Pride and Prejudice and Plagiarism (Caturday Questions)

Little Cat was reading his favorite book the other day (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), and couldn’t help but notice that it was a bit… derivative. It felt somehow as though Little Cat had read this book before. Which of course he had. You reread your favorites all the time, no? But that wasn’t it. Then it dawned on him. That the plot hits a lot of the same beats as the plot of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. The two main characters hate each other. The two side characters love each other. But then their marriage-plans fall through. But then the two main characters help the two side characters get married. At some point along the way, the two main characters realize they love each other. And then the two main characters get married themselves. So… plagiarism?

Where do you I Get my Ideas? Oh… from Plagiarism.

Little Cat was spitting mad when he saw this connection. Imagine reading this book at least once a year for over a decade and only now realizing that the whole thing is a hack job. That Seth Grahame-Smith…The Seth Grahame-Smith couldn’t come up with enough original ideas to fill a novel and had to resort to plagiarism. He was so mad and hurt that he almost didn’t stick his butt in Human-Mom’s face while she was trying to watch Bridgerton.

But Big Cat sorted him out. “There are only so many plots,” he said. “You’re bound to repeat a few here and there. Actually, if you can let go of this ‘plagiarism’ idea, then the whole thing is quite liberating.”

“Liberating?” asked Little Cat.

“Well, if Grahame-Smith can do it, so can you!”

“That’s actually a good point.”

So now Little Cat is working hard on a novel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in Space. It’s going to be really good. His editor at Harlequin Romance said it was exactly what they were looking for and that they hadn’t read a better queer zombie-themed choose-your-own-adventure novel since Escape from Fire Island. His yowling critics have already accused him of plagiarism. They can eat their jealousy. Life is good.

So what about you? Where do you plagiarize your ideas from, whether you write fiction or memoir or persuasive essay?

Description

Two identical panels each depicting two far-from-identical cats sitting together on a cushion. A large orange smiles beatifically down at a pinched-looking grey and asks: “Where do you get your ideas?” The grey looks off into the distance as he answers: “From my deep well of imagination.”

“Wow, Really?”

The little grey smirks and says: “Nah. I just take the basic structure from Shakespeare and set it in space or something.”