If a musician covers another musician's song he has permission, either from the musician, or -more likely- from the copyright holder.
Peter Jackson (or MGM or whoever made those films) had permission from Tolkien's estate.

Guess who is also making money there?

This kid just took the ideas that he admits he saw lying around and constructed his own easy digestible version of it.

He's being published because he was a teenager when he wrote it, not because it's a good or original story.
And that should irk some people, like CJ, who are actually competent and original storytellers that don't get published because they are teenagers.

Because 'slightly more obvious' is an important difference. Because he is making a lot of money simply by stealing other people's ideas. Because those other people are not making any money from his theft of their ideas, as Bauke said.

It's one thing to say that there are only a handful of story themes in the world, but there's archetypes and then there's plagiarism. If someone lifts your story wholesale, that's essentially theft. Now, I'm not going to accuse the writer of Eragon outright of plagiarism, because I haven't read the book and can't cite plagiaristic passages. But I do think, even if he has changed the wording enough to avoid charges of plagiarism, this is still a barrier to Eragon being called good writing. That's not good writing, it's good research and good PR.

The following essays are taken from http://www.anti-shurtugal.com/:

Star Wars

By Arget Hackslayer

Warning: Spoilers for both series below.

There are two main parts to this argument, and they are:
--Plot
--What an archetype is and how Inheritance goes beyond it

This article intends to lay out in a very simple manner the arguments that Anti-Shurtugal has concerning these two points; it is also the intent of this article to address the common counterarguments we have heard.

Plot

Read the following plot summary:

A boy of foggy origins lives with his uncle in a remote place of a vast empire headed by an evil Emperor and his right hand man, who was once prominent in an ancient order of guardians with mystical powers.

Through fate or luck, depending on your point of view, this boy comes into the possession of an object vital to a rebellion against the Empire; this object was inadvertently sent to him by a princess in the rebellion, who had attempted to send said object to an old man who once belonged to the same order of guardians as the Emperor’s right-hand man.

This boy seeks the old man to learn of the ways of this ancient order, but eventually has to return to his uncle’s farm, which, the boy finds, has been destroyed by fire, and his uncle killed. The boy then sets off with the old hermit, who also gives him a sword which belonged to his father. As they travel, they train. The boy meets up with a rogue who is full of surprises, but turns out to be fiercely loyal, for all his proclaimed selfishness. The boy also begins "seeing" a beautiful woman imprisoned and in need of help.

The boy decides that he needs to rescue her, even though he doesn't know her; further, he thinks of her only as beautiful (Luke's first words are, "Who is she? She's beautiful?" Eragon can't stop thinking about her beauty). Long story short, the old hermit dies to protect the boy, the boy and the rogue help the beautiful damsel escape.

They then set off to the rebellion to give important information and return the object which the princess had sent the boy. They were followed by the Empire, and prepare for a giant battle that will either save the rebellion or annihilate them.

The boy proves his worth with heroics during the battle, but his crowning achievement is his destruction of a noun of much power that has the ability to destroy lots of things. The boy is aided in this by one of his friends, who arrives at precisely the right moment.
The boy is lauded a hero.

The boy has a hallucination of a powerful master who can teach him more of the ancient order. The boy travels to the powerful master to learn the ways of the ancient order's mystical power. While there, he grows very powerful. While he is away, the Rebellion regroups in a new area.

Just when the boy is on a roll with his training, and has grown very powerful, he has a vision of his friends in great danger. He decides he must go to help them. His master warns him not to go. The boy promises that he will return. He leaves.

He finds his friends just in time and is able to distract the enemy so that his friends will remain safe. He finds out that his father was the right-hand man of the Emperor--his father was the one who betrayed the ancient order and helped kill them.

The boy is shocked and ultimately defeated, but not killed. He finds out that someone dear to him has been taken by evil people, and promises to find this person.

Now, is that the plot of Inheritance, or StarWars?

The fact that we can create such a detailed outline of the plot and it fits both works should speak for itself, however, many people don't seem to hear.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Inheritance Trilogy reads like Paolini took a plot outline for StarWars, wrote in his own names, shuffled things up slightly, and slapped his name on it. It isn't just the plot--characters in Inheritance remind me of those life-size cardboard standups of movie characters at the movie theatres; they resemble the ones from StarWars closely, and yet they have none of the depth present in the real thing.

