Inspiration for your writing...

[LeonDaydreamer]

Hi guys, I thought about sharing this here for a while, but I've been pretty busy (putting out fires is what it's felt like).

I wrote a heartfelt post about my inspiration in writing, focusing on my current project (A Near Dawn). I was inspired to get into storytelling largely because I grew up with point and click adventure games and I loved their charm and humor (Monkey Island, Broken Sword, later Ace Attorney and others). If you've seen some of the projects I worked on, you would recognize a lot of influences from there. But, of course, there are so many other stories that inspire me, like Steins;Gate, slow-building suspense thrillers, non-stupid comedies, and generally anything with clever writing (which can save bad directing) or very good directing (which can save mediocre writing) - anything you can learn from, really. This is my full post if you want to check it out, and again it focuses on my project:

https://leondaydream.wordpress.com/2017 ... nal-story/

One thing I don't really talk about there, which is very important as well and really a whole other subject, as I'm sure you guys know, is using your past experiences, everything you felt, everything you've been through, everything you've empathized with, what you've seen others around you experience - in general, everything you have learned about people; how different people can think, feel, and behave. All of that tremendously valuable ongoing discovery (I know I am always learning new things about people, and I'm sure so are you) is inspiration for your characters and stories as well, and I would hope gives my characters individuality and authenticity.

What inspires you guys? :)

[Zelan]

Hey Leon! c:

I enjoyed reading your post! It's cool to know some of the influences behind A Near Dawn, I'm familiar with most of them although I haven't had the pleasure of playing any of them.

I like that you brought up characters in your discussion. Characters are definitely the most important part of a story to me. Many, many authors have managed to hold me in place with compelling characters, despite having overused plots and/or just plain bad writing; on the other hand; on the other hand, there have been authors who I could objectively appreciate for their writing skills but could not get attached to their characters if I tried (and it doesn't take much, with me).

My stories begin with the characters, a lot of the time. It's not the most efficient way, maybe, but I'll think, "I want a character like this," based on someone I know or a character from something else, or a combination. The story builds itself around my characters. c:

[Widdershins]

Lovely post! It's important to be able to trace your influences, I think-- that awareness is a big part of keeping them 'influences' instead of imitations, and exploring what's out there is a good way of winnowing down to what ideas, themes, and mediums you want to experiment with yourself!

As a bit of a counterpoint (not that I disagree with you): I think my inspiration is more often born of frustration, rather than admiration. Exposure to a wide range within a genre or medium is an excellent tool for identifying what you like within it, but equally good at establishing where you feel there are missed opportunities, voices, and/or uses of the medium. When I run out of material to consume, or appetite for what is out there, is when I find I most often turn to the kitchen myself.

Similarly, while I can only filter experiences through my own perception, I like to comb the newspapers for little outside bursts of personality, humanity, and quirks that I squirrel away for future digestion. As an example, I read once about an actor who had found his niche playing dead bodies on crime shows-- he'd played a corpse for CSI-type procedurals some dozen times or more. That oddity stuck with me, and popped up as an apt side occupation for a character years later. I have some 13-14 articles tucked away right now, ranging from someone in a small village with a decaying population that makes dolls to keep the town from seeming empty, to a history of 'Female Husbands' in the 19th century. I may use parts of them, I may not, but they are excellent exercises in imagination, empathy, and humanity outside my own scope, and that activity keeps creativity supple, I believe.

And my current project is an extrapolation from a truly bizarre dream.

Ultimately, wherever I find the initial spark, it comes down to a handful of critical questions: What interests me? Why, and what do I find worth exploring in it? What questions do I have about the situation? Who would be there? What manner of person are they? What do they want? What are the problems/challenges/obstacles? The more questions I can come up with, and even the more restrictive the scenario, the more fertile the ground is for a story, because it becomes a matter of establishing characters, obstacles, and goals, and putting it all in motion to see how they interact.

[Kuiper]

I'm a big fan of stealing ideas from real life. The experiences of real people are often more interesting, varied, and rich than what you'll find in the pages of fiction -- the universe is bigger than the human imagination, so I'd prefer to draw inspiration from that.

As an example, one of the games I worked on (which is nearing release) is Cursed Lands, which is set in the Loren: The Amazon Princess universe. There's one scene that involves talking to one of the Amazon characters about what it's like to see the world from a bird's-eye view when riding a griffon. This scene wasn't originally planned as part of the story, but early on when I was working on the game I happened to listen to an interview with astronaut Chris Hadfield where he talked about the experience of seeing earth from space, observing the day-night cycle of the planet. He spoke about the experience with a real sense of awe and reverence as he admired the majesty of the planet's surface, and I wanted to capture that same sense of awe -- so I went home and wrote a scene where a character waxes fanatical about seeing the world from the back of an airborne fantasy creature. Actually, a lot of my speculative fiction consists of taking the tropes of fiction and finding places where they can intersect with ideas like this.

This has also happened for specific bits of dialog -- there have been lots of times when I've overheard an interesting conversation and someone has used a certain turn of phrase or a metaphor or a manner of speaking that just tickled my brain, immediately filling me with the thought that I really ought to employ that in the dialog I write.

Many of the characters, conversations, and conflicts in the stories that I write are in part inspired by events I've observed, either directly through first-hand experience, or through my consumption news reports, interviews, biographies, and so on. If you're trying to come up with interesting science fiction ideas, looking through the science section of the New York Times might serve you better than a trip to the science fiction section of your local bookstore.

[Nighten]

I'm a big fan of stealing ideas from real life. The experiences of real people are often more interesting, varied, and rich than what you'll find in the pages of fiction -- the universe is bigger than the human imagination, so I'd prefer to draw inspiration from that.

As an example, one of the games I worked on (which is nearing release) is Cursed Lands, which is set in the Loren: The Amazon Princess universe. There's one scene that involves talking to one of the Amazon characters about what it's like to see the world from a bird's-eye view when riding a griffon. [...]

It's funny, today I listened at work the 15th episode of "The Buzz"; when you tell the exact same anecdote

I take the habit to always have a notebook or my phone near me to quickly write down all ideas who come to me. It's free my mind, allows me to take a step back, and now I have a great source of little phrases and conversation that I can use in my work.

It's interesting to see what inspire you all, thanks LeonDaydreamer for bringing this topic and your article !