Imitating the Greats … Helpful or Harmful?
By Sarah Callender | December 11, 2019 |
When my daughter was nine years old, she gave me a Picasso. Not the one pictured above. This one:
I love my daughter’s rooster. It sits in my kitchen, propped against the wall over the cooktop. Sometimes it gets hit by spaghetti sauce splatter. Bacon grease too. And the rooster’s wandering eyeballs remind me of how I often feel: a bit “on the edge.”
But when my girl gave me this painting (made in an art class that focused on replicating “the masters”), I wondered, Did this exercise teach her new skills, or did it teach her to be a copycat?
Then I remembered 11th grade AP English. My teacher, Mrs. Deluca, was a wonderfully wise and elegantly ancient woman, always dressed in the fashion of the 1940s: sheer stockings, square-toed pumps, wool pencil skirts, airy silk blouses. Her hair always looked straight-from-the-beauty-parlor prim, her soft, pink face powered, then rouge’d. I loved her.
When I walked into her class on the first day of school, I had no idea that I had no idea how to write.
My 9th grade English teacher had done a fantastic job teaching me how to diagram sentences. My 10th grade English teacher had done an equally fantastic job making me dislike Dickens. Neither of them had taught me a single thing about writing an essay.
But I loved writing and I loved reading so AP English had seemed a good idea.
It was not a good idea. Each time I earned a “C” on an essay, I thought I just wasn’t smart, and I was too embarrassed and self-conscious to seek help from Mrs. Deluca. If I did, she might see me for what I was: a dum-dum.
Fortunately, around that time, my mom literally handed me a gift: a manilla folder containing every essay my friend, Susan, had written in Mrs. Deluca’s class the year before. Somehow my mom had gotten the essays from Susan’s mom.
I know. It’s pretty sketchy.
At the time though, it was pretty fabulous; my friend, Susan, one year later, would go on to Stanford. In other words, Susan wrote real good essays.
But I did not copy those essays, at least not the words or the ideas. I did study the structure and the architecture of them–just as my daughter studied the arrangement and the frenetic colors of the Picasso. And then I did my best to replicate those essays, just as my daughter had replicated those crazy rooster eyeballs.
Does that make us cheaters? Plagiarists? Copycats? I certainly did not end any of my AP English essays with this attribution: This essay is inspired by the work of Susan.
Thirty-one years later, I still feel some guilt.
I do know that many authors claim it’s OK to study the pros. More than OK! That if, for example, I want to write more like Hemingway, it’s perfectly acceptable to pick up The Old Man and the Sea, grab some paper and a nice pen, and copy Hemingway’s sentences by hand. And then, voila!
The teenage boy came into the room where the mother was
plagiarizingcopyingwriting sentences on a piece of paper.“Hello,” the boy said. In his hand was a bag of Doritos, Doritos the mother had not purchased for him. “You are writing?”
The mother did not answer because she was thinking about the Doritos. The boy often ate food he had purchased with the money from his job washing dishes at a country club and while the boy sometimes bought Pringles or Ruffles or the french fries that could be purchased from the place called McDonald’s, it was usually Doritos because those were the boy’s favorite.
Sometimes the mother found half-eaten bags of Doritos on the boy’s bedroom floor which left orange stains and the stains made the mother sad but the boy did not feel sad.
The mother knew this because once, when she asked the boy how he felt about the orange stains on the rug the boy had said, “I do not feel sad about the orange stains from the Doritos. I can ignore things like orange stains on the floor, and I can ignore wet bath towels on the floor and also my orchestra tuxedo that is still on the floor from the concert in October.”
“And it is now December.”
“Yes,” the boy had agreed. “The days are short and sunless and for this reason it is easy to ignore things on the floor.”
On this day, the mother nodded at the bag in the boy’s hands. “Where did you get those Doritos?”
The boy shrugged. “At the store.”
“The store down the street or the store just beyond the one down the street?”
The teenage boy pointed in the way to show it was the store just beyond the store down the street.
“If you buy Doritos in college and leave them on the floor your roommate will be angry.”
“I can find a roommate who does not mind the Doritos.”
The mother of the boy knew he was right but she could not admit that. There were other things to admit and there were other times to admit them, but this was not one of those things and this was not one of those times so she kept herself quiet and still except for motion of her hand
copyingwriting the words written by this man called Hemingway.
Honestly, if I were to write a story or a novel in Hemingway’s style, I’d feel like an unoriginal fraud, the opposite of an entrepreneur, as creative and clever as the bath robe I’ve been wearing since 2001.
On the other hand.