People will argue that it doesn't matter if the stories are similar; stories have been borrowed since the dawn of time. In addition to pointing you in the direction of the Originality section of Anti-Shurtugal, I would like to say, here and now, that stories are unique in the way they are told. Concepts may be shared, but details comprise the story and make it worth reading. So, in its most basic form, StarWars is a story about a hero who comes into his own and restores peace to a corrupt government. That story can be interpretted so many different ways. For example:

Meet Dallen. He is a young man--twenty-two or so--who is the son of a senator. His father is killed when the king dissolves the Senate and claims complete control. Rumor has it that the king is crazy, and rumors only escalate when he raises taxes and initiates a draft. Dallen is unwilling to comply with either decree, and so flees to the western mountains, where he crosses into a no-man's land, hoping to find a place where he can live without the king's oppression. He meets a small group of rebels against the king who have been secretly resisting him for years; when the Senate was dissolved, they fled the country and have been regrouping ever since. Dallen joins them and begins rising through their ranks. After years of hard work, Dallen has attained a position of some power within the rebel group. They have gained much support the last couple of years as the king's tyranny has increased. Then, after several hard skirmishes, the rebels plan an attack on the king's castle, relying mostly on stealth and good tactics than strength in numbers, which they don't have. They depose the king via assassination whilst their ragtag group creates several diversions in key places.

Does that sound like StarWars to you? The very basic story is the same.

Instead of spending a few extra minutes on creativity--because that's all it took to come up with that plot--Paolini took the quick and easy path. In being "inspired by" something, he took more than he needed to. Details matter, ladies and gentlemen, and derivative work should not be excused.

Archetypes and Beyond

"An archetype is an idealized model of a person, object, or concept from which similar instances are derived, copied, patterned, or emulated.

The term archetype is sometimes broadly and misleadingly used to refer to a prototype, a stereotype, or an epitome. It may thus indicate a type of person, e.g. a mother, a father, a hero, a warrior, or a martyr." - http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype

StarWars follows one particular archetype, known as the Hero's Cycle, or the Hero's Journey. For a detailed explanation, see this website:

http://www.cerritos.edu/fquaas/resou.../HeroNotes.htm

In perusing that website, it is evident that there are certain things--known as details--which makes StarWars a unique story. For instance, the Hero's Journey does not state that the hero must be a farmboy; nor does it state that the hero/farmboy must live in the remote reaches of an evil empire. It also says nothing about the hero being the son of a major villain. And so it goes.

The problem with the Inheritance Trilogy isn't that it follows an archetype--it's that it follows StarWars. The details which sets StarWars apart are also present in Eragon and Eldest. Again, I point you in the direction of the plot summary above. It is detailed--far more detailed than any archetype, and yet it fits both Inheritance and StarWars. Coincidence? I think not.

In closing, I would like to submit for your attention several other stories which follow the Hero's Journey, and let you judge whether they bear more than a passing resemblance to StarWars--the way a distant relative may turn out bearing your nose or something:

--The Matrix
--The Lion King
--Harry Potter
--Dune
--Chronicles of Prydain

just a side note on that essay:

The Lion King is, much as this pains certain ethnic groups to hear, a retelling of Hamlet. Disney has, for pretty much its entire history, made a fortune out of using stories from the public domain for their own works and then copywriting their take on them. they've managed on numerous occasions to lobby congress to have the duration of copyrights extended in order to preserve their winning tactic.

Harry Potter follows, in many places, the archetypes for the christian story. So does the Matrix (which, by the way, was not written by the wakowski brothers, however its spelled, but by some black woman who submitted the script years earlier, which they then stole after rejecting - and they got sued for it and lost).

When Frank Herbert and David Lynch sat down to plan out the movie for Dune, they found several points of similarity between Dune and StarWars, but chose not to persue a plagarism suit against george lucasm, i believe largely because those points of similarity were not distinctly original enough to Herbert's work. Its worth pointing out as well that Lucas was inspired heavily by akira kurasawa as well as the western chrsitian redemption archetype, and that Dune was, at least partially, a novel exploring the messiah mythology.

there's an awful lot quasi or outright theft of ideas in there. but note: either those ideas were in the public domain (in the case of shakespeare), the ideas were genuinely used in new enough ways (in the case of star wars), or the theft of intellectual property was exposed and punished (in the case of the matrix).

