Is imitation really the best form of flattery?

[dahlfan]

I don't have a particular writing style, but if I did, and someone blatantly copied it - not plagarism, mind you - I would not be flattered. I would tell that person to hone their own voice, and style, and try to be themselves. I noticed that I've begun imitating my favourite writer's style. I'll find myself describing things like the way I think she would. Or when I'm reading my own work out loud, I'll read it in her voice. I know, I have issues...and this is not only when it comes to writing. I sing as well, and if I'm covering a song, I'll imitate the original to the best of my ability rather than try and make it my own.

[Stunted]

I would be flattered as long as nobody made money off my characters or plot.

In my experience, when somebody pioneers a new form of expression, they tend to be the very best at it for a long time. So if I put forth a very novel writing style, novel enough that it would be clear that someone had copied me, then it's likely that they would be less good at it than me (not necessarily bad), so I wouldn't feel threatened.

This will probably never happen to me, though.

[DrZoidberg]

I don't have a particular writing style, but if I did, and someone blatantly copied it - not plagarism, mind you - I would not be flattered. I would tell that person to hone their own voice, and style, and try to be themselves. I noticed that I've begun imitating my favourite writer's style. I'll find myself describing things like the way I think she would. Or when I'm reading my own work out loud, I'll read it in her voice. I know, I have issues...and this is not only when it comes to writing. I sing as well, and if I'm covering a song, I'll imitate the original to the best of my ability rather than try and make it my own.

That's not the point. It's implied. When you are learning to write you read what you or others consider are the masters. If somebody studies your books when trying to find their own voice, the point is that what they're implying that you are, to them, the greatest master in the world. So it's not flattery in the sense of them trying to flatter you.

Compare it to going to a club. You copy the dance style from the guy you think is the coolest on the floor. Same thing. Even if you are not intending to flatter... it still is.

[Ken Hoss]

"Imitation, if it is not forgery, is a fine thing. It stems from a generous impulse, and a realistic sense of what can and cannot be done."
James Fenton

"Every man is a borrower and a mimic; life is theatrical and literature a quotation."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

As you can see, I love to post famous quotes on a subject. As for imitating someone else’s style of writing, I think that we all take something away from what we read, it’s impossible not to do so. And no matter how hard we try to prevent it, it does affect our own "voice". That is how we learn.

Just because you’re writing appears to have the same "style" or “voice” as another, it doesn't necessarily mean you’re imitating that person. It simply means that the author had an influence on you, and added something to your "voice".

[motormind]

That's not the point. It's implied. When you are learning to write you read what you or others consider are the masters.

But this doesn't have to imply trying to write like them. I never felt the urge to do that, no matter how much I like a certain writer.

[dahlfan]

I never felt the urge to do that, no matter how much I like a certain writer.Want a cookie?

[Lifelongdagger]

I remember when first trying my hand at becoming a serious writer, whatever book I happened to be reading at the time influenced my writing style. Be it Charles Dickens, Steven King, Roald Dahl, Elmore Leonard. Any one and everyone.

Took me a long time to find a voice of my own. A voice necessarily distilled through, as DrZoidberg said, the masters.

Read the best. That's what they are for.

[motormind]

Want a cookie?

Want to make some sense?

[ChaosTitan]

Most of our basic skills are learned by imitation. Babies learn to smile by copying adults. Toddlers learn to talk by imitating words made by their parents. Five-year olds love to repeat everything said in front of them. It's how we learn and grow.

It took me a long time to find my voice. Every time I read a new author, I wanted to write like they did. Sometimes it worked, but lots of times it failed. But the imitation helped me find a voice I was comfortable with, and while you may be able to see the influence of other writers in it, it's my voice.

So I'm okay with imitation as a tool to learn.

[Ken Hoss]

Five-year olds love to repeat everything said in front of them. It's how we learn and grow.



This goes for four year olds too. I have to really watch what I say around my granddaughter, she's a little parrot!

:Jaw:

[Ken Schneider]

You have a style and a voice, you just don't know it, yet.

You don't want to write like someone else for any reason you can come up with.

Keep writing, novel after novel and your voice will come.

If, eveyone wrote with the same style and voice it'd be some boring reading after a few books.

[Cyia]

I don't have a particular writing style, but if I did, and someone blatantly copied it - not plagarism, mind you - I would not be flattered. I would tell that person to hone their own voice, and style, and try to be themselves.

If it's how they write, it is theirs. It just happens to sound similar to you. You do not own your writing "style" - and that doesn't change just because someone says they've copied your style.

All craftsmen learn by imitation. Painters copy the masters. Musicians do the same. It's how they get the feel for the way things are supposed to work. Flattery has nothing to do with it.

[willietheshakes]

In answer to your original question: no.

Cash is the best form of flattery.

Sexual favours are a close second, but down that path lies madness.

[The Lonely One]

I think that no matter how much you try to write exactly like someone else, you will fail.

You will inevitably find your own voice floating in theirs. And that's the real treasure. Discard everything else. Distill.

