Writers: Do Any of You Ever Worry About Bad Inspirations Affecting Your Writing?

sageoftruth

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I've been a gamer ever since kindergarten and I got into anime during my early college years. Fast forward ten years, and I'm in a writing workshop. A recurring worry of mine has been that my past (and present) with games and anime has been interfering with my writing. Basically, that I'm unintentionally drawing inspiration from them.
People tell me that a character's mood swings are too sudden and I think "Crap! I made it too anime!" Some one tells me that a supposedly 'good' character seemed disturbingly un-bothered by all the guards he just slaughtered and I think, "Crap! Video games have struck again!"

Do any of you have influences that you try to keep from getting into your writing?
 

Saelune

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I believe in anti-inspiration. Things that inspire you to not be like it. I feel if anything, anime inspires me to consider how exposition works and doesnt work. It usually can help to know how to do it wrong, so you dont do it wrong.
 

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Not in the sense of style. I tend to have a certain style in mind when I'm writing and so things like anime or gaming don't really come to mind when I'm imagining it.
 

sageoftruth

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Saelune said:
I believe in anti-inspiration. Things that inspire you to not be like it. I feel if anything, anime inspires me to consider how exposition works and doesnt work. It usually can help to know how to do it wrong, so you dont do it wrong.
Ah, those have always been useful, even outside of writing. Back in high school, my sister's nonstop watching of trashy reality TV taught me plenty about how NOT to behave around others.

Anyway, based on that, it looks like it would be a good idea for me to take a more critical look at the media I consume, so I can gather up more anti-inspirations.
 

happyninja42

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Considering most successful writers will openly admit they draw inspiration from all kinds of sources, I hardly think it's somehow "bad". We are a weird species, we take in information from all over the place, all the time, and then mush it into our heads in bizarre ways, that can lead to inspiration for all kinds of things. To try and censor your source material for said inspiration is, I think:

1. Pointless, your brain is going to do it's own thing, and it's going to become creative based on who knows what kind of stimulus you expose it to.
2. Ultimately harmful. You don't have to worry about where you get your ideas from. If it's even remotely original, or hell even if it's not, so what? Do you know how many versions of Romeo/Juliet there are? Nobody cares if the story is good, that it's one they've already seen in a similar fashion.

I've had inspiration for stories, both written, and roleplaying adventures I've created, from some of the most random sources. I mean, would you consider that a song by Peter Gabriel would spark a story for a Werewolf campaign that involves the end of the world, and the battle to prevent that destruction? Well it did. So trying to say things like "the anime and games I watch is going to negatively impact my inspiration" is just kind of silly.

Don't worry about it, just write what you want to write, and put an original spin on the concept. I'm sure you've heard the cliche of "there are no new stories", so why worry?

Now, the two examples you've given for the "bad" inspiration, aren't exclusive to games and anime, you've just given two examples of a poorly structured character. And that's a common problem for writers, to make their stories believable. There are hours and hours of seminars on how to write your characters well. I'd suggest looking up stuff by Jim Butcher (an author who openly admits he pulls inspiration from all over the place), on how to structure a story in a believable way.

Here are two of the links for one seminar he gave that I think is really good, but he's given others.


and then


and I found the other one that I think might be more useful to you, since you gave examples of characters that didn't seem believable.



**EDIT**

And, I'd like to point out, that there isn't anything wrong with your character presenting traits like the two you mentioned above. If you are going for an "anime" style of writing, then it's perfectly fine. Also there are people who are very emotionally mercurial, and can jump moods incredibly quickly. That is a reality, it's not just anime trope.

And there are people in the world who don't really react when they kill people. So again, it's not without precedent, just maybe not for a protagonist, though you could point to hundreds of action heroes from the 80's, who didn't give two shits about making piles of bodies. So you know, your call.
 

WhiteFangofWhoa

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Looking back on previous works, I have a real problem making natural-sounding dialogue. Phrases from fiction that I like inevitably creep into it regardless of how strange it would be to have that character say it:

'I have a bad feeling about this'
'Am I/you not ______?!'
'Go ahead, have your laugh.'

You could make a drinking game out of any of those.
 

Saelune

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sageoftruth said:
Saelune said:
I believe in anti-inspiration. Things that inspire you to not be like it. I feel if anything, anime inspires me to consider how exposition works and doesnt work. It usually can help to know how to do it wrong, so you dont do it wrong.
Ah, those have always been useful, even outside of writing. Back in high school, my sister's nonstop watching of trashy reality TV taught me plenty about how NOT to behave around others.

