Stealing Ideas?
Aug. 15th, 2007 08:12 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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queensthiefThis is sort of an early While She Knits post, because I'll be gone on Friday. (sorry Checkers ~ smack me if it's excessive off topic book discussion).
The previous While She Knits mentioned Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. I had given them to my son to read, on Emma's recommendation, and he really enjoyed them as well. One comment he made was that it took a while to think of dragons the size of troop ships, after Eragon's one-person models. He's a big Eragon fan.
Clearly Novik is either a Hornblower fan, or more likely an O'Brien one. Reading the third book, I am beginning to think she may be a Dunnett fan as well. So here's my question. Is it unfair to diss Paolini and his Eragon for being a rip-off of everybody else's ideas, but to give Novik praise for what fun stuff she is doing with other people's source material? I didn't think when I read Paoline that his writing stunk out loud. And it certainly seems to have struck a chord in his target audience (MS/HS, especially boys). Novik is not obviously head and shoulders better on a line by line basis. Are we just unfair that we praise one derivative book, but slam another?
Or is it just that I prefer her source material to Paolini's. It's true, give me Forresster and Dunnett over Tolkein.
The previous While She Knits mentioned Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. I had given them to my son to read, on Emma's recommendation, and he really enjoyed them as well. One comment he made was that it took a while to think of dragons the size of troop ships, after Eragon's one-person models. He's a big Eragon fan.
Clearly Novik is either a Hornblower fan, or more likely an O'Brien one. Reading the third book, I am beginning to think she may be a Dunnett fan as well. So here's my question. Is it unfair to diss Paolini and his Eragon for being a rip-off of everybody else's ideas, but to give Novik praise for what fun stuff she is doing with other people's source material? I didn't think when I read Paoline that his writing stunk out loud. And it certainly seems to have struck a chord in his target audience (MS/HS, especially boys). Novik is not obviously head and shoulders better on a line by line basis. Are we just unfair that we praise one derivative book, but slam another?
Or is it just that I prefer her source material to Paolini's. It's true, give me Forresster and Dunnett over Tolkein.
no subject
Date: 8/15/07 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/15/07 02:05 pm (UTC)Paolini writes how we all write when we're young fantasy fans bursting to write our own novel. Yes, some young writers are amazing, but that is far from the norm, and unfortunately Paolini, while not as bad as your average fanfic writer, is not particularly good. There is a huge difference between being influenced by other material, or even directly playing with a source material, and just slotting other material into your work.
In all genres but fantasy in particular, it's hard not to be referencing some other work. The key is to be unique and interesting about it. Paolini's work is that of a fanboy. Given time to grow up, and a good editor who is willing to push him, and he might turn into something greater.
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Date: 8/15/07 02:33 pm (UTC)Personally, I think it's Paolini's writing style that garnered him all the criticism-- from what I remember, it is a bit immature. His plots are derivative, but it's fantasy; some things are bound to be similar. In fact, I sort of liked that it was a send-up (?) of the entire genre. And what's that old quote about there really being no new stories?
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Date: 8/15/07 02:53 pm (UTC)So as I read the books, there was always a big niggling ????? in the back of my head and I kept thinking of how our world would have evolved differently, which kept me from enjoying the books as much as most people did.
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Date: 8/15/07 02:53 pm (UTC)And I didn't mind Novik borrowing aspects of naval battle for dragon battle, for example, because it was new (or at least, I hadn't read any other book where an author had done that) and innovative.
Also, I found Lawrence a more interesting character than Eragon, and Temeraire (though he was a bit precious and precocious at times) a less annoying (and more believable) dragon than Sapphira.
~Feir Dearig
disbelief
Date: 8/15/07 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/15/07 04:17 pm (UTC)And yes, I do believe that Novik is a fan of both O'Brian (well, actually I know about the O'Brian for certain) and Dunnett. But despite those influences, the structure of the stories is very much her own, so that having read O'Brian or Dunnett is not going to tell you what's going to happen next to Lawrence and Temeraire. I understand that this is not the case with Paolini, who is in the habit of borrowing large chunks of plot from things like Star Wars, and therefore rendering his books predictable as well as clumsily written.
