Connor really doesn't have an original thought in his head. His personality is literally made entirely of media references. LITERALLY RAISED BY TV AND MOVIES!
Guys, I have a story idea. I don't have the characters written out completely yet but the climax will be about a prince fighting a dragon who cursed a princess at birth to die but she was saved by some fairies who liked her.
Guys, I have a story idea. I don't have the characters written out completely yet but the climax will be about a prince fighting a dragon who cursed a princess at birth to die but she was saved by some fairies who liked her.
Don't worry I will. I'll bring it up everyday because even though I've never written a book before I know I'm going to be the next great author whose books are mandatory to read. I've already written out one word.
I plan to have this done somewhere between one month and a thousand years. I've given myself a little leeway there.
In all honesty, I think Redesigning Eva could be an interesting work. At its heart, a basically-autistic teen girl having to make the choice between staying her unhappy self or becoming an entirely different person has a bit of pathos to it, cliche as it is. And I could see lots of YA readers eating it up.
The problem is that Connor seems to have no faith in his own ability or that he can improve so he cribs from other, better writers and hopes no one notices. In the end, it's a problem that seems to affect him in all aspects of his life: he is scared so he doesn't put in the effort. Even for something very easy like the resume, he just shits out the most basic thing because it's less of a risk. If people say his writing sucks, he can retort with "oh, well it wasn't my best effort" or (as he does more often) "you just want me to pander to the lowest common denominator". And if they can like it, he gets the praise without risking anything.
Connor, I understand that this is a defense for you but you have to realize that it keeps you stagnant. How can you be a good writer if you never try anything? Only practice and failure (both of which involve being invested in what you're doing) can yield the results you are looking for.
I'm not really familiar with the works of Connor Bible (probably because I've only seen him talking about them), but I'm guessing you mean that the way Connor uses concepts from other media is deceptively passing off unique ideas as his own (the definition of plagiarism), as opposed to merely using concepts in a way that's merely recurring "tropes", or actually is an homage, etc.
Luckily for Connor, in the USA, you can't copyright ideas and concepts, only the unique expression of them (it's called the "idea-expression divide"). But, even if something isn't plagiarism or copyright infringement, it can sometimes still be a cheap imitation.
That's pretty much what he told me when I pointed out the similarities between parts of RE and Silence of the Lambs. I don't think he quite grasps the difference between tropes and original concepts. Brilliant serial killer is a trope; brilliant serial killer psychologist who lives in the basement of a mental hospital and must be masked to prevent him from eating pieces of the orderlies and who also becomes the cryptic mentor of a young ingenue is really stretching it.
That thing just gave me the genius plot of Dan, the ghostly hairdresser, and his adventures on the high seas in search of bacon guarded by dragons. I would read the fuck out of that.
That thing just gave me the genius plot of Dan, the ghostly hairdresser, and his adventures on the high seas in search of bacon guarded by dragons. I would read the fuck out of that.
That thing just gave me the genius plot of Dan, the ghostly hairdresser, and his adventures on the high seas in search of bacon guarded by dragons. I would read the fuck out of that.
Unless he's changed the draft considerably since posting it, that's from the RE draft he posted here. Back when I was trying to help him privately, I pointed out that the similarities were instantly recognizable and that as long as they remained, there was no hope for serious publication, even if the rest of the book was up to industry standards. Connor insisted that he was just using tropes from SOTL and that his work was nothing like that.
Back when I was trying to help him privately, I pointed out that the similarities were instantly recognizable and that as long as they remained, there was no hope for serious publication
This is what perplexes me. Why does Connor insist on a female self insert in a fictional universe that's 100% trope and rip-off. Wouldn't he have simply wrote fan-fiction like the rest do If he wanted an established structure to write 'Eva' in. Why is he different?
This is what perplexes me. Why does Connor insist on a female self insert in a fictional universe that's 100% trope and rip-off. Wouldn't he have simply wrote fan-fiction like the rest do If he wanted an established structure to write 'Eva' in. Why is he different?
And the thing is, it's not even like he's ripping off SOTL entirely. The rest of the story is...well, awful and riddled with cliche, but original. Then for no apparent reason, in the middle of the story, it veers off and steals two chapters from Silence of the Lambs.