Unintentional?
So, this might not seem to fit with the theme of my other posts, but since I'm a writer wanting to be published one day... It fits for my life.
Chances are, that by now you have read Kaavya Viswanathan's story. Here are the main details--While applying to Harvard, Kaavya used an admission consultant who recognized in her a talent for writing and put her in touch with a literary agent. This agent introduced her to Alloy, a book packager. They then, as a team, approached Little, Brown and were offered what is reported as a $500,000 two book deal. She goes on to write her novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.
All is well. She receives rave reviews until a fan of Megan F. McCafferty, writer of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, notices similarities in the books and notifies the writer herself, who notifies her publisher.
It is still unclear what will happen. Little, Brown supported Kaavya's work, at first, apologizing and stating that another version of the book, with less similarities, would be published. Now it has pulled all copies of the book from the shelves and made no further mention of this second version of the book. Kaavya herself admits that she loved McCafferty's work and somehow internalized it, and because of her photographic memory unintentionally borrowed from it.
What I think happened is that she was put under a lot of pressure to perform and panicked. Maybe she thought no one would notice...
Can this be unintentional? Read for yourself and you tell me!
Chances are, that by now you have read Kaavya Viswanathan's story. Here are the main details--While applying to Harvard, Kaavya used an admission consultant who recognized in her a talent for writing and put her in touch with a literary agent. This agent introduced her to Alloy, a book packager. They then, as a team, approached Little, Brown and were offered what is reported as a $500,000 two book deal. She goes on to write her novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.
All is well. She receives rave reviews until a fan of Megan F. McCafferty, writer of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, notices similarities in the books and notifies the writer herself, who notifies her publisher.
It is still unclear what will happen. Little, Brown supported Kaavya's work, at first, apologizing and stating that another version of the book, with less similarities, would be published. Now it has pulled all copies of the book from the shelves and made no further mention of this second version of the book. Kaavya herself admits that she loved McCafferty's work and somehow internalized it, and because of her photographic memory unintentionally borrowed from it.
What I think happened is that she was put under a lot of pressure to perform and panicked. Maybe she thought no one would notice...
Can this be unintentional? Read for yourself and you tell me!
posted by Maya @ 9:34 AM
1 Comments:
At 3:14 PM,
Lori said…
Unintentional - hmmmm. I tend to agree with you. I think that she thought that the subtle changes that she made would be just enough so no one would notice.
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