Calling for Ethics

This country is having an ethics crisis. You see it in politics daily. The latest, the modern day Elliott Ness, crime fighting governor of New York, has been accused of transporting a prostitute over state lines. It is not as if he is some Joe Blow who can claim ignorance of the fact that this is a felony offense, not to mention the moral aspects of the incident. This is someone helping run our country. Tune in any talk show and you can find more examples.

What does this have to do with writing. The lack of ethics has sneaked into writing with multiple incidents of writers claiming work is original when it is not. Outright plagiarism, lifting paragraphs from one document to another. Well published writers have been accused, not just desperate beginners, hungry to be published and too greedy to put in their time.

Are people getting lazy?
Do computers make it too easy to go online, search, cut and paste?
Are we greedy?
Are we too impatient to create our own words?
Is it the fault of e-book access?
Did no one teach this generation of writers right from wrong?

I don't have answers except it's up to each of us to pay attention to fair use and read other's works for information and inspiration only, so we can then create our own original work, preserving the integrity of our profession.

Blogs and Review

Lots of chatter has run around the internet about Cassie Edwards and her historical romances. One one blog, someone took the time to compare one of her books, line by line, to an historical source and came to the conclusion that she broke copyright law. I have no patience with plagerism, however, when you paraphrase from a source, it's not as if you lifted passages word by word. She wrote fiction and wasn't presenting the text as anything but a work of fiction.



It's dangerous for anyone to jump to conclusions and then ram that conclusion down the internet throat in order to trash a writer's reputation. The blog owners had an obligation to ask the writer about it before libeling that author. If the blog owners were professional writers, they might realize there was no intent to steal words. And, if all you have to do with your life is go through works of fiction line by line to try and destroy a career, it's a sad life.



Writer's beware, there are review sites out there who seem to view review writing the same way, let's see how many negative ways I can review a book. When looking for review site, go to that site and read what they post before you ask for a review. Constructive reviews, even when they don't love your book, can be helpful. Deliberate vitriole is another story.



Anyone who can set up a blog ,can set up a review site. Make sure your chosen reviewer is familiar with and likes the genre in which you write and has some experience as a reviewer.