“You wouldn’t download a car!”

“Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.”
-Aaron Sorkin

It only seemed right that a newsletter named after a famous outlaw hideout should have one of its earliest entries be about theft, so here we are. I’ll be honest, when I was a budding writer in my early teens, I bristled at the idea of doing anything like anyone else ever. I wanted my writing to be truly unique and fresh. I hated the idea of constraining myself to any sort of story structure or rehashing old story lines. Never mind that some of my earliest attempts at stories were basically just Lord of the Rings. But as I got older, I realized that these structures are in place because they work. Because they’re tied to what make us human – to our very natures (more on this later). So why not steal?

When you boil any story down to its most base parts, you could describe it as a descent and then an ascent. A journey into the unknown and then back to the known. A trail to shadow and then back to light. Really, it could be argued that every story is just a theft of nature. So yes, this is my encouragement of theft.

Now there are a few ways of doing story theft. The one I’d like to focus on is using that theft to add flavor and depth to your story by taking things from your life and passing them through a filter of abstraction. I know this sounds like a no brainer, but it took me a long time to figure this out. When we steal from significant moments in our lives, it would be dumb of us to make them a mirror of exactly what happened. Not only would that cause hurt feelings, but it would likely land you in a J. Peterman and Kramer situation from Seinfeld.

Some of the biggest burglaries I’ve done from my life have shown up as texture in a story beat to add a sense of emotional realism to the moment. The confrontation between Mr. Steel and Miss Murphy at the end of my first Mariana the Moon Girl book isn’t like anything I’ve gone through before, but the emotions of anger and longing in the texture of that moment was burgled from my life. I like to think that mining from past experience and injecting that emotion into the moment made it more relatable for a plot moment that at the surface might not feel relatable. The best part about stealing from your life this way is that the people who helped create these moments you’re stealing from don’t ever have to know. There was once a woman I sort of dated who asked me if she’d ever make it into one of my books. Truth is, she already has – not as a character or a reflection of our story, but little moments, little emotions used as texture for emotional realism.

When it comes to stealing from other writers and stories already told, again, it doesn’t need to be beat for beat what you stole (that’s what we might call homage). It can pass through the same filter of abstraction, or you can use it as a jumping off point. Dave Wolverton, the late author I truly admire and respect spoke often about the power of resonance in stories. Taking from other stories and echoing them within your own can add a layer of depth and meaning you might not expect. In book two of Mariana the Moon Girl the careful reader might notice lots of references and sometimes even direct quotes from Moby Dick and other Romantic era stories. While this isn’t exactly theft, one could argue that it is. But there are many ideas and themes explored in Romantic literature that when you view Mariana through that lens, you might get some insights into what I’m trying to do with her story.

Tolkien famously disliked Shakespeare, but was still guilty of theft from the Bard. One of the more famous instances of this was a reaction to something Shakespeare did that Tolkien hated and wanted to do better - but it was still theft. That moment? When it was prophesied that Macbeth would only be conquered when the Birnham forest moved to Dunsinane hill. Of course in Macbeth, that prophesy was fulfilled when soldiers used branches as camouflage - something Tolkien found disappointing. But in Lord of the Rings, Tolkien lifted that and turned it into the Last March of the Ents. A literal forest moving to conquer Saruman.

These are simple ideas, but for the budding writer who is cautious of being a hack, the idea of story theft can cause hesitation. I know it did for me. But just remember that your author friend Jacob said theft is okay.

-Jacob

“Mediocre writers borrow; great writers steal.”
-T.S. Elliot