Would this be plagiarism?

Question

My favorite author wrote "a garden of the underworld, basking in eternal gloom" I'd like to write a poem about a dead garden, or a garden of h**l, or something like that. I wouldn't use his words of course, but would this be me taking his idea? I know I can make this a beautiful poem, I love imagery. And something about a dead garden is haunting, and calling me. What do you think, am I safe to do it?

Answer 1

It is perfectly acceptable to be inspired by another work.  Writing your own poem based on his concept of the garden of the underworld is a great idea.

Plagiarism is when you actually steal someone's work or wording and claim it as your own.

Answer 2

No.  We get ideas from one another ALL THE TIME.  Plagiarism is literally "theft".  Lift someone else's work from Yahoo, word for word, and put your name on it and take credit for it and THAT my friend is plagiarism.

Otherwise, feel free to springboard off the work of others for the sake of creativity of something of your own.  Nothing is ever really 'new' under the sun, just said in different ways by different people.

Answer 3

Nope. Not unless you take his words and try to put your name to them.

There are tons of poems out there with the same ideas and heck, there are even books out there that are practically the same.

Go for it!

Answer 4

Plagiarism is the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement. Unlike cases of forgery, in which the authenticity of the writing, document, or some other kind of object itself is in question, plagiarism is concerned with the issue of false attribution.

So if you aren't exactly copying the actual poem. Then its not plagiarism.

On another note.

Lets say you  are doing a play. And your idea is someone else's idea. Then that would be plagiarism even if the script is not the same.

Think of it this way.

If you are writing something, then writing the same thing as someone else it is Plagiarism. If you are doing a play and you are playing the same characters; etc. Its is Plagiarism, unless you point out that it is someone else's work.

If someone asks where you got the idea of your poem, you could simply say I was inspired by a garden of the underworld, basking in eternal gloom".

Being Inspired and Plagiarism is 2 totally different things.

From my point of view it seems that you have been inspired, and aren't Plagiarizing anything.

Sorry that this is so long, I wanted to get my point across and be helpful at the same time ;D

Answer 5

Hack writers plagiarize. Great writers steal.

Answer 6

It doesnt sound like plagiarism,but it more of a parody when you take someones idea and put it in your own words for example like the movie 300 and they came out with meet the spartans same movie (idea) but different concept.