Yeah, I've heard about that. I know nothing can be truly original, but there are different extents of using ideas. There's a difference between taking a very basic premise for your story (such as good vs evil) and giving it your own spin and perhaps something a bit different, and then making a carbon copy of somebody else's work with just enough tweaks to make it legally your own (see parallels between Eragon and other works that Garner already pointed out).

I agree with what Tephlon said about this.

No thanks, I already read the blurb.

On Originality

by Fragon Calfbreaker

We've discussed the number of ideas/concepts/etc. that Paolini has "copied" from several writers in the Plagiarism section. This article, therefore, is intended to address the issue that fans (again, repeatedly) bring up: that is, nothing in the world is original anymore, hence, Paolini is justified for what he has done.

I agree with the first half of that statement.

Yes, nothing in the world is "original" in that sense, and if you believe that you're either God in disguise or are fooling yourself. (Kenneth Eng, wipe that smug smile off your face). Everything has already been done in some manner or form, particularly if you stretch or generalize enough. People who go to great lengths in order to reduce 'influence' on their work are fighting a losing battle. How many times, after all, have people come up with an idea, thought it was genius, wrote it down, and then found out, months or years later, that a writer they've never heard or read about has done the exact same thing?

Nothing is original; everything has already been done. And yet, not quite. Not quite.

There is perception, and in that a writer has all the power in the world to make the reader then believe that what they are writing is in fact, the first and the last time it will ever be done--at least until the last page.

That is the problem with Paolini's work. He has taken ideas and structures from various sources, perhaps altered them a bit, but he has neglected to put his mark on them. He did not show his world and story as he might have seen it, being more concerned in what the great writers before him had done. There are some of the opinion that he has created a 'new twist' in some of his ideas, but this 'twist' can often be found in another shape or form in another story. What Paolini did, therefore, was less writing and more of a mix-and-match type of deal. He copied and pasted and jumbled them up, rather than writing them from his heart and soul as he ought to have done.

When I was growing up, I was limited in books and entertainment, coming from a lower-middle class family in the Philippines. But I never got tired of reading the stories I had. Each reading was almost a different experience. I also never tired of asking people for stories, even if it was the same story, only told by someone else. It was so different each time. My mind conjured different images for each telling.

The same goes for everything. You probably know that game where you tell someone something, and they whisper it to the person beside them, and so on, and the message you get at the very end is different? That works on the same line too. People are different--their perceptions are different--the stories they tell, if they tell from it as they ought to have told it and not as someone else might have, will be different, fresh, unique.

It's not the fact that Paolini took ideas from others that make his works so difficult to swallow. It's the fact that he failed to make them his.

On Why Inheritance Isn’t Well-Written

by Hackslayer

I. Flow of language

The flow of a story is, essentially, the rhythm of your words. It is what draws a reader in and makes them turn the page. Authors utilize flow by arranging their words and sentences in such a way that is aesthetically pleasing to the reader. The prose becomes more like a thought process than a narrative. In a nutshell, it flows.

Upon opening Eragon and Eldest, I was immediately struck by the sentence structure. It was a chore to read more than a few pages because the sentences were choppy and abrupt, with no segue leading into each other. Nothing seemed to fit, in my mind, and I often found myself rearranging and rephrasing the prose.

The reason for much of this is covered in my next point:

II. Info-dumping

Info-dumping is a phenomenon in which an author stops the movement of the story for description, like so:

Insert character A. Insert character A’s description. Insert setting A. Insert setting A’s description. Insert character B. Insert character B’s description. Insert action sequence. Insert setting B. Insert setting B’s description. Insert character C. Et cetera.

Any writer worth his salt could tell you that this is a huge no-no. It keeps your story from having any kind of flow, it messes up your pacing, and can lead into purple prose.

Examples:

"A tall Shade lifted his head and sniffed the air. He looked human except for his crimson hair and maroon eyes.