[ChristineR]

The cliche is "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." If somebody copies you, they obviously thought your stuff was good. I don't know what the best form of flattery would be, but cash is pretty high on the list. Note that you don't have to be impressed by your sincere flattery, and note that there are reasons someone might give you cash even if he thought your stuff was pretty bad.

[RG570]

Imitation is an important stage in figuring out how to write.

If someone imitated me and actually became published, I wouldn't mind. I would however hope that they would get better with time and develop.

[panda]

I thought mockery was the greatest form of flattery. ;)

We all imitate to some degree. Unless you've been living on a desert island and can somehow still get dial-up lol, we are all influenced by different authors' styles. It's how we learn by watching others, same with writing, we learn by reading others.

[MumblingSage]

After rereading Atlas Shrugged and then starting on Main Street, I'm increasingly convinced that Ayn Rand's style was heavily influenced by Sinclair Lewis. And even if she wasn't, the styles are still, in some places, very similar. However, Rand and Lewis write very different novels--they have different ways of looking at things, different goals in their writing, different preferences for character types and settings. Similarity in one aspect does not lead to two authors who are copies of each other.

On the other hand, my sister couldn't get through the first chapters of the fantasy story Havemercy because it was too similar to her favorite series Doctrine of Labyrinths in writing style, but she felt it was a poor imitation rather than more of the good stuff. Maybe the difference is that Rand, despite her similarities to Lewis, was a mature author with her own approach to writing, while the co-authors of Havemercy are still learning the ropes and don't have a unified approach yet, so their imitation is jarring.

Did anybody get anything out of this post? Am I just running at the mouth again?

[Renee Collins]

In answer to your original question: no.

Cash is the best form of flattery.

Sexual favours are a close second, but down that path lies madness.

:roll:

[White-Tean]

Hell no. To me, the best form of flattery is not imitation but someone trying to be the best they can be so I can enjoy their own unique work as they've supposedly enjoyed mine.

I am perhaps a little jaded on this topic, because I was first told that phrase by a group of girls who were copying my idea. Okay, sure it was just the cover design of my year six French work book, but damn it I didn't extend my mental faculties to come up with a specific idea just to arrive at a point where my cover featured the same idea as most of the girls at my group of tables.
... why yes, I am still bitter.

Funnily enough, the 'popular' girls were far more likely to nick ideas than the loners and losers I was generally in the crowd of. I don't exactly regret being on the outer in various times of my life.

[Madison]

Ironic. I just completed an imitation project for my composition/style class. We were to pick a paragraph from any book, by any author, and imitate the author's syntax exactly. As in, if the author's sentence was, "In walks these three girls in bathing suits" (John Updike, A&P), my imitation sentence would be, "Out comes the horses under saddles and steady hands" -- which isn't exactly perfect, but close enough for the moment. Verb for verb, noun for noun.

It was hard. Updike especially has unique syntax. But this imitation wasn't flattery -- it was an exercise that emphasized the precision of voice and style, and forced us to look with a magnifying glass at the way authors build their sentences and stories.

I don't know if that answers the OP, but I thought it was an interesting assignment.

[Salis]

Voice is pretty tenuous, anyway. There's a few writers with really unique voices, but most (even very famous) writers aren't hugely distinctive from each other.

Subject matter is a whole 'nother deal.

[Sabre]

Hmm. I usually didn't want to write exactly like somebody else--drawing's another matter, but even now I've branched into my own style of the genre--and when I did, it was usually an author like Anne McCaffrey, and I'm just not that intelligent.

Whenever I see somebody's writing that I really like, it inspires me to keep on writing in the hopes of getting published. Andrew Clements' 'The School Story' is really good for that. Sometimes it inspires me to write in the same tense or viewpoint as well, like present and 1st person (the latter of which I mostly write in)

[motormind]

Ironic. I just completed an imitation project for my composition/style class. We were to pick a paragraph from any book, by any author, and imitate the author's syntax exactly.

That sounds totally horrid. Is this common for writing courses? If so, I'll reconsider my plan to attend one.

[Canotila]

I like to think that anything and everything we produce, whether it's a poem, novel, painting, music, film, etc. is a result of what we have consumed. We take things from all around us, smells, sights, sounds, stories, physical and written voices, and we digest them. Those things are run through our internal filter and transformed by our own muses into something that is ours, composed of all the things we have been exposed to.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense. It's almost 1 am here. Maybe my subconscious is just trying to tell me I'm hungry.

[ChaosTitan]

That sounds totally horrid. Is this common for writing courses? If so, I'll reconsider my plan to attend one.

I did something like this in an essay-writing class. We were told to pick an essayist whose style we liked and write an essay that an imitation of the style. It was an interesting exercise.

[motormind]

I did something like this in an essay-writing class. We were told to pick an essayist whose style we liked and write an essay that an imitation of the style. It was an interesting exercise.

Finding an essayist I like would already be a puzzle, since I'd never read essays for fun. But since the class focused on them I guess the exercise makes a bit more sense.

