This is one of the most common questions asked of writers and poets. The more disingenuous writers try to convince readers that their ideas appear out of thin air. The more honest among us fess up--the best ideas for stories and poems are often stolen.
Just ask William Faulkner, whose seems to have drawn his inspiration for some of the best novels written in the last century from the diaries of a wealthy plantation owner:
The original manuscript, a diary from the mid-1800s, was written by Francis Terry Leak, a wealthy plantation owner in Mississippi whose great-grandson Edgar Wiggin Francisco Jr. was a friend of Faulkner’s since childhood. Mr. Francisco’s son, Edgar Wiggin Francisco III, now 79, recalls the writer’s frequent visits to the family homestead in Holly Springs, Miss., throughout the 1930s, saying Faulkner was fascinated with the diary’s several volumes. Mr. Francisco said he saw them in Faulker’s hands and remembers that he “was always taking copious notes.
Paul Constant of The Stranger says it best:
Some will probably take this as an excuse to bash Faulkner for a vague kind of plagiarism. I think it's just proof that ideas don't come to people whole, and novelists are no exception.
Crossposted at ENGL291
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