After a 17-year break from teaching English, I returned to the classroom last fall to find that using “mentor texts” (poems and stories that students study and model as a way to improve their style, experiment with syntax, and play with poetry), is a Big Thing in education.
I’m often wary of big things in education in the same way that I’m wary of big things in fashion. Are mentor texts any different than crop tops and high-waisted mom jeans?
But feeling curious, I used Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street as a mentor text in my 8th grade English class. With Cisneros’ inspiration, my students wrote the most beautiful vignettes about their names and others about where they were from, pieces of art as beautiful as a Picasso painted by a nine-year-old. And just last week, I used Pablo Neruda’s The Book of Questions as a mentor text in my 7th grade English class. The poem-questions my students produced were whimsical and haunting, condensed gems of wonder and curiosity. Marvelously Rooster-esque.
Still, my students are imitating, copying, mimicking the form and the structure of these writers. They could not produce such lovely work without Cisneros, Picasso, and Neruda as their models. Does this mean their work is flimsy and hollow?
Billie Holiday said, “You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.”
Holiday would likely have fallen in the “flimsy and hollow” camp.
Then again, famous, self-proclaimed copiers like Ben Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, and Billy Collins insist that copying others’ work helped them–and can help us–build soul-filled stories and poetry.
I ask you, dear WU-ers: Is it bad form to teach young writers to imitate the structure or syntax of another writer? Can we use others as mentors and models without being copycats? Where is the line between inspiration and imitation? When have you found inspiration in others’ writing, and what did you learn?
I can’t wait to hear your opinions. Thank you, as always, for reading and sharing.
Picasso Rooster art compliments of Wikiart.
A Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true–and somewhat fraught–passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first novel, LUCY IN BETWEEN, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in 2026.
First, I want to say that your daughter has real talent. I know of very few nine-year-olds who could have produced (reproduced?) a painting the way she did. She has an eye for form and color.
Second, to answer your question, it seems to me, based on your experience of what your students accomplished, that imitating the masters is a good way to bump learning writers out of their own self-limiting boxes and help them to see and experiment with more sophisticated ways of writing. It’s a way of filling up their toolboxes with tools they might never have accumulated on their own. From the techniques they learned in your class they can, in time, choose those that meld with their own voice and produce their own unique style. I think you’re doing them a great favor, because if there’s one thing I’ve noticed about learning writers these days, it’s that a good number of them lack understanding of the myriad ways prose can be elevated and manipulated. I’ve encountered some who can’t recognize a metaphor or who consider the use of rhetorical repetition to be an error. I suspect your students will not have that handicap.
Hi Beth,
Thank you for these helpful (and encouraging) words. You are the best … so wise and thoughtful too.
I’m grateful for your presence here at WU!
:)
Sarah, I loved this post so much. Your daughter is very good! As are your students and how blessed they are to have you, a real writer. In the beginning, many of us learn by copying because we are learning brushstrokes. Write enough, paint enough, play enough, and we discover our own voices. There was a time when I was reading Kathi Appelt’s books and so was my critique group–it was hilarious when we began reading our stories how we’d all copied her poetic repeats in her prose. When I teach, I often recommend well-written books–mentor texts–that have a similar theme. And I still do this for myself when I discover a book I lovelovelove–I try to get a big stack of the author’s books and study them and then try my own hand. I will always be an apprentice. Your Dorito story ala Hemingway cracked me up! Have a wonderful Christmas break with your family and your writing.
Oh, thank you Vijaya! I love the Kathi Appelt mimicry. That’s my fear … but maybe that’s how we learn: we mimic and then we inject our own personality into what we have learned. :)
Merry Christmas to you and your family as well! Thanks so much for the note.
sc
As a fellow educator who spent many years in middle school classrooms teaching struggling readers, I fall into the “masters as mentors” camp. I also have a degree in history, so I believe in the importance of knowing and understanding that which preceded us. Students of the arts study the masters to understand what worked in the past and what made it great. Music students study and replicate Bach, Mozart, etc. in composition classes. Painters study and replicate DaVinci, Monet, etc. in composition classes. Why should it be any different in writing?
As I told my students and the teachers I supervised, reading and writing are skills just as much as playing the piano or throwing a winning touchdown pass. One must practice in order to improve. When students emulate the masters, they are analyzing and synthesizing the elements of greatness, and thereby, laying a firm foundation for finding their own voices and creating their own styles.
As an administrator and supervisor, I would give you high marks!
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your perspective, Linda. This is a beautiful comment … I am grateful that you took the time to share.
Happy holidays to you!
Hey Sarah – I guess I think it’s inevitable. Although I’ve never actually sought to copy other authors, looking back I clearly have. And in a lot of cases, I’ve ended up adopting and adapting elements that I’ve copied.
