Taking an approach

Taking an approach, as defined by Joseph Harris, is combining all his aforementioned techniques (rewriting, forwarding & countering) and writing something with your own unique spin on it. He claims, “When you take on the approach of another writer both your thinking and theirs need to change. Otherwise you are simply applying ideas to examples. To transform is to reshape, not to replace or rebut. The original does not go away but is remade into something new.”

I think Harris’ example of cover songs works well as an analogy. When someone does a cover of a song, their goal isn’t and shouldn’t be to sound exactly like the original singer. If that was the case, why would anyone want to listen to that persons’ song when they could just go and listen to the original? The point of a cover song is to sing someone else’s lyrics but with your own voice, and to make it your own.

The same applies with writing. It’s about using your own words and ideas and using the original as nothing but a source of inspiration. In my writing, I like to take an approach by finding a specific technique I appreciate in another author’s writing and implementing it into my own. 

Additionally, Harris points out the importance in acknowledging your influences. This is just granting credit to those who deserve it. Back to the cover song analogy: you don’t see people putting up a video on YouTube of them singing “Free Bird” and claiming it’s their own. It would be about two seconds before they were called out on it.