words, citing another piece of literature, using another person’s ideas, or legally quoting.
Personally, I prefer to just skim an article or piece and gather my own impression of the paper and then draw my own conclusions without glancing back at the original document. I write out my own assignment and then if I had to as a requirement for points go back in and find a specific fact to directly quote and then go to great lengths to make sure I adhered to MLA style documentation.
The romance novel world was rocked in the 1990s when it came to light that Janet Dailey had been swiping storylines, blocks of dialogue and possibly even entire chapters from super-romance author Nora Roberts. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/537519/cassie_edwards_and_janet_dailey_plagiarism.html?cat=38 See- ah there it is, my own little quick documentation of where I am getting this information.
It boggles my mind that Janet Dailey seems to have only had to suffer the embarrassment of being exposed, that any settlement was kept behind closed doors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Dailey woo- another documentation albeit not up to MLA standards, but if my laziness bothers you already, you really should stop reading at this point.
Still here? Well, this is going to turn into quite the rant right about now so sit back and hold on…
If you hadn’t already noticed, I like vampires. I started early with Stephen King & Salem’s Lot & The Night Flier. Most people have heard of Salem’s Lot, but few know about The Night Flier. He’s a creepy vampire who is discovered by a reporter who plans to expose him as a killer, but the vampire has the last laugh at the reporter’s expense. Next I moved on to Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles. I fell in love with Lestat. Gawd, I was even such a vampire mark (and uber nerd) that I had a vanity tag from the state that read “LESTAT1”.
Why the 1 you ask? Because I was so certain that somewhere out there in the state of Oklahoma there was someone else who had my brilliant thought before me and already had ordered a tag from the state that read “LESTAT”. It was ultimately a painful decision between the vampire tag (that I fear led to an extreme shortage of Friday night dinner proposals) and homage to my musical obsession at the moment, Dwight Yoakam. Being super smart and honestly a bit of an obsessive personality, I thought down the road and realized that “FASTAZU” (there might already be a “fastasu”) might lead to getting pulled over by the police, and that wasn’t really the kind of attention I needed at the time. So the goth-before-it-was-in-fashion tag won out.
Back to plagiarism.
Now vampire wise, I’ve all the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. It was many moons ago, so don’t go all Alex Trebek on me, I couldn’t give you specifics on anything. I’ve tried to read the Southern Vampire Mysteries- those books about Sookie Stackhouse and Vampire Bill that are now loosely on HBO in the form of the series “True Blood.” I never could get into the books, I just didn’t enjoy them, and frankly I’m growing pretty disgusted by the show.
Ooops, there I go again, off on a tangent.
Okay. So I’ve read almost the entire Twilight series by S. Meyer. I haven’t been able to finish the 4th book. I’m sorry but it’s got way out of hand and I just felt stupid forcing myself to read it when I was miserable doing so just because I had so much time invested in the characters. I finally realized that I just didn’t care anymore.
And so this week The Vampire Diaries aired its pilot episode on the CW. The Vampire Diaries? I’d never heard of it. Granted I don’t keep the NY Times best sellers list on the refrigerator, and I don’t work in a library, I just found it odd that I hadn’t heard of it ever, and the first three books in the series was published when I was a freshmen in high school, back when dinosaurs still ruled the Earth.
In other words, these books by L.J. Smith ain’t new. And I have to say- the show is NOTHING like the first book. Names of characters and settings were changed, characters in the book didn’t make it to the show, characters on the show don’t exist in the book, and one key point of the book, the heroine’s complexion and hair coloring, is completely different. In the book, Elena is blonde and blue eyed. In the show, it’s more than fairly obvious that the producers went for a Kristen Stewart (Bella) type. Which is sad, that in a way is a kind of plagiarism, I think. It’s as if they weren’t confident enough in their own product that they felt the need to lean on Twilight.
Well, if anything, The Vampire Diaries deserves to lean a little. Cause Twilight is so clearly ripped from the Vampire Diaries that if plagiarism were a crime punishable by hard time, Stephenie Meyer would be sentenced to the rest of her life in a little hole in the floor of a dungeon, busting rocks with a sledge hammer all day, making license plates all night and spending any free time hanging upside in an iron maiden.
Capiche?
Where to start? I’ll be going by the books, not the movie Twilight or the tv show version of TVD.
Edward Cullen VS Stefan Salvatore.
Sure, they’re both love stories. Okay, boy meets girl, boy has tremendous amounts of self loathing to deal with. Check. A little remote town where self loather can try to blend in and hope to be innocuous. Check. Both vampires go to high school, and the towns folk know there’s a little something off about them, so the ones with anything substantial between their ears keep their distance.
However, the unfathomable beauty and sex appeal Misters Tall, Pale & Dangerous ooze, (along with the high priced cars) only goes to garner them all the female attention in their respective fifty mile radius. They are both eternally on the physical cusp of manhood. They’re both insanely gorgeous, soft spoken and exhibit impeccable manners except when their lady loves are threatened.
Capabilities: They can bend the will and mind of those around them who are weaker (okay that is a given w/ just about any vampire story- so I’m just throwing that one out there). They can read thoughts. Only difference here is that Edward can not read Bella’s mind. Stefan, though he tries not to use the “Power” can read everyone’s mind- except for other vampires. Both are capable of inhuman strength and skill. Both vampires expose their physical strength to their respective lady loves in fits of exasperation, hoping to warn the girls how dangerous they can truly be if they let themselves go. Both stories feature the snapping in half of trees and the unseen lightening fast movements of the boys as they zip around the girl trying to incite fear but only dragging the girls more fully under their sexy hot spells (cause no boy they’ve ever met before can do that!)
Rivals: There’s the jealous girl in each story. Jessica barely conceals her jealousy of Bella, while Caroline makes no mistakes about laying it out on the line for Elena just exactly what the score is. Both Jessica and Caroline are rejected and rebuffed from the vampires, and have little pity parties questioning “what does she got that I don’t?”
Both Edward & Stefan disappear from the story, causing the girls to face danger to search them out. Both Edward & Stefan detest what they are, feel they are inhuman monsters with no souls- both can face the sunlight, Edward sparkles, Stefan only has to wear a ring that has a blue stone in it to keep from turning into a shish kabob. Both stories bring the girls to the “liar” of the vampire, where they learn more about the human side of their undead boyfriends. Both boys choose to abstain from drinking human blood, instead choosing to hunt animals in the forests around their small town. Well, that is one place Twilight didn’t go- there is blood exchanged in The Vampire Diaries, and I’m not talking about Stefan having to suck on Elena to save her life, no- Elena offers herself to Stefan, much like Sookie & Vampire Bill, and The Vampire Diaries takes it a step further and has Elena drink from Stefan’s throat as some weird way of solidifying their relationship.
Eventually there will be a love triangle in The Vampire Diaries… as there is one in the Twilight books…
The word “Twilight” is a big deal in the Vampire Diaries. Is it even mentioned in the Twilight Saga except on the cover?
The Vampire Diaries was first published in 1991. Twilight came out in 2005. Supposedly the author of the Twilight Saga was inspired by a dream of a sparkly vampire in a meadow… I think it’s more likely that somewhere in the past, Ms. Meyer read The Vampire Diaries, filed it away, and that was what inspired her wonderful (though I think I’ve provided enough to build a case of doubt- not original) books.
Now I ain’t sayin’ she’s a gold digger…
