How What You Read Effects What You Write

[Tessar]

Lately I’ve noticed that a lot of my ideas spring from various degrees of spin-offs from things I’ve read before, or ideas that’ve been put forth in other novels. Some times it’s things like elves (of course most fantasy stories involve elves), or some times its things like a magic ‘system’ that is very loosely based on the Sword of Truth set up that I saw in the first book.

Do you guys find yourself using other author’s ideas, even if very indirectly, most of the time?

Now I know that a good deal of it is because after 2000+ years of plot lines, there generally aren’t too many new ideas bouncing around the world, but what I mean is do you use ideas that just popped into your head without any connection to anything else, or do you copy and edit most of the time?

Like I said before, a lot of my stuff is copy and edit, but in some cases I’ll have ideas which, although I’m sure have been used before, I haven’t seen in any book I’ve read.

[Nurvingiel]

My work is based on my own life experiences, but my style is highly influenced by what I've read. ie. the way I describe battles etc. Not that I'm actually close to the authors that I emulate, but I do draw from what I read.

[Earniel]

There is a quote somewhere that goes along the lines of "Bad writers steal, good writers borrow."

I must admit that the majority of my story-ideas come from other books. Never identically, mind you. But when I read something that I like, I'm thinking "That's a nice idea, I wonder if I could do something like that in this or that story". Then I take the basic idea the writer offered and see if I could work something like that in my plot. Sometimes I end up turning the ideas upside down from their starting point.

I do have some original ideas that I haven't seen anywhere else but they're rather rare. It's not easy anymore, I think, to come up with something that has never been done before. You always get influenced about what you hear or read, even if you don't realise it.

[Lief Erikson]

It's frequent that I've had the initial spark of an idea from a place, and developed upon that, but then in the end thrown out the initial connection as my own work no longer has any place for it.

"Borrowing" ideas from other writers has been done by me. I did it far more in the past than I do now, modeling plotlines and taking words and ideas from other books. I was unaware, frequently, of what I was doing, and when I didn't do it, my work went bonkers. For example, in one book I wrote, I ended up with the evil Scottish enemies bringing in allies from Africa and Russia, inventing gunpowder and losing the technology, and all losing so there was a happy ending, all right there at the end. That story I've looked for quite a few times since then, simply to read the book for fun. There was much too much fighting in the book, and the main character was in love with a girl who only said at most five lines in the whole thing. That was a good learning stage for me .

Nowadays I still have some ideas that are filched from other writers. For example, the magical system in my novel was initially Robert Jordan's magical system, twice removed.

I read Robert Jordan's books and was deeply impressed with them. So I made a game that was very closely copying his work. My magical system was extremely similar to his. Then in my book, I modelled my magical system upon several ideas from that game. Since then, I've gotten improved ideas of how my magic works. I will soon be alterring my magic so that it bears less resemblance to Robert Jordan's.

[sun-star]

I think being re-shaping other writers' ideas in your own words is a phase most writers go through. It helps you test out your way of telling a story against work you admire, and develop your own style. And it's true, there are a limited number of plots. If you're writing a romance, most of the plot has probably been done a million times, so the writer uses that to make the story their own.

[Pirate]

I use alot of both. I copy and edit descriptions most of the time. Usally smaller plot details popped into my mind but the overall plot will be inspired from a book or movie then after I think about it alot it will become something so different that if I said that it was inspired from fight club or whatever you'd wonder how I get a vampire like pedophile with a strong drug addiction from that movie.

[Azhag_Nuug]

As for myself I read only Tolkien, D.J. Machale, and K.A. Applegate books. I use Tolkien's ideas and sometimes plots for my works. There are only two large resemblences or 'borrowed' ides from him.
I used the story of Faramir and Denethor but changed the reason why his father hates him.
I mentioned only once a 'rider clothed all in black,' and then named him as a homage to Tolkien a Black Rider.

I get a lot of ideas from Tolkien mostly, like using songs, and a lot of semicolins.
As for history yes, it is hard to come up with your own ideas, but I think mine is to a degree quite different from others.

[galadriel]

I'm terrible. Whenever I read a good book, I write like the author for the next two weeks. My characters were speaking in British accents for a month after Harry Potter came out.

"Borrowing" is really inevitable. Reading is the most obvious way that writers learn to write better, and they can't help but borrow a few plot or character ideas on the way. There's a difference between outright plagarism and inspiration, of course. You just can't go around writing stories about fairy princesses who happen to be named Arwen.

