BRANDON MCNULTY: Get ready because today we're going to talk about the difference between plagiarism and inspiration. By the way, my name is Brandon McNulty. I'm the author of Bad Parts, also the author of Entry Wounds. And welcome to my writing channel. One of my subscribers requested a video on how to draw inspiration from stories without copying or plagiarizing someone else's work. And I thought we'd talk about that today. I'm going to explain what plagiarism is, how it differs from inspiration, and then I'll give you some tips for avoiding plagiarism so you can write fresh, unique stories. 

And I want to throw out a quick spoiler warning. I'll be discussing a number of different stories today. I'll list them on your screen. The ones that are listed in red-- they contain the heaviest spoilers. So if you do plan on taking a look at these stories in the near future, you may want to be on your guard as you're going through this video. Another thing to keep in mind-- I am not a lawyer. I'm not a legal expert. So if you do have major concerns about plagiarism, make sure you do research beyond this video. 

All right. Now that we've got that squared away, let's start off by defining what plagiarism is. And what it is-- it's taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own. It's copying a story without incorporating anything new or anything original. And it can also include using someone else's highly specific idea. 

And here's what I mean by this. If you watched Jurassic Park and then you decided to write a story about a dinosaur theme park run by a rich old man who clones reptiles from ancient DNA, that would be plagiarism. Now, on the other hand, borrowing some basic ideas from Jurassic Park would be totally fine. 

Like, if you watched it and said, well, I want to write a story about scientists protecting the world from a greedy businessman, or I want to write a story about cloning dinosaurs, or I want to write a story about dinosaurs hunting down human beings, those are fine as long as you build a new story from them. 

And then the last part of our definition would be not crediting the original creator or not obtaining the rights to remake a story. And one of the most famous cases of movie plagiarism involves Akira Kurosawa's 1961 movie, Yojimbo and Sergio Leone's 1964 movie Fistful of Dollars. 

And Yojimbo-- if you're not familiar with it, it's a landmark film about a wandering samurai who visits a town that is controlled by 2 crime families. He manipulates the criminals into fighting each other before being beaten up and eventually battling the criminals himself. Meanwhile, Fistful of Dollars is about a wandering gunslinger who visits a town that is controlled by 2 crime families. He manipulates the criminals into fighting each other before being beaten up and eventually battling the criminals himself. 

Now, obviously, I just repeated myself while describing the plots of these two movies, and that was the problem. Fistful was an unofficial remake with basically the same plot points, characters, and themes as Yojimbo. And this eventually led to a lawsuit, and Yojimbo's studio ended up receiving over $100,000 and 15% of Fistful's total box office gross. So the takeaway here is that if you're remaking another story, make sure you have access to the rights and make sure you give credit to the original creator. 

Now, with that being said, there's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from other stories. And when we talk about inspiration, we're talking about the enthusiasm you get from other stories, which helps you generate new and creative ideas. And you can borrow simple ideas, basic plot lines, and smaller elements to build something new. And you can think of inspiration like a launching pad. It gets your story off the ground, but it's still up to you to pilot the thing into fresh and adventurous new territory. 

All right. Now I'm going to give you five tips for avoiding plagiarism and drawing inspiration. And the first tip is to remember that no story is 100% original. Don't try to pressure yourself into thinking that you have to write a story that has never been done before and every single scene, every single word is brilliantly original. You don't have to worry about this. And in fact, audiences crave what is familiar, but they want to see familiar ideas expressed in new ways. And it's the writer's job to take ideas and build new stories from them. 

Now, the second tip is to draw inspiration from multiple sources. If you're writing a longer work, like a novel or a screenplay, look for inspiration in more than one place. Draw from different genres, different stories. Draw from real life, from history, and so on and so on. 

An example of this would be Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This is a superhero movie that drew inspiration from conspiracy thrillers like Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and Marathon Man. And it also included a major subplot that echoed Return of the Jedi. If you remember, in Return of the Jedi, Luke is trying to pull Darth Vader back to the light side. And the same thing happens in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Cap is trying to pull his friend Bucky back to the light side. 

