The Mechanic & the Muse

Publishing's Pendulum Swing

Be on the lookout for a sharp contrast between Random House's defensive response to initial reports that James Frey's best-selling "A Million Little Pieces" was built on a fabricated house of cards way Simon & Shuster reacts to the possibility of a purloined book proposal. The heads-up, as so often happens, came from my colleague, the increasingly famous and reliable Jim Romenesko who caught my interest with a report from Women's Wear Daily about a book proposal based, allegedly, on quotes lifted from other writers.

The writer, Emily Davies, a former fashionista for the Times of London, fessed up to WWD about sticky fingers as she shopped a proposal for a memoir, “How to Wear Black: Adventures on Fashion’s Front Line,” that reportedly won her a $900,000 advance. As plagiarists go, her excuse reaches a new level of self-delusion.

"Davies...responded to WWD’s questions with a statement defending her actions in the proposal. Saying it was “not intended for public consumption,” Davies claimed, in effect, that it was easier for her to give prospective publishers the flavor of her memoir by appropriating other writers’ words than by relying on her own memories. “The first thing I did when I began putting together my proposal…was to dig out a mass of notes, cuttings and stories I had assembled over the years.…Although I used these notes in the proposal, there would be no question of my using any unoriginal material in my finished book.”

But WWD's Jeff Bercovici quotes an unnamed " agent in the memoir market (who) said it was by no means standard practice for memoirists to borrow the work of other writers, uncredited, in their proposals. The agent predicted that Simon & Schuster, having watched Random House take a drubbing in the press for publishing Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces,” would drop the book: “People are just so on-edge about this kind of stuff now.”

They don't have to be. There are scrupulously honest memoirists out there who make it clear that there are ethical ways to summon the past in print. They're the kind of memoirists that publishers need to hold up as examples to writers, editors and agents. It would be one way to swing the pendulum away from scandal.

Wordnapping

If you're interested in plagiarism, or hoping to avoid stealing another writer's words, check out a new resource, plagiary.org. It's a peer-reviewed academic journal that promises "Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication and Falsification."

Clearly designed for scholars and teachers, it's too early to tell how useful it will be to writers, but a New York Times article about the project suggests it may help us understand explain why so many writers in recent years have paid the ultimate penalty -- losing their job -- because they lifted someone else's work or, or in James Frey's infamous case, simply made up things. In it, Sara Ivry quotes the journal's founder, John P. Lesko, a professor of applied linguistics at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan:

"Mr. Lesko has spent the last decade examining how and why students appropriate other people's work. "There's the old formula for crime — a combination of motivation and opportunity," he said, citing the ease of pointing and clicking on Web sites. "We've put youngsters into such a rip and burn frenzy, downloading music, it's as if everything is free."

But plagiarism isn't just for kids who cut and paste term papers who blame deadline pressure; those mea culpas echo in newsrooms, too. An expert on academic integrity, Duke University's Timothy Dodd, told the Times:

"We are creating this kind of winning culture that is causing a lot of people to take shortcuts, to overinvest in the chase for stardom," Mr. Dodd said. "It's a corruption of the kind of marketing culture of 'if I can get it to sell, then I have done well.' And, if you have to sell something that is a bit fraudulent, that is deceptive, that's still in service to the greater good, which is 'I've marketed something.' "

Plagiarism is so easy to commit and the penalty so dire. There's pathology at work, to be sure.

But much of it happens, I'm convinced, because not enough is done in the classroom, newsroom or writing class to help writers avoid the crime of wordnapping. I'm heartened that plagiary.org wants to devote its scholarship not only to out plagiarists and make-up artists. "Plagiarism/fraud detection and prevention" is on its list of subjects the journal seeks to explore in research articles and reports.

Topics I'm also eager to see addressed are effective ways to teach the art of paraphrasing and plagiarism detection software that aids literary crime fighters, but also furnishes easy-to-use tools that writers can use, like spell check, to help them identify perilous passages that could cost them their jobs and their reputation.

Plagiarism, fabrication and falsification are a blight on journalistic, literary and academic landscapes. Let's hope plagiary.org can help writers clean up their act.