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When does it become wrong to copy anther author’s style of writing?
Trying to copy an author's style is difficult if not impossible. For one thing, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what that author's style is. Is it the sentence structure? The word choice? What?
Style isn't something we cultivate. It's something that happens when we're not paying attention.
It's not wrong to copy another author's style, no. Pastiche is an honourable pursuit. If you find yourself copying the actual words an author used, that's when you start to tip over into plagiarism.
Is 'derivative' a bad thing?
If what one writes is to all extents and purposes exactly like something that already exists, why would anyone want to read it? And for that matter, why would anyone want to write it? I for one decided to get into this hobby to create something new.
No, it isn't wrong. And probably isn't even derivative. Basically copying a story is derivative. Copying style just means liking the way a person writes, and adopting it for yourself. You can't and won't match the style exactly. No one owns a style, and in all honesty, there aren't very many different styles out there. It's only the extreme styles that get noticed. Most published writers have a style that can't be distinguished from the style of five hundred other writers.
Derivative doesn't mean identical, though. And I can think of several pretty successful sequels-by-other-hands. How many Sherlock Holmes pastiches are out there? How much fanfic? (How much of Shakespeare is riffs on other people's stories?)
A sequel by other hands isn't by definition derivative, it can be a fresh new story simply featuring characters from the original. Bad sequels, by the hand of original authors or those of another, tend to be derivative, as they repeat the basic formula of the original story without bringing anything new into the mix. There's nothing derivative in using elements from other peoples' works in itself, it's what you do with them that defines whether or not a work is derivative. For example, I loved Neil Gaiman's short story "A Study in Emerald", even though it was basically a retelling of Conan Doyle's original "A Study in Scarlet", because it changed the setting and mixed up the roles of the main characters and antagonists in a really fresh way.
I just don't think 'derivative' is necessarily a dirty word.