My method of stealing is using themes from mythology, fairy tales, or even Shakespeare in my stories and poetry. That way, I'm not plagarizing... I'm making an allusion.

[IronParrot]

I prefer to see fiction writing as an evolutionary process. The line between being influenced by something and ripping it off entirely is generally blurry, but think about it this way:

- Can the audience enjoy your work with no prior awareness of the influencing material?

- Can the audience enjoy your work more, not less, with prior awareness of the influencing material?

- Are you adding enough to the common base that it is possible to distinguish your writing because you offer something different, even if some ideas are shared?

If you feel like what you are writing isn't original enough in terms of your prose and style, a lot of it can be solved in the editing process. If it's something more fundamental like the character and story structure, that kind of thing goes in the planning. Of course, being someone who never gets very far because he aims very high when it comes to perceived originality, I'm not one to talk.

[Willow Oran]

The things I borrow are generally minor plot devices that are so common throughout literature that no one even notices that they're there anymore.
As for the rest of, I would say that I'm influenced by the author's I read in terms of how I write and in terms of what I don't include in my stories.
For example I do a lot of background writing like family trees and explanations of how the world I write about works because I think such things add depth to a story, but I didn't start doing that until after reading the background writing that goes with LotR.
On the other hand I absolutely refuse to include elves in my writing because I know that if I did I would end up plagerizing.

[Starr Polish]

Well, when I discovered the wonder that is lyric poetry through Emily Dickinson, I began writing lyrical poetry. I also discovered that poetry didn't need to rhyme when I read Jewel's poetry book "A Night Without Armor" and started focusing on rhythm and/or imagery instead of having super structured rhymes. I have only written about five rhyming poems since I began writing, actually, and I've only really liked the most recent.

[ethuiliel]

When I write I usually have my own ideas, but they are often influenced by other books. I read mostly fantasy, and write mostly fantasy, so that makes it happen even more often. My Elves were greatly influenced by Tolkien, though there are some small differences. And often I end up writting a story or a part of a story that's similar to something I just read, and don't even realize it until I'm almost done.

[Laurelyn]

Originally posted by Eärniel
There is a quote somewhere that goes along the lines of "Bad writers steal, good writers borrow."

It's "Bad poets borrow, good poets steal." ~ T.S. Eliot

[Nerdanel]

Really good poetry, lyrics or novels can somehow affect your way of thinking (at least for me). When it comes to me, I write about my life, how I experience myself and the world around me.
This means that what I read affects what I write.

(now that quote is even better, Laurelyn )

[ethuiliel]

That's a really cool quote!!

[trolls' bane]

Let's see:
Tolkein
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Jules Verne
Frank Herbert
etc.
etc
and
etc.


Post #230!!! (only interesting because I didn't even know I passed 200)

Teacup Cafe: Drinks still on me, cause I now have my very own library!
Food on me too!

[Narinya_Cocachitawa]

television shows as well. My mother and I always writte things off of books or shows.

Sometimes it's a combo there of.

What is really bad is the fact that she can sometimes writte an episode that she would like to see done, bt won't send in, then it turns up the next week after it's finished or something.

I've only done one thing similer to that. It ended with a car crash, the way it began, and when I put my pen down, bang. Two cars ramed eachother near my house.

Now, I'm working with a story set in South America that deals with acient bombs and involves aliens, right? She sent me an e-mail saying that she was starting a story set in SA dealing with aliens.

Darn it.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Laurelyn

It's "Bad poets borrow, good poets steal." ~ T.S. Eliot

Neh, I was close.

[Lotesse]

*bump*

I've been watching "Alias" for the last week on DVD; entire seasons of it, day after day, and the other day it struck me that constant exposure to/immersion in the show was affecting not only my writing style, but my vocabulary and thought process. In a positive way, thank god, but -I definitely got an influence, which goes to show how powerfully any of us can be influenced and affected by what we choose to immerse ourselves in, what we choose to read or watch. Which is also a little scary; think about how much of society does NOT really read or protect their minds, and just casually watches (or reads) garbage on a regular basis - TV, full of its rape and casual murder and wicked politics and advertising...

[hectorberlioz]

Berlioz' writing influenced my own...especially his book "Evenings with the Orchestra". Though Dickens and Tolkien (not the fantasy aspect, here his influence is purely aesthetical).