[gp101]

That sounds totally horrid. Is this common for writing courses? If so, I'll reconsider my plan to attend one.

Don't knock it. One of the best pieces of advice I ever read was to purposely mimic the styles of some of my fave writers--it trains you into realizing what works and what doesn't for your genre. I tried this years ago with a first draft. The first rewrite completely mimicked one of my fave crime writers, the second pass mimicked a second fave.. I had read a couple novels of each author in between and during rewrites. The thing is, my mimickery was never even close to the styles of the original authors. They were just very poor attempts at copying. However... the more I mimicked, the more my own style emerged. After the mimickery, I went back and got rid of the gross, outright attempts of copying, and kept the elements that suited my voice, my style. I don't write like any of those writers I mimicked, nor was I hoping to achieve a copycat style, but I did--through mimickery--arrive at a style that suits me and I'm very happy with.

I honestly don't know how most of us DON'T mimic certain writers to a certain extent, at least in the beginning of our writing careers, if even subconsciously, until we arrive at a style and voice of our own.

[scarletpeaches]

You have a style and a voice, you just don't know it, yet.

You don't want to write like someone else for any reason you can come up with.

Keep writing, novel after novel and your voice will come.

If, eveyone wrote with the same style and voice it'd be some boring reading after a few books.Yeah, this. At first you'll naturally mimic, if not consciously then subconsciously. It just happens. I can't remember who it was who said it, but you're "part of all [you] have read." Everything you read is part of your pool of resources. And eventually your own voice will develop. I personally don't think it's something you can force, but it'll come in time.

[Madison]

That sounds totally horrid. Is this common for writing courses? If so, I'll reconsider my plan to attend one.

Not horrid compared to reading 80 pages in my "Classical Rhetoric for Modern Students" textbook. Ick.

No, I actually really liked the exercise; my prof compared it to trying on clothes. We tried on the clothes of another author, then could decide whether or not we wanted to borrow their style/accessories -- or throw them into the discard pile. It gave me lots of new ideas for my own style.

[lucidzfl]

Hell no. To me, the best form of flattery is not imitation but someone trying to be the best they can be so I can enjoy their own unique work as they've supposedly enjoyed mine.

I am perhaps a little jaded on this topic, because I was first told that phrase by a group of girls who were copying my idea. Okay, sure it was just the cover design of my year six French work book, but damn it I didn't extend my mental faculties to come up with a specific idea just to arrive at a point where my cover featured the same idea as most of the girls at my group of tables.
... why yes, I am still bitter.

Funnily enough, the 'popular' girls were far more likely to nick ideas than the loners and losers I was generally in the crowd of. I don't exactly regret being on the outer in various times of my life.

what is growing out of your head, my god, kill it with fire!

[sydney]

I just ripped through a bunch of YA books and wow. That snarky voice? It's everywhere and everyone sounds the same.

[dahlfan]

I just ripped through a bunch of YA books and wow. That snarky voice? It's everywhere and everyone sounds the same.Snark needs to be abolished.

[lucidzfl]

Snark needs to be abolished.

You're just saying that coz you're bad at it.

:D

[dahlfan]

No, I think I'm good at it, but certain writers have ruined it for the rest of us.

[MumblingSage]

I did something like this in an essay-writing class. We were told to pick an essayist whose style we liked and write an essay that an imitation of the style. It was an interesting exercise.

An in a class called Argument & Persuasion we were told to give a speech in the style of a famous speaker. One student did a very good Obama impersonation. I think the point is to study how you write/make a speech as opposed to how a professional you admire does--it teaches you to be aware of things.

[motormind]

Don't knock it. One of the best pieces of advice I ever read was to purposely mimic the styles of some of my fave writers--it trains you into realizing what works and what doesn't for your genre.


Why should you adopt your style to a certain genre? If you want to achieve a certain effect, you'd better try to work it out yourself instead of copying somebody else's lines. My poor ADHD-addled brain already freaks out at the mere prospect of such a futile effort.

I honestly don't know how most of us DON'T mimic certain writers to a certain extent, at least in the beginning of our writing careers, if even subconsciously, until we arrive at a style and voice of our own.

I can't help but feel that it's quite a broad sweeping statement. Never did I feel the urge to mimic somebody else's style, although I am pretty sure you can point out several influences. Still, on guessing, most people usually mention writers I either don't like or have never read. The fact that I prefer to read obscure Japanese works might have something to do with that ;)

And to end my contribution to this discussion, I don't think writing classes would be for me. I'm just too much of an obnoxious, egocentric bitch to be told how to write, I guess.

[sleepsheep]

No. It's not. Money is the best form of flattery. And chocolate. Also, somewhat partial cashmere. Just in case any of you are in a particularly flattering mood.

[White-Tean]

what is growing out of your head, my god, kill it with fire!

It's perfectly normal to have hare on one's head, do you have something against head-mushrooms? ;)

[motormind]

No. It's not. Money is the best form of flattery. And chocolate. Also, somewhat partial cashmere. Just in case any of you are in a particularly flattering mood.

Yeah, I'll take money over kind words any day.