There's nothing wrong with derivative so long as you do it the right way. Borrowing inspiration from other sources is perfectly legitimate so long as you take care to give the concepts your own unique spin (see Shakespeare, William); but borrowing plots and characters with only superficial changes is a Very Bad Idea.
And speaking of Dunnett, MWT is also a fan, no? I certainly suspected it when I read QoA and KoA in particular, and recently she made a comment in an interview which confirmed it. But as with Novik, knowing that Gen owes something to Lymond et al doesn't make it possible to anticipate what MWT is doing with her plot, nor does it make Gen the same character as Lymond any more than it makes him the same character as Miles Vorkosigan.
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Date: 8/15/07 04:27 pm (UTC)Sorry, Volly--I quite liked you all the same!There are some differences, I think--the Native Americans still hold North America, for example, and Nelson survived Trafalgar. But overall I agree with you. Wouldn't courier dragons have enabled Rome to keep together longer, for example? Might there not still be a Roman empire, if they could hold all those conquered barbarians down with a threat of force as small as a single fire-breathing middleweight?
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Date: 8/15/07 04:31 pm (UTC)And also agree with your reasoning. Setting a book at the time of the Napoleonic Wars is no new thing; neither is using a naval captain as its hero. (For that matter, why aren't we sending up O'Brian as derivative of Hornblower?) It's really the treatment of an old device that matters. Paolini did not, in my opinion, do it well. Novik (and O'Brian) did it quite well.
no subject
Date: 8/15/07 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/15/07 05:35 pm (UTC)Novik is more appealing to my interests, but that may be more a matter of timing than content. Maybe I am just full up of Tolkeinesque books with humans and elves. I think that happens to people, and then, no matter how good the newest iteration might be, they just can't get themselves interested in the story. Oh, look, boy meets girl, boy dies, girl dies, D'oh, seen it before. And they toss Romeo and Juliet at the wall. I think that is my biggest problem with Paolini, I am just not interested in another derivation of that kind. And I would say that his "target audience" is exactly those people who haven't read any of the previous iterations of the story he is repeating. Someday ten years from now, I bet his fans will be holding a book in their hands that all the new readers of the day are raving about and they will be saying, D'oh, another Paolini knock-off.
more or less of a rip-off
Date: 8/15/07 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/15/07 08:31 pm (UTC)he directly copies lines from Star Wars. I mean, lines. Not just scenes, not just basic character outlines/histories/etc., but the actual dialogue. Go reread the scene where Eragon leaves what's-his-face (the dragonrider teacher), and the scene were we find out the truth about Moran, and then go rewatch Empire Strikes Back.
I mean, sure, most fantasy novels are derivative in some form or fashion. Paolini, however, merely takes without making it his own, you know? It's not just "oh, this is like such-and-such" it's like "oh, this is such-and-such, only not as good."
my main problem is how everyone hails him as a genius, and he's making a crapload of money, off of stuff that really should have been delegated to the back corner of the kid's shelves at bookstores (not unlike what happens to MWT's books). The only real reason he's this popular is the marketing. And yeah, he worked hard, but even within his genre of not-very-good-kid!fantasy, there are still other writers who are better who have better plots who deserve the attention more than he does.
OKAY SO NOW I HAVE TO WRITE...FOUR PAGES. A PAGE PER PARAGRAPH. THAT SOUNDS FAIR. *makes notes*
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Date: 8/15/07 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/15/07 10:01 pm (UTC)I should take up this habit. *ponders*
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Date: 8/15/07 10:20 pm (UTC)I am convinced that Eragon is so popular with teenaged boys because, well, a lot of what you like when you're a teenager is awful. I used to love the Dragonriders of Pern. When you haven't read a lot of different genres, styles, writers, &c. you don't pick up on how bad things are. And this has everything in it that they want to read - really cool swords, dragons, Special Heroes, all of that.