For example, I’ll never forget reading Jacqueline Carey’s newest doorstop on a vacation (Naamah’s Kiss, I think). I’d just started harvesting my first crop of rejections and was feeling particularly low and envious of JC’s prose. And it dawned on me that her work was so beautiful on the page! She used paragraphs so effectively, including short, punchy ones, and one sentence ones, for emphasis.
This had never dawned on me. Duh, right?
Anyway, I also recall that I reread Pillars of the Earth right before I started. And voila! Somehow I landed on using a tight third-person, multiple POV style for my epic. I loved the sweep and breadth it provided, and I’ve never looked back.
I’m sure there are other aspects that I’ve maintained. It was recently pointed out to me that I tend to end chapters on an action beat (rather than blending in some epiphanies, new questions, revelations, etc.). That has the whiff of writers like Gabaldon and Martin (leave ’em on the edge of their seats!).
I suppose I’m recommending flowing with, rather than fighting, the inevitable. As long as we do as Randy Jackson used to recommend, and: “Make it your own, dawg.”
Fun and insightful essay! I’ve made a note to copy as many aspects of it as possible. Also, that daughter of yours is worthy of crowing over, for sure. Happy Holidays to you and your talented brood, Sarah!
Thank you, Vaughn, for the lovely details here.
It’s not unlike cooking or baking. I just made a batch of cookies (called Barney Googles–an old family recipe) for a colleague’s baby shower. I like my Barney Googles with double the chocolate and a bit of extra coconut, but my mom never made it with coconut. I have also added butterscotch chips. And I like to bake it at 325 instead of 300.
I guess Randy J would be proud of me?
Thanks, Dawg, for chiming in. You’re the best!
:)
First: Your daughter’s picture is fantastic in every way! Thank you for sharing it with us!
I still remember the experience of reading a novelist’s gorgeous graph of description, and moving right over to my wip to see if I might try the technique. (Home in on something happening in the physical surroundings, then find a way to sync that with the protagonist’s feelings in that moment, effectively describing both the setting and protag’s feelings with more resonance.) It felt like a whole new world, this syncing of place and person, which then expanded as I considered different ways of syncing one element to another in my wip. I’m so grateful to that book and author for waking me up to the technique.
So, yes: I’m all for imitation. In fact, can I imitate this post when I have to write my next post? (No, because I’d never be so clever as you. Your Doritos example was hysterical, even if it made me crave salty snacks before breakfast.)
Thank you for another fantastic post, Sarah!
Dear Therese! I love this example … and I have NEVER thought about how authors sync the physical setting with the character’s feelings. I suppose I’m aware that authors do it, but I’ve just never paid attention to how, when, and why.
Just another example of how writers need to be readers.
Thank you, sweet friend. I’d copy you ANY day!
After I read All the Pretty Horses, I tried to imitate Cormac McCarthy by being terse, abandoning commas, and incorporating Gaelic into my story about an American girl with an Irish last name. I got some funny looks from the folks in my critique group. I also learned what was NOT my voice, which was big-time instructive!! Wonderful post, Sarah, and a very awesome rooster!
Ha! I loved this comment, Susan. Thank you for the giggle. I accidentally did the same thing with Isabelle Allende’s style. While Allende’s stories are lush and enchanting, my attempts at magic realism were just plain weird and creepy. It makes me cringe to think about it!
:)
I’ve taken writing classes at a few different places. One that leans heavily on modeling students’ work on the masters is The Writers Studio.
Each assignment uses a published piece (varying between fiction, poetry, and creative NF, regardless of what the student writes) as a way to try out different points of view, types of narrator, tones, and moods.
At times, those assignments were hard to get through, and I was frustrated by the task. Other times, I found myself really enjoying using that week’s narrator example in my work. It allowed me to play as a writer and explore outside my comfort zone.
I think using another, more skilled artist’s work as a model is a valid practice, provided students are given a range of examples to try. As with so many things about the writing life, each person’s mileage will vary. Giving students several models to test out will help them see all the options available to them.
Yes, Ruth, brilliant! I’m not an actor, but your comment makes me wonder if actors love trying on other people’s lives, just as we writers delight in getting in characters’ minds, and, perhaps, playing with other writers’ styles.
What a great exercise this course offered you. Thank you for helping me understand this idea in a new light.
Happy writing to you!
Some of the best writing advice I ever got was these two words from Oakley Hall: “Steal wisely.”
Yes! There’s nothing worse than a stupid burglar.
LOVE your daughter’s artwork. That’s a keeper!
