Ethical Question

[gravesbane]

Would you feel in any way responsible for someone pulling a copycat on a plot from your writing? ie simular murder, crime, or terrorist attack.

Your input would be greatly welcomed.

[Tersa]

Er... what do you mean?  If you mean doing that to someone else, I have had people jack my characters and what not before, and I went off on them.  Pulling inspiration is one thing, copying is another.  It's fine to get ideas and inspiration, just twist it to make it yours. 

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

I think  graves meant actually doing the "murder" of your Plot in real life against real people...

Personally I wouldn't feel responsible, but I would be REALLY weirded out by it.

[Tersa]

I think  graves meant actually doing the "murder" of your Plot in real life against real people...

Personally I wouldn't feel responsible, but I would be REALLY weirded out by it.

Ahh, see, that's why I shouldn't post on here, I'm an idiot. 

But I concur with M.S.D.  It's not your fault, just bizarre...

[comprex]

Responsible?  No.  No way.  No how.

[Noey]

It happened to Stephen King. He wrote a story back in high school that turned into a novella that got published in the early eighties. Then, Columbine happened, and if I recall, Stephen King had his publisher stop printing copies of the story about a kid who shoots his teacher and takes his classmates hostage in the classroom.

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

I looked for that one on snopes, and didn't find it.... though the site does list Stephen King as using three other urban legends in his books, nothing having to do with stopping publication with regard to what happened at Columbine.

[Noey]

I looked for that one on snopes, and didn't find it.... though the site does list Stephen King as using three other urban legends in his books, nothing having to do with stopping publication with regard to what happened at Columbine.

It was an article I read a long time ago when Columbine first happened. I'll have to do some digging to find it when I get home.

[Mister Mxyzptlk]

Well, as Tom Lehrer says in "Lobachevsky"

Who made me the genius I am today
The mathematician that others all quote
Who's the professor that made me that way
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat

One man deserves the credit
One man deserves the blame
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name, hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache-

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics. Plagiarize!

Plagiarize
Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize
Only be sure always to call it please "research"

And ever since I meet this man
My life is not the same
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name, hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache-

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write. It was on analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold. Bozhe moi! This I know from nothing. What I'm going to do? But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!

I have a friend in Minsk, who has a friend in Pinsk
Whose friend in Omsk has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk
His friend in Alexandrovsk has friend in Petropavlovsk
Whose friend somehow is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk

And when his work is done - ha ha! - begins the fun
From Dnepropetrovsk to Petropavlovsk
By way of Iliysk and Novorossiysk
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk to Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run
Yes, to me the news will run

And then I write, by morning, night
And afternoon, and pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed
When he finds out I publish first

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name, hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobache-

I am never forget the day my first book is published. Every chapter I stole from somewhere else. Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory. This book was sensational! Pravda - well, Pravda said: perzhnavisk. It stinks. But Izvestia! Izvestia said: parachnavor. It stinks. Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles, changing title to "The Eternal Triangle," with Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit
And who deserves the blame
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name, hi!

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Would you feel in any way responsible for someone pulling a copycat on a plot from your writing? ie simular murder, crime, or terrorist attack.

Not responsible. Disturbed, probably, but responsible, no.  People who can't tell the difference between fiction and reality are not reason enough not to write fiction, and people who mean harm will find a way to do it from whatever they have to hand.

That said, I can entirely sympathise with deliberately making the recipes for explosives in Fight Club (the movie) wrong so that nobody playing with them would blow anyone up.

[gravesbane]

Thank you all for your replies. I was having problems with writing a novel about terrorism. I wouldn't want someone to go "hey, that's a good idea". Maybe I save that one for my second book. Thanks again!

[Yeratel]

You never can tell what's going to inspire some people. In Anchorage recently they convicted a former stripper turned soccer mom of plotting the murder of her wealthy husband based on the movie "The Last Seduction."  In "Six Days of the Condor", source of the Robert Redford movie "Three Days of the Condor", the protagonist's job at the C.I.A. was to read the latest pulp fiction looking for new spy technology and viable scenarios that might inspire the Bad Guys, in effect using novelists around the world as unpaid field researchers for the latest ideas in espionage and terrorism.

[hamiltond]

 

Would you feel in any way responsible for someone pulling a copycat on a plot from your writing? ie simular murder, crime, or terrorist attack.

Your input would be greatly welcomed.

 

Did you make the killer crazy too? Did said crazy person consult with you and did you then either:

A) gave them any sort of feedback that could be deemed positive/neutral?
B) give them the murder weapon? 
C) Ridcule them and dared them to actually prove they could do it?

Otherwise no, it not your fault.

[Noey]

Found it! It was Rage, written as Richard Bachman.

"The Carneal incident was enough for me. I asked my publisher to take the damned thing out of print. They concurred."[2]

I was wrong that it was Columbine. It was another incident that spurred him to take it out of print.

The Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(novel)

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

*reads wiki* Wow.... That's .... frightening.