"He blinked in surprise."--Eragon, page 1

(Notice how all action stops for a description, and then Paolini resumes telling the story)

"Around him shuffled twelve Urgals with short swords and round iron shields painted with black symbols. They resembled men with bowed legs and thick, brutish arms made for crushing. A pair of twisted horns grew above their small ears. The monsters hurried into the brush, grunting as they hid."--Eragon, page 1

(Notice how all action stops for the description, and then Paolini resumes telling the story)

"He remained unnaturally quiet, a long pale sword in his hand. A wire-thin scratch curved down the blade. The weapon was thin enough to slip between a pair of ribs, yet stout enough to hack through the hardest armor.

"The Urgals could not see as well as the Shade; they groped like blind beggars, fumbling with their weapons."--Eragon, page 1

(Notice how all action stops for the description, and then Paolini resumes telling the story)

"Three white horses cantered toward the ambush, their heads held high and proud, their coats rippling in the moonlight like liquid silver.

"On the first horse was an elf with pointed ears and elegantly slanted eyebrows. His build was slim but strong, like a rapier. A powerful bow was slung on his back. A sword pressed against his side opposite a quiver of arrows fletched with swan feathers.

"The last rider had the same fair face and angled features as the other. He carried a long spear in his right hand and a white dagger at his belt. A helm of extraordinary craftsmanship, wrough with amber and gold, rested on his head.

"Between these two rode a raven-haired elven lady, who surveyed her surroundings with poise. Framed by long black locks, her deep eyes shone with driving force. Her clothes were unadorned, yet her beauty was undiminished. At her side was a sword, and on her back a long bow with a quiver. She carried in her lap a pouch that she frequently looked at, as if to reassure herself that it was still there.

"One of the elves spoke quietly..."--Eragon, page 1

(Notice how all action stops for the description, and then Paolini resumes telling the story)

Less is more, when it comes to description. Leaving things up to the reader’s imagination creates more intrigue and mystery, and doesn’t hinder the plot from moving forward.

Our next point covers this a bit more, as well.

III. Amateur description/purple prose

Purple prose, as defined by Wikipedia, is:

“A term of literary criticism, purple prose is used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensuously evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response…Modern critics use "purple prose" to refer to any writing that is undermined by its overstylized and formulaic nature.”

Purple prose is, more often than not, marked by amateurish description. Paolini falls into both traps, as illustrated below:

"It was too dark for any human to see, but for him the faint moonlight was like sunshine streamining between the trees; every detail was clear and sharp to his searching gaze."--Eragon, page 1

"Three white horses cantered towards the ambush, their heads held high and proud, their coats rippling in the moonlight like liquid silver."--Eragon, page 2

"His build was slim but strong, like a rapier."--Eragon, page 2

"Between these two rode a raven-haired elven lady, who surveyed her surroundings with poise. Framed by long black locks, her deep eyes shone with a driving force. Her clothes were unadorned, but her beauty was undiminished."

“It was three days since the Varden and dwarves had fought the Urgals for possession of Tronjheim, the mile-high, conical city nestled in the center of Farthen Dûr, but the battlefield was still strewn with carnage.”—Eldest, page 1

“Eragon ran a hand over his face and looked up at the stars showing through Farthen Dûr's distant top, which were smudged with sooty smoke from the pyre. Three days. Three days since he had killed Durza; three days since people began calling him Shadeslayer; three days since the remnants of the sorcerer's consciousness had ravaged his mind and he had been saved by the mysterious Togira Ikonoka, the Cripple Who Is Whole.”—Eldest, page 1

Incidentally, most of the above examples are also

IV. Cliche

Cliches aren’t always a bad thing; clichéd plotlines or character types can be great fun in the hands of a competent author. Cliché descriptions, however, are never all right.

They are painful for the reader and should be shameful to the author. They are usually a side-effect of purple prose, which Paolini’s work is rife with.

‘He blinked in surprise. The message had been correct: they were here. Or was it a trap? He weighed the odds, then said icily, “Spread out; hide behind trees and bushes. Stop whoever is coming . . . or die.”’—Eragon, page 1

This particular example is cliché mostly due to the death threat. Darth Vader could get away with it (because, let’s face it, he was darn scary), but it isn’t very effective here, because it was done to death, firstly, and secondly because I just don’t feel scared of the Shade. Why should I?

