Amra Pajalic

Just read this article about a 17 year old German girl who’s novel was discovered to contain pages lifted from a blogger.

“Recent plagiarism accusations against the 17-year-old author of a German novel feel like déjà vu all over again, with one key distinction: Helene Hegemann, who wrote the best-selling tale of drugging and clubbing, “Axolotl Roadkill,” is defending the practice, telling one German newspaper, “I myself don’t feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context and from the outset consistently promoted the fact that none of that is actually by me.”

Hegemann lifted as much as a full page of text from an obscure, independently published novel, “Strobo,” by a blogger known as Airen. Another German blogger, Deef Pirmasens, was the first to point out the passages from “Axolotl Roadkill” that are said to be largely duplicated from “Strobo,” with small changes. Despite the uproar caused by this revelation, “Axolotl Roadkill” has been selling better than ever and has been nominated for the $20,000 fiction prize at the Leipzig Book Fair. “Obviously, it isn’t completely clean but, for me, it doesn’t change my appraisal of the text,” a jury member and newspaper book critic told the New York Times,explaining that the jury knew about the plagiarism accusations when it selected the novel for its short list. “I believe it’s part of the concept of the book.”

I am offended on so many counts. First of all the writer is defending it as remixing and intertextuality, but she did not acknowledge the work of the original writer and only came up with this defence after it was discovered that she did plagiarise. And secondly, while the author would of course be putting her own spin on it, what I don’t understand is how a literary prize could shortlist this novel in the wake of these accusations and actually legitimise what she did.

I have participated in a remixed anthology. To remix is to take a another work and add your own spin on it. But the most important thing about remixing is that firstly you have to acknowledge that your remixing the work and obtain copyright to undertake this. One of the points that Helene makes it that there are no original ideas, it’s only how you interpret and construct them. While yes I agree with this plaigarism is defined as taking someone else’s work and presenting it as your own. This is what she did, thefore it is plagairism.

Intertextuality however is little harder to define. It is either referencing other texts, the shaping of texts’ meanings by other texts, a response to what has already been written, be it explicit or implicit, implied references to or implied influences from another text.

While intertextuality is a bit harder to pin down, what it definitely is not is taking someone else’s writing and embedding it in your own. It is always in some way using other people’s writing to influence your own. So you still have to take something-be it a sentence, a paragraph or an idea, and transform it in your own writing to contain a different allusion or a meaning. The simplest way of defining intertextuality is that you re-tell a previous story.

While some people attempt to defend plagiarising as intertextuality the simplest way to ensure you don’t get accused of plagiarising is to explicitly state who you are referencing and why, but under no circumstances do you take something someone else has written and claim that you have written it. It is a very clear distinction and one not open to interpretation.

What are your thoughts?

Since my novel was published last year I’ve been thrust into this strange new world of being an author that includes media interviews and public speaking. The problem with entering a new world is you don’t know what to expect and most importantly, you don’t know what questions to ask to be prepared.

As a result every event I attended I felt underprepared. I’d prepare a talk and then get to the venue and realise it was unsuitable for the audience, or I wouldn’t have a place to put my speech and would be juggling notes and microphone in my hand while trying to talk. I tried to use index cards with bullet points to keep me on track, but this led to tangents and a disconnected talk that didn’t have a clear cut structure.

Sometimes I was on panels and I wouldn’t prepare a talk because I expected there to be a moderator to ask questions, only to find out there was no moderator and I was supposed to have a turn doing a speech before audience questions.

While I had moments of brilliance where I knew I did a great job and walked away feeling euphoric most of the time I would be annoyed and irritated for not having done this or that.

After a year of learning on the job I thought I’d share some lessons I’ve learnt along the way:

1. Make contact: Contact the coordinator of the event at least one week before, ideally a few weeks before that. You can do this either via email or phone call. The purpose of this contact is for you to get all the information you need to be prepared for the speaking engagement:

Who is the audience and how many people will there be?

What is the venue like, an auditorium, a classroom, etc?

How long do you have to talk for?

Do you need to leave time for Q & A?

Also make sure you get information about parking, directions, and contact numbers.

But this is also the opportunity for you to find out what type of talk they want. Is there anything in particular they want you to focus on?

