Thread: plagiarism?

I was just told, if my story is similar in anyway of another book its plagiarism. Is that true? How could I know if there's one similar unless I read every book avaliable? All I know is I haven't come across a book like the one I'm writing yet. If that is the case how does it explain all those Paranormal romance books I've been reading? Most of them describe a vampires the same way; cold skin, speed, strength ect. Wouldn't that too be plagiarism?

Plagiarism is theft. When one story is too similar to another it's not quite plagiarism. It could be, but it could just as often be somebody wearing their influences like a badge. If you really love or admire a particular author or work, you should be wary of how directly you copy what they're doing. This happens a lot. Is Harry Potter a Little Witch from the 1980s? Maybe... or maybe Rowling really liked that work and then forgot that she had liked it.

You can't copyright an idea, so having a similar story is definitely not plagiarism. Plagiarism is copying someone's prose verbatim and passing it off as your own. Or taking someone's story and passing it off as your own.

Plagiarism is copying or imitation, if you are not copying or imitating you are not plagiarising. Plagiarism is not illegal, it is infringement of copyright that is illegal, and although the two may overlap one could, for example , plagiarise information in the public domain (Most writers do that in their research) or rewrite a story that is out of copyright (I have re-written a story from Herodotus for example). On the other hand you could come up with an original story about Ninja hero turtles that would not be plagiarism but would most certainly infringe copyright. The growth of 'intellectual property rights' muddies the water somewhat, but I shouldn't worry over much about it, unless you are deliberately and blatantly ripping off someone's ideas wholesale.