“Three white horses with riders cantered toward the ambush, their heads held high and proud, their coats rippling in the moonlight like liquid silver.”—Eragon, page 1

If I didn’t know that this came from Eragon’s prologue, I would say that you could find this sentence in any number of pulp fantasy novels, because it utilizes old and tired descriptions that no longer do anything for me.

“Between these two rode a raven-haired elven lady, who surveyed her surroundings with poise. Framed by long black locks, her deep eyes shone with a driving force. Her clothes were unadorned, yet her beauty was undiminished.”

This statement was so riddled with clichés that I decided to bold them all. Again, this is nothing I haven’t seen before in just about every pulp fantasy novel I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading.

V. Telling, Not Showing

I have often had people tell me that Paolini must be a good writer, because he follows the, “Show, don’t tell,” rule. Astounded, I usually inquire further and find that these people are blissfully unaware of the fact that this rule does not refer to showing description (which Paolini does in abundance); rather, this rule refers to a technique wherein the reader is shown insight into a character’s life or mindset.

Amateur writers tend to gloss over a lot of character development, either because they don’t know how to properly show that development, or because they want to skip ahead to what they consider to be the “meat” of the story—usually, this is when the hero kicks serious butt.

Examples of telling rather than showing in Inheritance:

“They continued with the exercises throughout most of the day. When Eragon finally stopped, he was tired and ill-tempered. In those hours, he had come to hate the pebble and everything about it. He started to throw it away, but Brom said, “Don’t. Keep it.” Eragon glared at him, then reluctantly tucked the stone into a pocket.

“We’re not done yet,” warned Brom, “so don’t get comfortable.” He pointed at a small plant. “This is called delois .” From there on he instructed Eragon in the ancient language, giving him words to memorize, from vöndr, a thin, straight stick, to the morning star, Aiedail .

That evening they sparred around the fire. Though Brom fought with his left hand, his skill was undiminished.

The days followed the same pattern. First, Eragon struggled to learn the ancient words and to manipulate the pebble. Then, in the evening, he trained against Brom with the fake swords. Eragon was in constant discomfort, but he gradually began to change, almost without noticing. Soon the pebble no longer wobbled when he lifted it. He mastered the first exercises Brom gave him and undertook harder ones, and his knowledge of the ancient language grew.

In their sparring, Eragon gained confidence and speed, striking like a snake. His blows became heavier, and his arm no longer trembled when he warded off attacks. The clashes lasted longer as he learned how to fend off Brom. Now, when they went to sleep, Eragon was not the only one with bruises.

Saphira continued to grow as well, but more slowly than before. Her extended flights, along with periodic hunts, kept her fit and healthy. She was taller than the horses now, and much longer. Because of her size and the way her scales sparkled, she was altogether too visible. Brom and Eragon worried about it, but they could not convince her to allow dirt to obscure her scintillating hide.

They continued south, tracking the Ra’zac. It frustrated Eragon that no matter how fast they went, the Ra’zac always stayed a few days ahead of them. At times he was ready to give up, but then they would find some mark or print that would renew his hope.

There were no signs of habitation along the Ninor or in the plains, leaving the three companions undisturbed as the days slipped by. Finally, they neared Daret, the first village since Yazuac.”—Eragon, page 150

This glosses over a lot of potential development of Eragon and Saphira. We skip from Eragon being an incompetent swordsman, possibly because Paolini did not want us to see Eragon be less than perfect, or possibly because Paolini simply wanted to get to the action of the story, and so sacrificed character development.

“The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living.

So thought Eragon as he stepped over a twisted and hacked Urgal, listening to the keening of women who removed loved ones from the blood-muddied ground of Farthen Dûr. Behind him Saphira delicately skirted the corpse, her glittering blue scales the only color in the gloom that filled the hollow mountain.

It was three days since the Varden and dwarves had fought the Urgals for possession of Tronjheim, the mile-high, conical city nestled in the center of Farthen Dûr, but the battlefield was still strewn with carnage. The sheer number of bodies had stymied their attempts to bury the dead.

In the distance, a mountainous fire glowed sullenly by Farthen Dûr's wall where the Urgals were being burned. No burial or honored resting place for them.

