In the last week two beginner writers have asked me how they can copyright their ideas.
One was worried that if she pitched an idea to a magazine editor, the concept would be taken up and used by a staff writer. The other had come across that old chestnut of 'mail yourself a copy of your MS and keep it unopened to prove you had the idea first.' (Surely the province of clinical paranoia, not to mention a scary willingness to indulge in litigation.)
The fact is that editors don't have the time or need to 'steal' ideas - there are so many writers pitching fresh concepts all the time. Additionally, it's extremely common for several people to have the same idea simultaneously. (This fuels the paranoia, of course, when someone has a pitch rejected and then finds a similar article or story published later.)
The best exposition of this is Terry Pratchett's description of invisible inspiration particles sleeting through the universe, and striking susceptible brains. One imagines that like snowflakes, the particles may be unique but have many aspects in common.
On Tuesday there was a wonderful illustration of this over at 'An Awfully Big Blog Adventure'. John Dougherty once met Diana Wynne Jones at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, speaking about her new book The Game, about a child who goes to visit relatives in Ireland and finds strange things happening, connected to Celtic myths. At the time he had a manuscript with his publisher, about a child who goes to visit relatives in Ireland, etc etc.
Diana Wynne Jones was reassuring - she said this kind of thing was always happening, and the two books would be entirely different. And so they were.
It's still hard to reassure the paranoid writers, though.
3 comments:
In my creative writing class in Canada, many of the students had the same question. They were very concerned about copyright but the teacher -- a published author -- was utterly unphased by it!
It does seem to some writers that they need to copyright their ideas - but as a person with a background in both magazine and book publishing, I can assure you that manuscripts arriving with the little copyrighted notice typed on it or a mention of copyrighting the material immediately lets the publisher know they are dealing with an amateur. So really, avoid doing this. There are so many good ideas in the world - a lot apparently gotten at the same time - and the best way to be creative is to open up, not close up :)
Thanks for dropping by, Susan. I do agree with you - all the copyright neurosis merely marks one out as inexperienced.
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