Put me firmly in the “masters as mentors” camp. Countless great artists across many disciplines – music, visual arts, dance, etc. – have intensively studied the work of other artists while building their own foundational skills and vocabulary. Most musicians who claim to be “self-taught” simply studied the recordings and performances of other great musicians without ever taking private lessons. Self-taught? Not so much.
To look at it another way, instead of worrying about being a “copycat,” try thinking of it as being selective about your instructor. After all, would you rather be taught to write by some random schoolteacher you didn’t choose, who force-feeds you a boring textbook written by some unknown committee? Or would you rather be taught to write by Hemingway, Austen, Tolstoy, Morrison, King, Evanovich, etc? Me, I’ll take the latter any day.
Yes, Keith! This is all so brilliant! Thank you … my daughter, who is now in 9th grade, is currently in her room studying for a quiz for one of those textbook force-feeding types of teachers. I refer to this teacher as The One Who Stomps Upon Joy. And guess what subject she teaches?!? Some days, my husband has to hold me back from marching into her classroom and punching her in the throat.
(kidding! kind of!)
I hear ya. A few years back I posted here that the best way to make somebody hate reading was to enroll them in a typical English class. Stompers Upon Joy, indeed!
Dear Keith,
Someday, when we meet again, I will share details with you (and with anyone else who wants to listen) about the high school English teachers my two kids have had. The current one is a real piece of work. And my son happens to have her for 11th grade English, so we’re really getting double the fun this year. On one essay this year, my daughter got a 50/100 solely because she used a period instead of a semicolon. Fortunately, she was able to make revisions, and fortunately, it’s not too time consuming, revision-wise, to change a period to a semicolon. Et voila! The F becomes an A!
Last year, my son’s 10th grade English teacher did not assign a single essay all year. They just sang songs. A few songs, yes! Not a single essay? No! For his English final, he played a Green Day song on his viola.
I think that copying your favorite writers is almost a given, even if you aren’t consciously trying to write like them. My preference for first-person stories with a bit of humor, one foot in fantasy, and a “private eye” mystery structure even without the private eye can be traced straight to Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block, and Terry Pratchett. Mark Twain’s running around in there, too.
I loved this … NTJ. And if I had to have someone running around in there somewhere, I’d pick Twain. I love that salty, witty fellow.
Thank you for weighing in. I didn’t even know funny, fantasy, private eye mysteries without private eyes were a thing. I’m so glad they are.
Happy writing. Good luck with Twain.
“To steal from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.” –every college student ever
It’s an old joke, but I think it’s the key to making imitation work. To pattern ourselves after one model makes it too easy… to copy *everything* they do. Having multiple models forces us to choose.
Do we follow the one pattern or the other about sentence structure? And for description style, and for plot elements, and each of the others — or when can the same kind of choice send us to different masters? The more models we keep in mind, the more we need to mix and match. And that means understanding *why* each lesson works.
So, multiple models teach us to make their lessons our own. A single model might discourage us from thinking at all.
Or, that’s my theory.
(Now: does anyone have another to contrast with it? :) )
I love this theory, Ken. I’m going to steal it from you (if I may). Happy writing!
It’s interesting that you’ve used Picasso as an example here. Picasso’s father was an artist and professor at an art college in Spain, so he was exposed to the “greats” from an early age. Picasso later studied at an acclaimed art academy, but preferred to spend his time roaming and studying the masters of his own time before he became one in ours.
Honestly, I can’t think of any better alternative to studying the masters to improve my own writing. It certainly worked for me in the legal profession. Achievers in every profession study and imitate the greats before finding their own beat.
The rooster painting is awesome. Your daughter might have a surprising response to the question, “what new skills did you develop with with this exercise?”
Lee … you are brilliant. I have never asked my daughter what she learned! How ridiculously stupid of me. I am blushing and sheepish, and as I finish responding to everyone’s lovely comments, I’m going to go ask her.
I’m also going to ask my students what they have learned.
You are so wise. Thank you. (You should start charging big bucks for your free wisdom.)
Just finished my best writer’s course yet “Great Writers” Steal taught by author Laurie Anne Doyle at UC Berkeley Extension. Nothing like taking a deep dive into the cannon to expand your craft toolbox — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ursula LeGuin, Ray Bradbury, Carmen Maria Machado, Tobias Wolf, James Baldwin…
Playing with their styles, starting with a tiny steal (a line, a secondary character, a POV, a story question, a scene, a voice,) and seeing where my story went. Extraordinary. And most interesting looking at how the greats stole and continue to steal from each other. Inspiring! Missed everyone at 2019 UnCon but never bored.
Oh, this is great, Torrie. I love the idea of a “tiny steal.” That’s brilliant and feels much less illegal than a regular-sized steal.
