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Inspiration

As I stated in another thread, I want to craft an incredibly emotional, deep, and fantastical story. I know who doesn' t? But I want to make a story that is for everyone, young and old, but I need inspiration. Any recommendations would be GREATLY appreciated. I was thinking of picking up Where The Wild Things Are, Most of Studio Ghibli,(Movies and Novels), But that' s all I got. If you want an idea of my very basic idea, check out the link. Thanks! http://mythicscribes.com/forums/brainstorming-planning/6906-novel-idea-thoughts.html
 

Alexandra

Closed Account
As I stated in another thread, I want to craft an incredibly emotional, deep, and fantastical story....but I need inspiration. Any recommendations would be GREATLY appreciated.

I think that unless you are on a first-name basis with a muse the inspiration you are looking for will have to come from within. Books, movies, conversations, sunsets,... they may all be inspiring but I think what they do for a writer is trigger the creative process. I hope you find what you're looking for but don't expect anyone to hand it to you. Writing is hard.
 
Inspiration, in my experience, is what happens when two or more ideas collide and gain enough mass to form its own gravity well that attracts more ideas.

Now, having a great ambition is excellent, but my advice would be to not be in too much of a hurry. Have ideas, but allow them to be just... ideas. Don't try to force anything. Let them mature in your head and see what they turn into before you sit down and try to write them. Get used to the reality that this might take a lot of time.

In the meantime, read things, watch things, write things - keep accumulating ideas in your head.

Stephen King once said that after he read Lord of the Rings as a teenager, he wanted to write a great work of fantasy. Only, he was smart enough to realize that if he tried to do it right away, he would just write Tolkien's great work of fantasy all over again. It wasn't until years later while he was watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly at a movie theatre that he realized that he wanted to write The Dark Tower.
 

Butterfly

Auror
I don't think I could write a story for everyone, young and old. There is so much difference between the ages from the language used to the type of content suitable. Perhaps narrow down your intended audience, it should produce a more focused story, and stronger narrative suitable to a particular age group. After all, no one can please everyone, so aim for a few, and no story will ever appeal to every single person on the planet, nor can one story appeal to such wide an age group of 9 to 90.
 
I like to write from music, though not always directly. For instance, I based Five Conversations around Blue, with polluted water as the "plastic blue". ("But the plastic blue is in someone's room . . . No, think metaphorically. The plastic blue is someone's room, where she's been waiting. And she's waiting for you, but why is she waiting for you? What's this about trust? And why does she change so suddenly . . .") I think it works well because most of the time, you can't adapt a song literally to a story--the change of media forces you to twist and stretch it into a new shape. Call it creativity through necessity.
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
I've moved this thread to the Writing Questions forum as it is not appropriate to research - which is about factual research on topics for inclusion in novels.

My advice would be to start with themes. What themes do you like? What's appropriate to an all-ages audience? Which themes can work together well?

In terms of getting inspiration, there are plenty of places. While existing fiction is (I find) useful for providing motivation to write, I don't often find it helps with what to write (except, occasionally, thematically). Read real things: news stories from around the world, essays on anthropology or mythology, history. Read letters written by people who lived a thousand years ago (the Roman-era Vindolanda tablets, or letters of Pliny the Younger, could be good for this). Letters were not meant to be read widely, you see, and so are more personal, more about the writer's inner thoughts and concerns. Diaries, too, are good for the same reason - my great grandfather's WWI diary taught me more about WWI than school ever did with its war poetry and battle dates and pictures of trenches.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
I'd suggest thinking about what moves you. What stories do you love? What stories touch you? What stories do you think are deep? What stories have you read or seen that you continually reread and re-watch? Come up with a list of those and then steal like a son-of-a-gun.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
My advice on this topic is different & often not popular. That doesn't make it any less true even though I also acknowledge that people all work in different ways. - End of disclaimer.

That being said, I advise you to give up on the idea of inspiration. You don't need it &, in many ways, I find the idea of inspiration to be a hindrance.

It's too easy to use a lack of inspiration as an excuse for not writing or taking risks. In my experience, it comes down to hard work and a dedication to work consistently whether or not you feel like working (or feel uninspired). Im not saying feelings of inspiration aren't real. They are. We've hopefully all felt inspiration on some level. However, the hard truth lies in the knowledge that feelings of inspiration are fleeting. Sustained effort is what gets the job done.

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club" - Jack London
 
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