Since waking to find his wound healed by Angela, Eragon had tried three times to assist in the recovery effort. On each occasion he had been racked by terrible pains that seemed to explode from his spine. The healers gave him various potions to drink. Arya and Angela said that he was perfectly sound. Nevertheless, he hurt. Nor could Saphira help, only share his pain as it rebounded across their mental link.”—Eldest, page 1

This passage skips over a lot of potential development for Eragon. We had a great opportunity to see his pain and suffering by directly witnessing his first seizure. Instead, Paolini chooses to briefly mention it.

Because he chose this method, I had no idea about the depth of Eragon’s injury until well after he was in Ellesmera. Why? Because this passage hardly does his injury justice, because it retells an event that already happened—a summary, if you will—instead of letting we, as readers, see for ourselves.

VI. Permutations of “Said.”

This is one of the most obvious signs of an amateur writer is that he or she will avoid the word, "said," like the plague. When they do use the word, "Said," they often attach an adverb or other modifier to it, instead of letting the dialogue speak for itself.

In the prologue, there are six instances where a character says something. Only once is the word, "Said," used, and then the adverb, "icily," is tacked onto it. Instead, the Shade shouts, whispers, utters, screams, and barks.

Well-written dialogue speaks for itself. You know from the dialogue that the character is screaming/shouting (exclamation points usually give it away, too). You know from the dialogue itself when a character is angry or annoyed or whatever. Using words like Paolini does is tacky and a cop-out.

And let's not even start on, "I'm sorry," apologized Brom.

VII. Deus ex machina

For a definition of deus ex machina:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

Deus ex machina runs rampant in Paolini’s work. At every turn, the protagonist is miraculously saved by some twist of fate: he is miraculously not home when his house is burned down, is miraculously able to turn into a master swordsman in a matter of months, and miraculously gets knocked out at every battle, only to wake up safe and warm. I find it tiring to read a book with no real struggle; at no point during the book are we actually worried for Our Hero, because we know this formula; he will always be saved.

Eldest is even worse, with the Blood Oath Ceremony.

It is the sign of an amateur author when he cannot bear to let his characters be faced with any real struggle.


Edit by Buzzfloyd to remove extra words jumbling one of the sentences and making it unreadable.

OK, I didn't read all of that, but I'd just like to comment on two things.

I make no claims to being anywhere near ready to getting anything published, but seriously...I wrote like that when I was twelve. It's just not good writing. It's half-baked, and the kind of thing you read when people are describing their own characters in those online roleplay threads.

And...

I take it the Urgals are orc-like creatures? You know, what with being described as almost exactly the same as they were in LOTR? I remember this description distinctly. This isn't just a stolen plot. I really don't see how this isn't outright plagiarism. This is just one example in an entire trilogy, true, but still much too close to Tolkien's exact words for comfort.

dunno man. dude's got a lot of fanboys for it, though.

and i'm rather surprised at how long that last post was. didn't realize how much i'd cut and pasted.

Why do movies get made ?

Because movie makers want to make money. The same may be more or less true for books, but still, not the same public. Eragon seems to me like what the film will probably be : a hollywood mash-up. It's spectacular, it's fast and graphic. Does it matter where the ideas come from or whether the writer had any literary talent ? Nope. The kids like it.

They gave out extracts from the book at the cinema as teasers for the film, I read a little, the translation may just help it sound ok, but the story itself wasn't that great, I must say. Pretty unoriginal stuff.

Ok I think what it boils down for me is that outright plagiarism or not, technically well written or not (I think not is the general consensus of opinion ) the fact is I read it and enjoyed reading it.

It didn't tax me, it didn't make me sit up and think, but it passed the time while I was waiting to go under the knife.(Maybe the thought of the impending operation dulled my brain lol)
There is plenty of literature that falls under the heading of classic and technically amazing that I’ve tried to read and its bored the heck out of me.


Maybe this guy is un-deserving of his success, but I don’t begrudge him. Heck I don’t begrudge anyone anything.

I haven't read it myself, nor do I know anything about it, but a guy in my writing circle said he enjoyed reading it and fully intends going to the movie - though he doesn't expect it to be fantastic. He does like reading fantasy novels anyway, so I guess that might make a difference.