Though major writers often influence each other's work, that admiration should never cross over into plagiarism, the deliberate act of copying the words and ideas of another author and passing them off as your own. If you are a novelist, you can avoid plagiarism by following several key instructions.
Instructions
1. Develop your idea for a novel by drawing on your own unique experiences and background. If you choose to write a genre novel, populate it with characters taken from your own life but changed to fit into your story.
2. Create a book proposal that lists some of the major plot points of the story you want to write. Sketch out brief character breakdowns for your main and supporting characters.
3. Research if there are any similar story ideas by going on the Internet and entering your idea on several search engines. Go to online booksellers and type in the subject matter of your novel idea and see what book titles appear. Check the synopsis of these titles to see if there are any similarities to the book you want to write.
4. Give your proposal to a literature professor at your local university. Ask him to review it to see if he's read of or knows of any books that cover the same storyline in the same way that you are planning.
5. Write the novel. Avoid reading books or watching television and films. Cut yourself off from any media that could subconsciously influence the novel you are writing.
6. Submit your novel to a plagiarism-detection service. There are a number of these companies that can upload your book and compare it to a database for plagiarized content. Select a company that has no word count limit with databases for both online and offline publications.
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