“Restricted Area” Short Stories by Jason D. Bryant AND Will Kosh’s Book Soundtrack

You all know how I <3 my Indie authors, especially the extra creative ones. Will Kosh, for example, just sent me a soundtrack he devised to accompany his novel, Little Winged One. How ingenious. His book just got bumped to the top of my digital stack because of it.

 

And then there’s my Twitter buddy and fellow The Walking Dead fanatic, Jason D. Bryant, who’s written a variety of stories on WorthyOfPublishing.com. One of his projects, entitled Restricted Area, is a collection of short stories inspired by his Twitter followers. A follower sends him a DM with a plot outline- it must fit within only one message- and then sends another with nothing but a number indicating the word count.

Of course I did it. Like, right away. And my plot outline was this: A zombie retains her memories and conscience after turning. She traps herself in her basement to avoid harming her boyfriend. Chaos erupts.

My word count was 1000, chosen mostly just because that seemed to be the going theme.

He entitled my story, The Craving, and did amazing things with it. (Read: CHECK IT OUT!) I think it’s a pretty original concept and I love Mr. Bryant’s enthusiasm for it. But I also love the idea because it demonstrates how involved a reader can be, and how writing is an interactive experience. The reader isn’t a spectator; you want your readers to be a part of your story. Mr. Bryant is taking that to a new level and allowing the reader to become the muse.

It was a good week to be a part of the writing community.

 

Writing with Integrity Pt. 2: Plagiarism & Libel (my rant for the weekend)

When I was in college, there was a huge emphasis on the consequences of plagiarism. And I don’t mean, “If you steal someone’s essay, you’ll get reported for cheating and you’ll fail the class.”

No. If you got caught plagiarizing, you were expelled. Period.

It didn’t matter if you claimed it was accidental. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t verbatim. If you took something and didn’t cite it properly, you were done.

I loved that.

When I was a teenager, I joined an online writing community where I posted my melodramatic poetry. It was always appearing in other places by people who’d steal it. It wasn’t even that good, but having it stolen made me feel vulnerable and outraged. I can’t imagine how much worse I would have felt had someone plagiarized an entire novel of mine. But the fact is that most unscrupulous people don’t plagiarize whole works. They steal little bits. They’re sneaky like that.

But little bits can matter a lot. If someone steals your character names and the basic premise of your story, that can really kill your original work. Even if the thief’s prose is original, the ideas are stolen.

As an editor, this drives me crazy. Receiving plagiarized submissions is utterly offensive to me. I’d like not to have to Google everyone’s stories. I’d like people, in general, to be more ethical. In short, I’d like to be able to expel people from the universal writing community if they’re caught plagiarizing.

Another problem is libel. As writers, we often base our stories off personal experiences and our characters off real people. But this isn’t acceptable when you purposely create a fictional character to perfectly mimic someone you despise so you can harm their reputation through your writing. Um, duh.

Are these really such fine lines? Is this not common sense?

Sometimes I have to wonder.