Discussion Who/what are/were your inspirations as a writer?

[Kathylikestoread]

I don't think that there is already a thread for this, so I was curious. To me, one of my biggest inspirations has to be Sylvia Plath. I know that many of her beliefs would be considered very problematic today, but her writing really touched me. I was inspired by her to start writing poems about my life, and not just that, make them super angsty and emotional.

 

[theclaw]

Mario was an early inspiration. Superheroes are a recurring theme, yet mainly for comedic effect.

A more complex thread is admiration and criticism of Rumiko Takahashi works.
Like having my OC "Akane" artistic, quiet-spoken, traits very much in contrast to Akane Tendo.

 

[Palamon]

Me, myself, I, my brain, me, nothing else. I don't look to other things or people to write. I just happen to write a Genshin Impact fanfiction (and various other things such as honkai, and right now, persona), and don't look to other people. Early on, I was inspired by Genshin twt rp, but quite frankly, I hate the genshin fandom, so. I just don't look to those people anymore.

I write what I want, don't look for inspiration from others aside from maybe the occasional prsk song I write.

 

[LightningTopaz]

The Legend of Zelda and RPGs are a big influence on my work, alongside fantasy novels--I love me a grand epic quest through a fantastic world bursting at the seams with lore.

I am also a sucker for the performing arts (music dance, theater, and so on), and given how a lot of characters are almost blank slates, it's easy to imagine them as performers. I have often said my incarnations of the anime cast are more like classic Disney characters--an ensemble of characters for any purpose.

 

[theclaw]

Me, myself, I, my brain, me, nothing else. I don't look to other things or people to write. I just happen to write a Genshin Impact fanfiction (and various other things such as honkai, and right now, persona), and don't look to other people. Early on, I was inspired by Genshin twt rp, but quite frankly, I hate the genshin fandom, so. I just don't look to those people anymore.

I write what I want, don't look for inspiration from others aside from maybe the occasional prsk song I write.

I don't often request input either. Not even for refinements like improving the pixel art.
Nevertheless, songwriting is a good point. Theme music is so vital to conveying an anime atmosphere.

The Legend of Zelda and RPGs are a big influence on my work, alongside fantasy novels--I love me a grand epic quest through a fantastic world bursting at the seams with lore.

I am also a sucker for the performing arts (music dance, theater, and so on), and given how a lot of characters are almost blank slates, it's easy to imagine them as performers. I have often said my incarnations of the anime cast are more like classic Disney characters--an ensemble of characters for any purpose.

It has been fun writing how the classic cast we already know, responds to new characters.
(now that you mention it, I did allude to Frozen when initially hinting that my protagonist sings well)

 

[AetherX]

Not sure it would be worth listing out the melting pot of movies and books that formed the basis of stories I want to write. All the campy action/adventure like Indiana Jones and Star Wars, harder sci-fi with heavy themes like Contact, fantastic worlds with nevertheless relatable characters like The Lord of the Rings (books and films). Fairly typical stuff, at least for the formative years of my age range. All of those and others built the foundation of stories I enjoy and therefore want to write. I typically take inspiration from themes and setting more so than plot or characters or writing style. I like to think about how I would approach a given theme or what a kind of setting would look like in the Pokemon world (at least in the contest of Pokemon fanfic).

Honestly though more than anything I've been inspired by other Pokemon fanfic I've found on here. It's very eye-opening to see what kinds of stories are possible and the way other people approach them. Reading people who are better writers than me while still being amateurs makes me want to improve myself.

 

[theclaw]

Blending elements is going to be tricky. How will I get across the super-robots shaped like Pokemon are positively not kaiju? Vehicles that combine into a mecha aren't typical of this franchise either.

 

[pilosophos]

As a kid, I was used to padding out my writing to meet a page count: if I wrote five pages, the teacher checked the box on the grading rubric. If I didn't, I'd have to do it again. So I learned to cough up five-dollar words like I was being mugged in an dark alleyway. When I read George Orwell's essay, Politics and the English Language, it was like I'd seen the light. It made me realize that how I write matters, not just what I write.

It's mostly about how English is used in political writing― stuff like essays about politics and manifestos― but it applies to other kinds of writing as well. He talks about how flowery language gets used to dress up nasty policies in vague, but fancy-sounding purple prose. He says we see these words and phrases so often that it becomes second nature to us, and without thinking, we regurgitate them in our writing because they sound smart. What it really does is fill our writing with unclear, hard-to-read prose.

His solution is to write simpler: use small, common words. Cut out words that don't add anything. Think about whether your metaphors make the writing more descriptive or just unclear.

In terms of what I write, Catcher in the Rye definitely influenced me. On the surface, Catcher in the Rye is a story about an entitled kid who skips school and walks aimlessly through New York City. But it's really about a guy who's grieving, doesn't have anyone to talk to, and can't cope with his feelings. I loved this book because it was the first book I had read that wasn't about a plot. It was about a guy with feelings. And as guy with feelings, reading this made me want to read more stuff like it.

So I started to write about tenderness instead of action, and about people instead of Supermen, because that's what I wanted to read.

Shadowrun and Ghost in the Shell turned me on to cyberpunk, which has been my favorite genre for many years. I feel like my whole life, even from early childhood, has revolved around technology. My hobbies, my education, my work― everything. Cyberpunk explores questions like, "How do we survive in a world that's trying to replace us with technology?" and "What does it mean to be an individual in a constantly connected world?", all the questions that I struggle with, yet desperately need an answer to. Beneath the neon lights, the killdroids, and the holograms, it's still fundamentally a genre about humanity.

My favorite story I've written is North Downtown Station, because it's kind of all these things combined. It's short, it's cyberpunk with a little fantasy mixed in, and it's mostly about feeling. I wish I wrote more like it, but a lot of my drafts end up as scrap in my recycling bin. I have to learn to finish stuff.

 

[Dorothy LaRouge]

My biggest influences as a writer are Kurt Vonnegut, George R.R. Martin, Victor Hugo, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Lemony Snicket.

 

[staticmoth]

I'd say I'm inspired by sitcoms. I think comedy tells us a lot about human nature, how people act when put into a situation with a lot of realism and charm. Even the most absurd situation has some grounding in the lived expierences of their writers. I think there is a lot to learn and absorb from that!!