Plot stealing

Rob Klein bi442 at lafn.org
Sun Feb 15 18:31:10 CET 2004


For A.C.: Hi friend. Hope to see you in Danmark this June.
Our mutual friend, Gorm Traansgard is a great and prolific storywriter. When I 
lived and worked in Denmark for Gutenberghus/Egmont, I had regular writing 
brainstorming sessions with him (among other Disney writers).  He came up with 
hundreds of great story ideas which were very original.
He does NOT need to plagerise stories from other writers. Re-using a plot
from a famous or little-known story is just about as old as storytelling, 
itself. He used that oft-used plot element (shrinking device shrinks people, so 
that they are smaller than small animals, who have their changed from having 
their lives depend upon the whims of humans, to the shrunken people reversing 
roles with them). Of course, Gorm has read the Barks story. He grew up reading 
Anders And! he used that plot element in this story for a similar (but slightly 
different purpose). One might claim that it is TOO CLOSE to the Barks 
storyline.  But, I, for one, knowing the hundreds of stories Gorm has written 
that have been totally original, would overlook the fact that he has employed 
an oft-used plot device in this one story.  The idea of turning the tables on 
Mankind and a tiny species is universal to Humans, and if there had been no 
Human literature, any person might have come up with it, independently, to make 
a related point.


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