Mix This!

It seems “mixing” is the new word for plagiarism. Last month, the media had a field day when the news broke that Helene Hegemann, the 17-year-old “wunderkind” German author of the best-selling debut novel, Axolotl Roadkill, had lifted entire pages from some lesser-known writer’s blog and book.

Hegemann said she didn’t do anything wrong, she was just “mixing.” As one of her very own characters in her book asked, “Who cares where I get things from? All that matters is what I do with them.” (By the way, I got this quote from a magazine article, not from actually reading the book, if anyone cares.)

I must say I admire Hegemann’s chutzpah. I mean, it takes guts to seize someone else’s words and lay claim to them as your own. It’s kind of like literary eminent domain.

I, on the other hand, stink at mixology. I can’t even lift an adjective from another author’s book without feeling guilty. Once, when I was struggling to describe a futuristic computer in my WIP, I happened upon the perfect compound adjective in one of Eoin Colfer’s books, so I stuck it in my manuscript. But every time I reread the words “wafer-thin computer” in my own work, it dogged me. I still thought the description was perfect, but it never felt like mine, so I took it out.

In the grand scheme of mixing, it was a minor infraction. It’s not like I’d inserted, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Who would have even noticed? And even if anyone had, would it have really mattered?

I mean, maybe mixing’s not such a big deal. Let’s face it, plenty of people do it. Musicians and DJ’s remix music all the time. In literature, scenes are stolen and plots are lifted. “Thinly veiled” is nothing new. When I was a magazine editrix, the joke at planning meetings was that we’d create an upcoming issue by throwing an old issue down the stairs, shuffling the pages back together, and sticking on a new cover. (No, we never really did it; not consciously, anyway.)

As Hegemann said, “there is no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” (I lifted that quote from the NYTimes, by the way. On the other hand, since I’m revealing my source, it’s not really “lifting,” is it?)

So tell me, dear readers, what do you think about mixing? Have you ever done it in your own WIPs? How much mixing is too much? As for Hegemann, should the first edition of her book have been recalled? (In the second edition, she finally credited her source, under duress, I’d guess.) Should she pay the poor remixed blogger/author a percentage of royalties? Or, in this cut-and-paste age, is anything fair game for mixing?

Including, perhaps, this blog post.