The Writing World Is Full of Cowards

Claire W. Zhang

If you’re willing to look beyond the American lit mag bubble, there was a small earthquake in the Chinese literary world this past month, one that echoes incidents we’ve seen occur here, and everywhere else. More than a dozen established writers were accused of plagiarism, with huge amounts of online screenshots comparing passages quickly gaining traction. One writer released a number of indignant statements, calling her accuser a “Colonel Turnitin[1]” and a “headsman in a literary critic’s outfit[2].” She insisted that a few similar paragraphs didn’t count as plagiarism—after all, intention can’t be measured by AI tools. Another writer attempted suicide. The journals that had published them? Completely silent.

Now, I won’t pretend to know the full workings of the Chinese publishing world. Even though Mandarin is my mother tongue, I’ve never submitted to a Chinese journal or publisher. What I do know is that most literary journals there are state-owned—either at the national or provincial level. It’s also something of an open secret that these journals tend to publish established writers or their students. That said, they pay surprisingly well, especially considering the relatively low cost of living. A short story in a top-50 journal can earn anywhere from $500 to $3,000, while a nice, mid-range dinner for two in Beijing rarely tops $50.

I’ve been following the plagiarism scandal closely. From what I observed in the screenshots, most of the alleged “similarities” weren’t about plot or overall stylistic borrowing, but about specific passages—sometimes even at the sentence level. The manuscripts in question were compared to works by world-famous authors like Nabokov, Stefan Zweig, Françoise Sagan, Ian McEwan, and Eileen Chang, as well as nationally renowned Chinese writers such as Zhang Henshui, Yan Geling, and Qian Zhongshu.

In one case, a writer was revealed to be both a victim and a perpetrator of plagiarism, raising questions about how many hands a single sentence might pass through before publication. As I read through the examples, I questioned whether some of these resemblances were even worth mentioning. One case compared Raymond Carver and Ding Yan—both had scenes where an adult lays a child on their knees, tickles the child’s chin, and speaks to them in a mimicked childlike tone. To me, that felt like an innocent, even clichéd coincidence, not worthy of accusation.

Others, though, were much harder to defend—full paragraphs of distinctive, artistic expression lifted with minimal change. These went beyond shared imagery or cultural overlap. They read less like homage or coincidence, and more like deliberate appropriation, sometimes direct theft.

The comment sections were flooded with anger. Many expressed deep disappointment—not just at the writers accused of plagiarism, but at the institutions behind the journals and publishers that failed to intervene. Others lamented what they saw as the “bleak future” of Chinese literature. Some went further, blaming the plagiarists for blocking emerging voices: publishing resources, they argued, are disproportionately funneled toward those with industry connections—people who plagiarize just to uphold their status. A few demanded total denouncement: “Cancel all of them.” Others chimed in with, “My writing is way better.”

And honestly, I agree—at least with the call for a fairer, more open platform to discover writers. That should be the backbone of a healthy literary community. While literary magazines in the U.S. may not be directly state-run or censored (not that they’ve ever been as “independent” as some claim—see this, plus the MFA circuits, the subtle gatekeeping), we still find ourselves asking similar questions: How many works published in the Paris Review are unsolicited? Does The New Yorker read their slush pile at all if they reject a story they have already published? How many seconds does a big-name lit mag editor give a submission before voting “no, god no?”

At the same time, bitterness and resentment toward rejection is nothing new. How dare you? they think. My MFA professor says this is the most provocative piece they’ve ever read. My girlfriend/rich husband/playwright cousin agrees. Who are you to teach me what to do?

As someone who gets rejected at least once a day—and rejects others at about the same rate—I’ve seen both sides of this ugly ecosystem. I flip back and forth between my two skins. One moment I’m cursing a journal for giving me a “standard rejection” after 236 days, insisting my story at least deserved a “tiered.” The next, I’m complaining to my cat about some poor writer who doesn’t know how to use semicolons (neither do I, so I avoid them), or threatening to sign up the next person who submits a “Four/Five/Six Stages/Steps of Grief/Decomposition/Recipe” piece for Gymshark, LinkedIn, and ZocDoc—and turn on all notifications.

Our founder of this newsletter, Joe Ponepinto, wrote a while ago, It’s Really All About the Voice. I agree with him—voice is crucial, especially at the final stage of consideration. But let’s be honest: by the time we get there, we’ve already cut out a good half of the submissions. Why? Insincere writing. Awkward punctuation. Contradictory details. POV choices that just don’t work.

It always hurts to admit that I, too, might belong to that good half—the half that never makes it past the first filter. And that sometimes, I don’t write better than the ones who gave in to the devil’s whisper. Even without the stolen lines, their talent is real.

I also won’t pretend I haven’t been tempted. As one commenter wrote: “Sometimes, you see a sentence that feels like it was meant for your story. You hit a wall, open a book, and there it is—perfect. You close the book, stare at your blank document, and that sentence runs rent-free in your head.”

“It’s Lucifer’s gift,” the comment continues. “But the more you accept it, the more it turns to rot. It becomes a thorn in your heart. You feel sick. Ashamed.”

Don’t take Lucifer’s gift.

Ding Yan, one of the accused (statements mentioned at the beginning), wrote in her defense: “Words are water melted from the snow of the Kunlun Mountains; hundreds of rivers and thousands of creeks return to the same source. How could you say a spoondrift is a thief?”

Her words remind me of what Helene Hegemann once said, after being accused of plagiarism herself: “There’s no such thing as originality, only authenticity.”

For lack of better words of my own, I’ll borrow from Yu Hua, who ironically once taught Ding Yan and publicly recommended her work: “Trees grow in the sunshine, but a tree does not grow in the sunshine’s way—it grows in its own.”

Thank you for reading. I’m Claire W. Zhang, founding member of Beyond Craft, former reader for Orca, and currently an editor at The Baltimore Review. You can find my work at clairewzhang.com.

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[1] Think Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, but for sentence-level similarity. “No metaphor for you!”

[2] I like to imagine a French executioner in 1793 coming home from work, sitting in front of his desk, dipping a quill in black ink, and writing, “William Blake’s new poems are deranged…”