If you are on a panel clarify how it will be structured. Will you need to prepare a speech? Will there be a moderator asking questions and keeping the discussion moving?

2. Equipment you need for the talk: Now that you know what to expect you need to think about what equipment do you need to make your talk work. If it is a large venue request a microphone so you don’t have to strain your voice and struggle to be heard. Do you need a lectern for your speech? Are you going to be using visual aids? Make sure you specify what equipment you need from the person who is organising the event.

3. Prepare your talk: Now that you know if there are any particular themes/topics that the organiser wants you to focus on make sure you build these into your speech. In order to prepare your talk think about the types of things you like to hear about as an audience member. From my experiences I wanted to know:

How did you become a writer?

What was you inspiration behind your book?

What is your writing process?

I’ve found that structuring my talk in terms of answering a question works best. Develop your talk as a long essay and include anecdotes and stories about yourself and your writing. While you are there to promote your book, the main reason you are talking is to entertain. A writer is a storyteller so make sure your speech is telling a story about you and your writing.

Also ensure you have extra material so that you have no problems filling the allotted time. Sometimes you will be expected to leave time for Q & A, but the audience might be bashful -this is especially true for secondary students. In that case ensure you have extra material prepared to fill in the allotted time.

4. Practice your talk: Time your talk to ensure that you have enough material for the allotted you are supposed to speak. Ensure that your talk flows smoothly whereby you foreshadow each section and take the audience on a journey. Also make sure that you are providing all the information the audience needs to be on this journey with you. So if you are reading extracts of your novel-write out the action set up so they know who is who and what is happening.

5. Act out your speech with emotion and feeling: If you need to put notes on the page about when to pause, when to do a certain type of voice. If this is something you struggle with then try reading a book to a child. In order to keep a child’s attention you need to read with feeling and exuberance. Once you’ve done this a few times it is easy to apply this skill to your speech.

6. Getting there: Make sure you plan your driving route. While the Melway is helpful you can also use a website like ‘Where Is’ in order to find the best driving route and have an idea of how much travelling time you need. Trying to find a venue is stressful so ensure you arrive early so you have a few minutes to relax, debrief and clear your mind.

7. Deliver your speech: Put all your practice and preparation to use and deliver a great speech. Try to enjoy yourself. If you’re having a good time, so is the audience.

I’m at that stage in my novel where I’m struggling to find my groove. I’ve been thinking about writing it for so long that now that I have the time all the musings I had are a bit stale. I’m preparing for a school talk in a couple of weeks and was searching my old writing to include as part of the talk. Came across my first novel which I’ve always wanted to revisit. So of course I start thinking about how I would re-work this novel and now this is the idea that has my juices flowing.

This leads to a crisis. Am I struggling to find the story because it’s over, the moment to write that novel has been and passed, and it’s time to move onto something else? Or am I self-sabotaging with this shiny new idea that I want to dive into?

After some more reflection I think it’s the former. As writers we love to put up roadblocks for ourselves. Self sabotage by procrastinating. There is always a shiny new idea that we want to work on. I learnt that I had to decide on a story and then stick to it. Not go of on a tangent with every new idea that comes to mind otherwise I’ll never finish anything.

While I’m frustrated with my progress with the current project I have to keep remembering there are a few forces at work. Yes, the idea is a bit stale now, but that doesn’t matter. It always takes a while to write something and you keep going through the process of falling in and out of love with your manuscript. Eventually there is enough there that it keeps pulling you despite yourself and it isn’t such hard work, so I have to just stick it out until that happens.

But also I’m a bit rusty. Not writing on a regular basis has slowed my skills. My brain feels a bit slow and mushy. Words aren’t flowing, ideas aren’t buzzing in my brain. All I can do is practice and practice. Focus on wordcount until quality begins to improve.

The best quote I’ve read lately is:

‘I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.’  ~James Michener

And this is what gives me hope. At the moment I’m writing 1000 words  a day. They’re awful 1000 words, but eventually I’ll pull out 10 words from every 100 and polish them and make them sparkle. A friend is going through the process of producing a draft and whinging about hating the revision process, whereas I love it. If I am revising it means I have the story there and it’s like a crumpled piece of paper that I have to smooth and wrestle out the creases until it’s crisp and clean again.

And so the battle continues.