I am green with envy that you got to take that course. Delicious.
Happy writing!
Just finished my best writing course yet, “Great Writers Steal” with short story author Laurie Ann Doyle at UC Berekeley Extention. Inspiration and craft expanding. I loved the deep dive into the greats and imitating their use of various craft elements. I learned so much about myself, and saw my writing go places I never imagined. Most interesting—the many ways they’ve stolen from each other, and how many different directions their stories took them. Nothing like trying to work in the voices of both Gabriel Marquez Garcia, Hemingway, Camen Maria Machado, and Tobias Wolff to build new muscle fast. I missed everyone at UnCon this year but never a dull moment.
Doritos in the Afternoon?
A Farewell to Doritos?
To Munch and Munch Not?
Doritos in the Stream?
Thanks for an entertaining piece.
The Old Man and the Dorito?
The Snows of Frito Lay?
A Moveable Guacamole?
ha! Thank YOU, Ray!
When I was at university the History Department kept a file of essays that had received high marks for later students to read through and learn from. Of course, there was no worry about plagiarism, because the lecturers already knew those essays.
Anyone who reads will be picking up at least something from the author, so one might as well make it intentional. The problem only arises, I think, if there is only one author or one style that is considered ‘good’.
Sure, try on Hemingway as a style, but why not try on Dickens as well, or P.G. Wodehouse, or Emily Dickinson? Students of writing will learn something from all four, but they may find their own voice lies nearer to Dickens than Hemingway, or nearer to Dickinson than Edward Lear.
Yes yes yes! This is so helpful. Thank you, Deborah, for helping me understand how to understand this issue. I feel so much better.
I don’t have an MFA or any degree in fiction or creative writing, but I do occasionally hear people criticize MFA programs that produce writers who all sound the same. That’s the key, I guess: remembered that there’s not just one good writer, nor is there one right way to write.
Thank you!
Should we surround a child with silence, lest they learn to speak through imitation?
An over-the-top question, admittedly, but I think it points to how we humans can worry over questions that are non-issues. A voice that is borrowed cannot be sustained for the long-term. If it can be maintained, then it’s probably close to the author’s natural voice, anyway.
I heart your rooster, BTW. Your daughter did a great job.
Also, I love the “mentor text” framing!
Thank you, dear Jan.
I was thinking of this very thing earlier today: We talk to children so that they will learn how to talk.
So much of what we do is based on what we see and observe and hear!
My children, for example, learned to spray that gross, delicious, fake, canned whipped cream right into their mouth. I have absolutely no idea where on earth they must have learned such rude and crass behavior! Certainly not from their mother!
I heart YOU.
Sarah, your “The Young Man and the Doritos” is a stellar work, one for which Picasso would trade his entire Blue Period.
*snort*
I have been attempting some witty, punny response, and I’ve got nothin’.
I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time. Maybe.
:)
Sarah, thank you for a fine post, and for your daughter’s exciting picture! Your thoughts and those of most, if not all, the commenters remind me of T.S. Eliot’s (nobody would call him a copy-cat) insistence that writers have two responsibilities: To write in their own voice and to master the tradition of which we are inevitably a part. You captured that tension beautifully.
Wow, Bill. That is gorgeous! I have never heard that quote from Eliot. Thank you for the gift of your words (and his too).
:)
See Sarah, not only can you “write” like Hemingway”, but your post brings great approval and response. As a FORMER English teacher, I think we bring good literature to our students to stimulate their thoughts, ideas, loves and distractions, but also to stimulate their desire to write. What high school student hasn’t at one time (maybe only for 15 minutes) wanted to be a poet. Now, years later, I want to write like Elizabeth Strout, even took a weekend class with her. And the rooster? Please tell your daughter she might want to do more. She’s good.
Thank you, Beth. I will tell her!
ELIZABETH STROUT! How was it? She came to Seattle a few years back, and I heard her speak at a large Arts and Lectures event. She was lovely … not Maine-ish or lobstery like I had anticipated. And by Maineish and lobstery, I guess I mean gruff-yet-authentic. She was warm and authentic and quite humble. What’s she like as a teacher?!?
I love her so much.
Have you read Olive Again?
Hi Sarah, Strout was actually a lawyer in NYC before she decided to give it up and write. She was kind and explained her process, which is a lot like mine was at the time, writing on tablets, ideas that she said were strewn all over her house. Her in-laws would come over and complain, ask her questions. Maybe they are the ones from Maine, LOL. I have OLIVE AGAIN waiting–it’s like a fine wine you want at just the right moment. Merry Christmas, Beth Oh and Strout said good things about my work. There is always hope.