Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
A couple of years ago, I was listening to the Story Grid podcast and was fascinated by a short series within the show called The Masterwork Experiment. The idea was that you could dissect an original piece of work (a masterwork) to figure out all the key elements and beats that made it work. Then you could use that dissection as a template for creating a new piece of work.
As someone who loves structure and outlines, this idea fascinated me, and I always thought it would be interesting to try. Then, when I was dissatisfied with the FFVII remake, I thought, what if I tried this for FFX - the Final Fantasy of my heart?
This then led to me thinking about plagiarism - at what point is something like this plagiarism, versus having taken inspiration from an existing piece of work?
QUESTIONS FOR THE COMMENTS:
- Where do you think the line should be drawn between plagiarism vs. tropes and conventions vs. taking inspiration from an existing piece of work? And if something is inspired by an existing piece of work, should it be published and sold as an original piece of work, or should the creator be acknowledging the owner of the original IP somehow?
FIND ME ONLINE:
Instagram: instagram.com/jp.writes
Website: jpwrites.co
Nanowrimo: nanowrimo.org/participants/jpwrites
#writing #plagiarism #fanfiction
A couple of years ago, I was listening to the Story Grid podcast and was fascinated by a short series within the show called The Masterwork Experiment. The idea was that you could dissect an original piece of work (a masterwork) to figure out all the key elements and beats that made it work. Then you could use that dissection as a template for creating a new piece of work.
As someone who loves structure and outlines, this idea fascinated me, and I always thought it would be interesting to try. Then, when I was dissatisfied with the FFVII remake, I thought, what if I tried this for FFX - the Final Fantasy of my heart?
This then led to me thinking about plagiarism - at what point is something like this plagiarism, versus having taken inspiration from an existing piece of work?
QUESTIONS FOR THE COMMENTS:
- Where do you think the line should be drawn between plagiarism vs. tropes and conventions vs. taking inspiration from an existing piece of work? And if something is inspired by an existing piece of work, should it be published and sold as an original piece of work, or should the creator be acknowledging the owner of the original IP somehow?
FIND ME ONLINE:
Instagram: instagram.com/jp.writes
Website: jpwrites.co
Nanowrimo: nanowrimo.org/participants/jpwrites
#writing #plagiarism #fanfiction
