Your Job as a Writer: Become an Idea Thief

“What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.” -Austin Kleon

About three years ago, I started to notice Austin Kleon’s name everywhere I looked. He popped up in books, articles, and websites. He was everywhere, and I had no idea who he was.

Over the years, I’ve learned to pay attention to people like that. They’ve put in the years of hard work required to become an overnight success.

While researching this mysterious Austin Kleon fellow, I discovered that he had written a small but powerful book called Steal Like An Artist that became a New York Times bestseller. I decided to read the book, and it blew my mind. The crux of the book is that every creative person is simply building on the work of the artists and creatives who went before them.

Each of us is a patchwork quilt of our friends, family, mentors, and influences. No artist’s work is truly original, and we shouldn’t be ashamed that our work is influenced by those who have gone before us.

We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants — a fact that should inspire us, not make us feel like copycats.

“All the good stories out there are waiting to be told in a fresh, wild way. Mark Twain said that Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before. Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind get recycled back and forth across the universe.” -Anne Lamott

Art versus plagiarism

Great authors riff off other people’s ideas — tweak them, improve them, and make them their own. Note: I said “riff off” — not “rip off.”

There is a crucial distinction between (1) remixing someone else’s work into your own unique creation and (2) copying someone else without giving them credit. The first is art; the second is plagiarism.

So, how do we know the difference between stealing as art and stealing as plagiarism?

Deep down, we can often feel the difference. But to clearly distinguish the two, let’s do a quick thought experiment.

Let’s say you’ve been writing for the past year. You’ve written 30 articles online — some really resonated with readers and others seemed to fall flat. Then you read an article from another writer that sounds strangely like your most popular story. You look at the publish date and see that it was written one month after your story. The author uses several of the same stories and quotes that you used, and it feels like a shot-for-shot remake of your story. A few of the sentences even sound like you. How would you feel about that?

Unfortunately, this type of thing happens online all the time. It’s all-too-easy for one writer to plagiarize another writer’s concepts and pass them off as their own. And it’s not like there’s an Internet plagiarism police force on duty looking to bust writers for literary larceny.

Now, let’s take another example. Let’s say you reading articles online and you see a headline that sounds similar to something you’ve written before. You click into the story and you’re shocked to see your name quoted. The author shares a few of your ideas (with attribution), then adds five takeaways of how they’ve applied your ideas in their own life.

What do you feel like after reading that story?

I’m guessing the first example made you frustrated, but the second was flattering. Each and every one of us wants to know that our work matters. That what we wrote yesterday impacted someone’s life in a positive way.

Apply that same standard when making your own creative choices about what and how to “steal” as a writer.

Become a resourceful recycler

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” said T. S. Eliot. “Bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that which it was torn.”

That’s one of the reasons why becoming an idea thief is so powerful. It simultaneously makes your work better while honoring those who paved the way for you.

Each of us has an interesting perspective to shine upon any topic, and we can (and should) draw upon the work of our predecessors in order to tackle that topic.

Your job as a writer is to become a resourceful recycler. Keep your eyes open for ideas and stories that you can marshal into your work. Build upon what others have built, but be sure to tip your hat to their inspiration.