If you're relying on outside influences, instead of a creative core, for page after page after page of writing, for scene after scene and character after character, then you're going to fail.
I think this is where I disagree with you. I don't see outside influences and creative core as being completely separate things. I believe you need outside influences to develop creative core. How can you be creative without examples to inspire you to follow the same path, without stories to ignite your imagination? I don't know about you, but what inspired me to write in the first place was reading. I read these amazing stories, and I wanted to do the same thing. How could anyone become an author without hearing or reading stories that inspire them to write?
This reminds me of that TV show on Channel 4 in Britain a few years ago - Garth Meranghi's Dark Place. A spoof 1970s paranormal hospital show, with interviews with the "actors" and "writer" - Garth Meranghi - in the modern day as if the series was being revived. The character of the writer says in one of these "interviews" that he must be the only author that has written more books than he has read. And you just know that explains why the supposed "original" series is so embarrassingly awful.
You can have outside influences without including those influences in what you write. You say you could write a western form the point of view of a senile granny, without needing to understand the western genre. I'm not sure I agree. I'm sure you could write an interesting story, character arc and so on, but just throwing in a saloon and poker and cowboys spitting tobacco won't make it a good western. It might have the trappings of a western, and a good story at it's core, but lack of understanding of the genre could make the western parts look tacky to fans of westerns, and taint the solid core of the story as a result. I think it's possible for a reader who is a fan of a genre to tell when the author knows what they're talking about and when they're just playing with a genre. And I think that without a solid understanding of the genre, an author can never truly write something in that genre which is both a good story, and a competent representative of the genre.
Knowing a lot about the genre doesn't mean you are restricted by it though. The better your understanding of a genre, the more competently you can bend it to your will, stretch the boundaries without breaking them, and work within those stretched boundaries in a believable manner while still telling a good story.
Let me put it this way: when there's a party requiring balloons, the first balloons I blow tend to be a bit smaller. I don't know the tensile strength of this particular pack of balloons yet, and I don't want them to pop. As I gain more confidence blowing up the balloons, they get bigger. A few might pop right in my face - and then I know how big they can go. So the last few balloons are big, but not so big they'll pop in my face before I've tied the knot. That's how I see it. Without testing some balloons - and without reading widely in a genre - I don't know what the boundaries are. I might go too far, or I might unwittingly be unambitious and not test any boundaries at all. Knowing the limits allows me to make the biggest balloons I can without them exploding in my face - or write the best story I can without going so far past the boundaries of the genre that I go into the ridiculous.
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