Drawing inspiration

[thedarknessrising]

It's no secret that writers get inspiration from sources that have been published. We see different stories, and certain elements find their way into our own writing. We by no means directly copy these works. We just use the parts that fit in with what we have written.

I've found that I draw inspiration from a couple different sources.

1.World Building

Before I even started writing my novel, I had created the world from thew ground up. Myths, legends, histories, I wrote it all in detail. I drew various maps. I wanted to create a real enough world, so that my stories could thrive. for this, I looked to JRR Tolkien. In my opinion, he is the master of world building. Middle Earth is a country rich in lore, and I wanted to emulate that. I do not have a mythos close to what Tolkien created, but what I do have works well enough for what I want to do.

2. Story Telling

For this, I draw inspiration from two places.

The first is Dungeons and Dragons. I've been playing this game for three years now, and in doing so, I've found that my writing abilites have increased dramatically. I DM a lot, which means I have to prepare stories and quests for my players.

The second is Star Wars. Despite it being a science fiction film, I think it's borderline fantasy. George Lucas spins an epic tale of power, heroism, and redemption unlike anything I've ever seen before. There's epic sword fights, daring escapes, and space battle sequences that leave one breathless. I've even based my guild of wizards off the Jedi Order.

3. Character Creation

One of the hardest things to do as a writer is to write characters that seem real. for this, I look to George RR Marting and A Song of Ice and Fire. The thing I love most about this series is that there really is no black and white good and evil. Everyone has their own motives that interfere with the plans of another, and that causes blood to boil and tensions to rise. And while the Lannisters are an unpleasant family, they aren't evil. They have the same lust for power that the other families in Westeros have. Everyone believes that they have the rightful claim to the throne, and war erupts. But there is no villain (White walkers not counted). Characters have clear personalities and goals, and they feel like real people.


What sources do you draw upon for your writing? I'd like to know, so that I can check them out.

 

[WooHooMan]

Worldbuilding

When I was younger, my first setting was an elaborate fantasy world called "Albion". As you could guess by the name, there was nothing original or interesting about it - it was mostly a rip-off of Middle-Earth and Hyrule from Zelda.
As I got older, I looked more to actually cultures/history and focused more on depth than breadth.

Interestingly, I now really dislike Middle-Earth and Hyrule as settings. Go figure. I still hold them in high regard as "the things that got me into the world-building business".

My favorite settings are Tamriel from the Elder Scrolls, Glorantha, Zork, Polynesia and pre-World War New England.

Story Telling

I take inspiration where I can find it. I'm honestly not that picky.
I recently found that I really dig fantasy fiction that's inspired by Gnosticism. I'm not sure what to make of that.
Also, Star Wars. That's a borderline gold standard for basic storytelling.

Character Creation

My "background" in psychology. Also, music. Most of my characters are based on albums. I try not to base characters off of other fictional characters - at least not to an extensive degree.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

1.World Building

As for me my world building takes inspiration from several areas. Generally they start off as an abstract concept and then I follow them down various logical holes until I reach a world that I feel could make a good story. For the second novel I wrote I started with a thought experiment what if there was a secret magical community in the United States that wasn't satisfied with staying hidden. I figured this would be pretty reasonable since most Americans want to live their life as they see fit and shouldn't hide who they are. Assuming that these people had to stay hidden for several centuries people would feel disgruntled. Also, the government would not just sit on their hands and say "Ho hum there's magic people don't know what to do," like the PM in Harry Potter 6 (that scene bugged the snot out of me). So I figured riots, and due to how different these people are, an eventual war from those riots would spring. I then went through several scenarios about how each side would win and an interesting way the war would end in a draw. I picked the draw ending. Then expanded that a few hundred years into the future and suddenly I had an interesting world where stories could flourish.

I did a similar process for a WIP in the early stages and used legal principles and made them limit and control the magic in that world. This is looking promising as well.

2. Story Telling


I have a lot of inspirations here and it depends on the story I want to write. Right now I am combining thriller and urban fantasy. So I am drawing from Dresden, The Alloy of Law, Clancy novels, and other similar works. Another world I am drawing from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Sanderson novels, and Grisham works. Yet another I draw inspiration from Hamlet, The Count of Monte Cristo, and various epic fantasies and revenge tales.

3. Character Creation

This one I again draw from various locations. People I meet, read about, and taking different personality traits and combine them together to create new and interesting people.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Most of us start our learning process through emulation. When we mature as artists, we may eventually realize that originality mainly comes from hiding one's sources. Picasso said it well...

"Good artists copy, great artists steal."

I'm constantly ripping other writer's off. If I like something, I'll take it, blend it with something else, and repackage into my story. If done right, the reader will never know where that inspiration came from. If executed poorly, it's as plain as day.

The more I write, the better I get at stealing.

Storytelling and style is no different. It's a mash-up of my favorite writers from across different genres. I'm constantly going back to books I loved to see how this writer handled this, and another handled that.

There's no shame in it. I think it should be encouraged.

 

[ThinkerX]

Great gadzooks...I've read a huge pile of stuff down through the decades, and can claim many sources of inspiration.

But...

Worldbuilding:

I did a lot of this in my younger days, twenty and thirty years ago. Probably created a dozen plus worlds, mostly inspired by AD&D, but also by various stories and articles. Eventually, I combined them down into two (at least for fantasy, SF is a different matter). I finally realized that worlds are *BIG*, and all but a very few fantasy epics span a very small part of a given world. So, what began as 'worlds' became separate regions in just two worlds.

Storytelling:

Suffice it to say, I found my style.


Character Creation:

At the outset, I was very heavily inspired by AD&D, but while useful, game mechanics do not make for good characters or stories. Anymore, what I do is - Ok, I have this situation, now what sort of character do I need to make the story work?

 

[Reilith]

When I first started as a youngster I had a really high influence of Warcraft III on the lore of the world I first created. It was also very much inspired by a Serbian fantasy book I love even now.

As my reading horizons broadened I found that I have a big problem when writing, as anything I read at the time will influence me in some way while I am creating my own world. So I try to surround myself with books that I think would help me improve and try to pick up little tips and tricks from the books I read. Mercedes Lackey's melodramatic style and types of plots inspired me for the current work I am writing. Later on I continued to draw from different sources of high fantasy, grit and epic fantasy. It is a strange combination, but I like to see the differences that build up the story, the way of the storytelling and world building, and also the characters and their characteristics because then I can draw upon whichever I see fit and transform it to (hopefully) fit into my own creation.
As for the general 'feel' I go for magic and epic tales mixed with social problems of our times. Or at least that's the idea. I am not big on religion myself being an agnostic, but I do like to incorporate mythological polytheistic philosophies in my worlds, but I don't let it take the lead in the story. I guess I am more on the side of the emotional, rising to the challenge, understanding oneself type of character creator.
I think it all composes into my own distinct style, and as T. Allen said borrowing, or stealing from other works as inspiration is just a part of it, but it is not in any way resembling of what I initially read.