Re: more or less of a rip-off
Date: 8/15/07 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/15/07 11:39 pm (UTC)Yes, both Novik and Paolini borrow ideas and concepts from other authors. The difference? Novik does it much more gracefully and less obviously. She also has one big original idea--Dragons in the Napolionic Wars!--that has NOT been used. Paolini seems to have mostly just compiled popular stories ande sub-plots and tried to make them his own. he only reason Paolini can possibly have become so well known (yes, this is an opinion, but we're all entitled to them) is he was marketed alot and well. (Homeschooled teenager writes generic fantasy book! Wow!)
Yes, if Novik's world really existed history would be changed much more than she has changed it in the books, but I for one found this incredibly easy to overlook. I was reading for fun, and I had alot of fun. And thats that. (Empire of Ivory September 25th! I'm so excited!)
Of course, in the end... it all comes down to personal preference. Personally, I prefer Novik's books far above Paolini's. I certainly don't expect this opinion to be universal. :D
Yes, I know basically all that has already been said. :D I'll be quiet now.
Re: disbelief
Date: 8/16/07 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/16/07 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/16/07 10:03 am (UTC)I can well believe that the target audience would find it a good read; just personally, I found it deadly boring.
no subject
Date: 8/16/07 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/16/07 01:32 pm (UTC)The paperback edition has 4 stars from 104 customer reviews. Something is definitely messed up with the world.
Novik versus Paolini
Date: 8/16/07 03:19 pm (UTC)I prefer the Temeraire books to Paolini for a bunch of reasons. I think that Novik is a better writer than Paolini and I like the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. I would like there to be a little less dragon and a little more about Laurence's emotional side, which seems kind of undeveloped, but I still really enjoy the books.
I read the first chapter of Eragon once and found it very heavy going. It wasn't really for me.
I've never read any Dorothy Dunnett. I think I'll get some out of the library.
Sam
Re: disbelief
Date: 8/16/07 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/16/07 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/16/07 03:47 pm (UTC)I think Eragon is like junk food. Little kids will eat it up, but as we get older, our tastes are supposed to mature and we realize that we really would prefer a good dinner to a BigMac. We never fully leave the BigMacs behind, or all those fast food restaurants would be out of business. Yes, I think it got a little notice because of the hype, but it has sold a million copies because people love their BigMacs.
no subject
Date: 8/16/07 04:30 pm (UTC)So yes, the books may hit young boys' hot buttons, but there are plenty of good books that would and could do the same. What made these books sell wasn't that but the fact that there was a way for the publisher to bring them to everyone's attention, and only then did their content (since I certainly can't say quality) take over.
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Date: 8/16/07 05:54 pm (UTC)mwt
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Date: 8/16/07 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/16/07 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/16/07 10:59 pm (UTC)It's a cool literary allusion when it takes place in a different context. For example, when Gen says something along the lines of "What a lie that was" (the instance I'm thinking of is in KoA when Attolia says "You are always kind to me"), it's a direct quote from Diana Wynne Jones's Howl, right? Except the only way you would know that is if you were paying attention and happened to make the connection (which I did not until someone pointed it out, mainly because I've only read Howl a few times). It's not like Gen is a somewhat cowardly wizard fellow, and Attolia's a female character who may or may not be an old lady in disguise. In this case, it's more of a literary nod--different situation, same words, inspiring hilarity in some, and passed over by others.
(Granted, in that case someone might read HMC and think "Hey! That's MWT's line!" But if they were enterprising hopefully they would check copyright dates and come to the right conclusion.)
Whereas in Paolini's case, it's more like "here's a farmboy, who's the last active member of this particular kind of [insert hero type], who's leaving his instructor" and here he says something along the lines of "I'll come back and finish my training. I promise."
