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Post by tetherednchained on Sept 19, 2009 22:26:03 GMT -5
What do you do if you have a great idea for a novel that nobody has ever come up with that you know, under the right direction, would make an impact in todays literature?
I really want to pass this idea on but I would like to have some kind of acknowledgment. What do I do?
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Post by Xalazi on Sept 19, 2009 23:17:00 GMT -5
As far as I'm aware you can't really pitch ideas for novels. Writing a novel is not exactly like making a movie. It's more personal than that. Sure just about every writer gets inspired by works of others, but that doesn't mean that they give others credits or pay them royalties.
You can protect an original idea, well sort of. You can copyright a very specific idea. Let's say you came up with Star Wars. You could copyright Jedy Knights, The Force, Luke Skywalker, etc. But that really isn't stopping someone from renaming and changing the details until it becomes something original again. The standards for originality are really not that high in the eyes of the law. Just about every famous story has had to deal with lawsuits of people claiming it was their idea. 95% of the time these lawsuits don't go anywhere because it's pretty hard to prove that someone came up with something first.
Your best bet is probably just to write the story yourself. If you don't have time to write a full novel, you may want to consider doing a short story instead. That way if someone does use your idea you at least have something that you can point to prove that you came up with it first.
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