Thieves and pirates often live by some sort of code. Robin Hood, whose identity as a thief is somewhat questionable, had a code: steal from the rich and give to the poor. Pirates also had a sort of code; at least, the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean had a code even if nobody followed it precisely (I know that puts the code itself in question. Let’s not get into the details of said pirates being fictitious characters.).
So, too, goes it with writers. Writers may be thieves and liars, but they follow some sort of code. It’s different for every writer, but most would say that stealing another person’s words and passing them off as their own is downright dastardly. They might copy another person’s words when they first start writing, but it’s an exercise, a mean to an ends. It’s a way to learn the speech patterns and rhythms. It’s a method of reading so closely that the rhythms become a part of those writers’ styles, and yet – the styles are transformed under their hands because the new writers bring a different sense of sound, words, images, or experiences to their writing. The styles become something entirely their own even if the starting point of them was a theft of sorts.
The difference is found in the purpose of the copying. It’s one thing to take words and to pass them off as one’s own. It’s theft. It’s bypassing the necessary crucible of doing the work. It’s the easy way out. It’s to jump ahead of other writers only to find in a year or two that the foundation is gone because there never was a foundation. There only were the words that were stolen.
It’s quite another thing to take words and to copy them for the sake of learning. Most of the time, those stolen words don’t appear in the final form. If they do, the honorable writers include footnotes, endnotes, or some sort of acknowledgement stating that the words were taken from such and such a person. It’s a nod of respect to the person from whom they’ve stolen. It’s a way of saying, “I’ve spent a lot of time with your work, and I want you to know that. I want you to know the effect it has had on my writing. I want you to know that your words encouraged me to keep going, to keep writing, even when the temptation to cheat was there. I didn’t do it, and I’m so glad that I didn’t.”
Why? Because the path of not cheating leads to a style of one’s own. It’s a style that the next generation of thieves and liars will steal and twist until it, too, becomes something different from its origination point.