Plagiarism is essentially ripping off another author’s work and calling it your own. There are of course grey areas. Clearly, writing a story about King Arthur is not plagiarism, mainly because he’s a public domain character who’s fair game for any writer. But what if you copy a unique idea another writer came up with for one of the Arthurian characters, like Lancelot is ugly instead of handsome as the legends tell?

Rather than argue the exact definition of plagiarism, however, I thought it might be more useful to talk about author integrity. I’m going to use three examples as starting points:

1. I once read a book (well, the start of it anyway) in which the author describes a character as a ‘Harrison Ford lookalike’.
2. A big-selling fantasy novel containing a scene in which the author describes a character looking around a room and noting that each person is ‘better-looking than the previous one’.
3. A big-selling children’s novel telling how a vain, bullying secondary character takes up boxing and becomes an even bigger bully.

In 1, the lack of integrity is obvious. The author is taking a lazy short-cut to telling the reader what his character is like, or at least what he looks like. One of the clear problems with this is: does he mean Harrison Ford as in ‘Star Wars’ or as in ‘Ender’s Game’? Also, Harrison Ford is of course both a person and an actor; so which is the writer referring to? But there is a more fundamental problem that that, which is similar to the wisdom that suggests checking out a restaurant’s toilet before eating there, i.e. if it’s a tip, what’s the kitchen going to be like? Similarly, if the writer is this lazy with a description, what’s the plot going to be like?

With 2, the writer’s integrity might not be in question for a lot of readers. What he’s said is after all the kind of thing someone might say when telling their friends about a showbiz party they attended. It sounds natural. However, if you think about it logically, it doesn’t  make sense. It’s suggesting in effect two things: that everyone in the club arranged themselves in order of beauty, and that the observer somehow managed to visually find the least attractive person first, after which his gaze naturally moved up the pecking order of lookers. Here, we’re probably talking about integrity that should concern the author more than the reader. Why? Because an author is not occupying the same role as your mate telling you a story in the pub. He’s an authority on the story; he’s the creator of it. Therefore, he has a duty to ensure his creation is intact, consistent and believable.

With 3, the author hasn’t exactly transgressed his integrity: it is after all quite possible that a cowardly bully could become an even bigger bully if he learned how to box. However, the lack of integrity here is more in what the author didn’t do: he didn’t take the opportunity to twist expectations and, say, have the bully through boxing develop a new-found sense of self-worth and respect for others, and even become an ally for the main character instead of an adversary. However, this route would of course create more work for the author, both in thinking it through and in making changes to the plot and character arcs.

I believe lack of integrity about details such as the above, encourages lack of integrity about the story overall. Also, if an author commits the kind of thing described in 1, then there’s a fair chance he’ll do 2 and 3 also. And, while he’s at it, grab that idea about Lancelot being ugly too.

The question is, does it matter? So what if an author takes short-cuts; doesn’t that just make the story easier to get into? Maybe, but it also makes it easier to get out of.

Authors who lack integrity are not much different to insurance salesmen. They’ll tell you what you want to hear, take your money and forget all about you (while putting up your premiums the next year because they’re going to offer new customers a better deal). And of course, insurance companies are always plagiarising each others’ ideas.

Authors with integrity take a lot of trouble to get things right that most readers won’t consciously notice. They’ll make their plots water-tight, even in the face of the often plot-less or plot-ludicrous best-sellers around today.

Lack of integrity amounts to lying. It’s similar to when someone buys a house that they intend to rent. They hire a builder and tell him to make it look good but to do so as cheaply as possible. So, he paints directly over old paint instead of sanding it down first; he fixes holes in the wall by stuffing them with wet newspaper and Polyfilla-ing over the top; he paints over the damp patches instead of putting in a damp course. When the tenants walk in the place looks great. It smells of fresh paint; everything gleams. But essentially it’s a lie. The landlord doesn’t care because he doesn’t have to live there and the tenants will pay him anyway.

Well, you see the analogy. Plenty of authors churn out stories which look as if they work but when you strip away the Plotfilla, nothing holds together permanently. TV dramas often disguise this with sleight-of-hand flashy visuals, distracting you from noticing that the plot doesn’t actually work. It’s harder to do this in written fiction but unfortunately these days, many readers’ anti-bullshit vision is permanently blinded by slow-mo shots of billowing curtains, or actors who stare ‘meaningfully’ out of car windows, so that they just don’t notice.

All of which means the first and last reason for an author to keep his integrity is because he simply wants to know that whatever he leaves behind him in terms of story is built to last.