Now, see, if we couldn't use the names "Jedi" and "Dragonrider" (or whichever), and "Luke" and "Eragon," and "Yoda" and "O-what's-his-name," then it would just be a nod to Star Wars. However, since Paolini is clearly and willfully borrowing extensively from Star Wars (and not only in this spot), this just adds insult to injury. And it wouldn't even matter if he was borrowing from Star Wars if it wasn't so ill-disguised. But it's blatant and obvious and just poorly written, and the characters are just interchangable mouthpieces for the flat dialogue and--
Oh, crap. *counts* That's what, two more pages I have to write today? *sighs*
Anyway, um, did that answer your question? :-)
no subject
Date: 8/17/07 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/17/07 05:41 pm (UTC)(And yes, Novik is an O'Brian fan, from which I suppose she gets most, if not all, her knowledge of naval practices. But, okay, by now you guys probably know I'm the resident rabid O'Brian fan...)
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Date: 8/17/07 05:57 pm (UTC)Jade, by any chance are you a member of Anti-Shurtugal.com?
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Date: 8/17/07 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/18/07 01:46 am (UTC)Although, now that I am older, some of the characters couls use a little more depth I feel. On the other hand, a discussion me and cabin boy were having a while back was whether some stories focus on the world the author's created, and then secondarily the characters in that world, versus authors who mainly develop the characters and the world they invented for them is secondary.
I would argue that while both are developed highly, initially we see The Thief as a book written to showcase the character, with the QoA and KoA written to showcase the world a bit more, although the character's roles are in no way diminished.
In Frank Herbert's DUNE series I see more world-action going on in the laterbooks, though certainly Paul Atreides plays a huge part in the first book.
But CB pointed out to me that perhaps I am naturally geared to notice, and be more interested in the world, while she herself notices characters more. Thus the story I would try to write would focus primarily on building a world all my own, while hers would be about the characters...
I think the two are very much intertwined though, just with small tendencies to lean one way or the other.
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Date: 8/18/07 01:50 am (UTC)*also a resident rabid O'Brian fan*
XP
Just had to chime in...
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Date: 8/18/07 01:52 am (UTC)Re: more or less of a rip-off
Date: 8/18/07 03:23 am (UTC)...that's one page, right?
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Date: 8/18/07 03:31 am (UTC)I would have to disagree with that one. While I would say that people who have barely read any fantasy would find it entertaining, most people can name at least one source he's used (I mean, aside from LOTR. He mostly used that one for world-building anyway). Creepy little girl who's prematurely aged and has special powers? Alia from Dune, baby. (And heck, his superspecial bow he gets--I think that's what it was--was fairly reminiscent of the first book of R.A. Salvatore's Demon Trilogy. That's getting a bit obscure there, and to be fair I only read the first book in that trilogy because it was insanely long and exhausting and I couldn't stand the thought of two more books like it, but Paolini has said over and over again that all he did was read fantasy books, so I wouldn't place it far off the mark to say that's where he got that idea.)
Of course there's a lot of generally accepted literature that is in some ways a rip-off of Star Wars. Star Wars is a rip off* of a lot of generally accepted literature and mythology. It's all in the execution.
Er, I'm not a member of the actual site, though I do belong to the (mostly dead until the next book comes out) livejournal community. And I have read and
wept for joy overagreed with the many essays they have posted over there (my favorite being the one that calls Eragon a...sociopath, was it? Not something that occurred to me, but still very funny). And I've been acquainted with Hackslayer via NaNoWriMo. So, um, if you're asking me where my affiliations lie... :-)(three...more...pages...)
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Date: 8/18/07 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/18/07 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/18/07 01:49 pm (UTC)Pern
Date: 8/18/07 02:00 pm (UTC)The first three dragon books, and the first two Harper Hall are my favorites. And the Masterharper of Pern.
Donuts
Date: 8/18/07 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8/18/07 03:11 pm (UTC)