Third tip is to combine ideas. When you're drawing inspiration from multiple sources, consider how you can merge your own ideas with those that inspired you. And if we go back to that Winter Soldier example, what the writers did-- they had to write a superhero story. So they took that superhero story, and they combined ideas from '70s conspiracy movies and from Return of the Jedi in order to make a unique story. 

Another example would be Fight Club. And when Chuck Palahniuk wrote Fight Club, he took the idea of this support group, this underground group, where people got together and they took out their aggression on each other. He combined that idea with existing ideas from stories like The Great Gatsby and Jekyll and Hyde. 

If you think about The Great Gatsby, it's a story where the narrator looks at Jay Gatsby with great admiration. The same thing is true in Fight Club, where the Narrator looks at Tyler Durden with great admiration. And with Jekyll and Hyde, you have the idea of a character who is 2 people in one. And Chuck Palahniuk took all these ideas. He combined them together. And he got a fresh story as a result. 

Fourth tip is to bring something uniquely you to the story, and this can include things like perspective, character, worldbuilding, tone, humor, fantasy elements, and so on and so on. The point is that you want to take a piece of yourself and inject it into the story in some way or another. It could be big or small, but it should make a difference. It should be like your own personal stamp on the story. 

Now, for an example of this, let's look at Salem's Lot by Stephen King. And this book was inspired by the book Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. Peyton Place, if you're not familiar with it-- it's a small-town drama set in new England that explores the townspeople and their dark secrets. And it's a story that juggles multiple plot lines while developing a large cast of characters and touching on various social issues. 

Now, Stephen King said that when he wrote Salem's Lot, he thought of it as Peyton Place meets Dracula. And it's about a small new England town that gets overrun by vampires. And the fantasy element, the vampires, is what makes the story unique. And one thing to keep in mind here is that when Stephen King was writing this story, he was also teaching high school literature courses. He taught a fantasy literature course. And one of the books that was on the curriculum was Dracula. So Dracula was part of his daily life at the time, and it's something he injected into the story in order to create something fresh. 

And then the final tip is to remember that how you execute your story will distinguish it from other stories. If 10 people are given an idea, they will write 10 different stories. And this is because of things like perspective, influences, education, personal interests, skill level, emotional state, place, time. All these things will factor into how an author approaches their work. 

And that's why it's important to learn about the craft and write as often as you can. If you understand what makes a story good, you can emphasize certain parts. You can play around with different details in order to create a unique story. 

Now, for an example of this, I want to take a look at two different TV shows-- Squid Game and Alice in Borderland. Both are in the death game subgenre in which you have characters playing a series of dangerous games in order to survive. Back in 2021, Squid Game exploded in popularity. And its popularity caused people to look at Alice in Borderland, which had come out the year before, and some people started accusing Squid Game of being a rip-off. 

But Squid Game was actually written back in 2009 and it was rejected for 10 straight years until Netflix finally picked it up. And Squid Game's creator said that he drew inspiration from a '90s manga called Kaiji that was later adapted into an anime series back in 2007. 

But anyway, Squid Game and Alice in Borderland are two stories from the same subgenre that are executed differently. Squid Game takes a more grounded and realistic approach to its story, while Alice in Borderland leans harder into sci-fi and is more over-the-top in terms of style. The execution helps distinguish these two from one another, and it also helps distinguish them from other entries within this subgenre. So I hope this helps. 

Question of the day-- what's one story that you've drawn inspiration from? Let us know in the comments section below. Thank you for watching. If you want to support the channel, please pick up a copy of either one of my books. Bad Parts is great if you like small-town horror, it's about people trading away their sick and injured body parts in order to get healthy again. And then Entry Wounds is great. If you like thrillers, it's about a guy who picks up a haunted gun and he cannot put it down until he kills six people with it. Also, be sure to check out my other videos, like, share, and subscribe. And as always, remember to keep on writing.