Anyway, based on that, it looks like it would be a good idea for me to take a more critical look at the media I consume, so I can gather up more anti-inspirations.
You can learn from other's mistakes just as much as your own. It is why I tend to not go first. :p
 
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Happyninja42 said:
Now, the two examples you've given for the "bad" inspiration, aren't exclusive to games and anime, you've just given two examples of a poorly structured character. And that's a common problem for writers, to make their stories believable.
This. Pretty much just this.

OP, as a fellow amateur writer (I make RPGs as a hobby) I wish I could offer some concrete advice, but really, writing more or less comes naturally to me after years of personal amateur work, so the only thing I can offer is "Read your dialogue out loud. If it sounds 'off' or dumb when you say it, it's gonna sound 'off' if the character says it".

And believability, IS pretty tricky. Making your characters well rounded with enough detail to them, conveyed in a way that makes you care about them can help alleviate that, though. If the reader/player/viewer cares about the characters, they're more willing to suspend their disbelief and stay along for the ride, just to see where it takes the characters.
 

FalloutJack

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I'm actually not too worried about my writing, because I let my characters breathe and think on their own. My plots are my plots, but as long as they're reacting to it genuinely, it makes for good story. There's a character of mine who has the problem of dead parents, but when I worked on her folks' backgrounds, I decided they were definitely cool enough to have their own tales, so the story about this girl has a story attached to it that gives her parents life. You just have to see where your mind goes for these things.
 

bjj hero

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Generally soak in whatever you are trying to do.

In my 20s when I was briefly in a band, our guitarist would go off, listen to The Ataris for 2 weeks then come back with a bag full of catchy pop punk... While the drummer and I would piss around playing A7X songs.

It did wreck things when he would write an emotional set of lyrics and then after practice go on to tell us that in the end he slept with the girls sister.

He was such a man whore.
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

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Not so much a fear of bad inspirations as much a crippling and debilitating fear of being oblivious of pre-existing work with the near exact same premise. I HATE it when what I want to write has been made, forcing me to drop it. :/
 

Sniper Team 4

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Of course you're being inspired by what you watch/read. It cannot be helped. I fully admit that I draw inspiration from countless sources when I'm writing.

The trick is to draw inspiration, but don't drown in it. You still need to put your own ideas in there, still need to make your story your own story and not just a bunch of strung together anime or game scenes. you will find that a healthy reality check (can a person really run through a hallway and gun down this many people without a scratch?) will help a lot in keeping this sort of thing in check.

And the problems you've have described are not exclusive to anime and games. They are everywhere, in every type of medium. For example, in the current TMNT cartoon on Nick, Leo looses his freaking mind when he finds out that The Fugitoid created the black hole generator. Like, Leo goes ballistic over it. And while that show isn't drama central, that scene felt really forced and out of place. That's a prime example of a mood swing that made little to no sense.

So don't stress about getting inspiration from anime and games. There is good stuff to draw from there. Just be open to feedback and suggestions. The only way you're going to get better is if you keep writing and listen to others who are giving you advice.
Does that mean you need to take every bit of advice you're given? No. But if a bunch of people are telling you the same thing--"This 'hero' just slaughtered a bunch of guards who were just doing their job and nothing really bad"--then it's probably a good idea to take that under advisement.
 
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Not really. However in a sort of related way I get about halfway through a story and think "this is too much like 'book-x'" or "this is starting to sound like 'movie-y'". The way I've learned to deal with this is accept that there really is nothing new under the sun. Most stories when you boil them down to the basics have already been told. Your job as a writer is to tell that story in a way only you can. Find your unique voice. This is how you tell an old story in a new way.
 

sageoftruth

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Wow, this thread sure grew overnight. Thanks for all the input. I'll take a look at the clips on making good characters.

Looking back it seems my fear was not about inspirations but rather that the media I consumed was getting in the way of my ability to "reality check" my characters, since so much suspension of disbelief was often required to enjoy it. We all know about the importance of suspension of disbelief in games, and in other media, I'll often forgive some odd behavior if it results in something funny or entertaining.

On the other hand, HappyNinja may be onto something too. Two of the members of my workshop are in their 60s, basically my parents' age, and the differences in what media we consumed growing up definitely shows. Perhaps I'm trying too hard to impress those two. I've been trying to be selective about what advice I take to heart from them, but even though we're all writing sci-fi/fantasy they seem to like their material to be more grounded in reality, basically less Star Wars and more Star Trek. Trying to measure up to their standards seems to be taking some of the fun out of writing.

Still, well-crafted characters are important regardless of genre.
 

maninahat

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I don't worry about it, though I do notice I do it a lot. There is nothing wrong with it, your tastes will inevitably influence your work. It's actually your specific blend of influences that will give you a unique voice.

That said, there are a lot of characters in games and anime which are terrible and under-written from a story telling perspective, but good enough within their own medium. Its all well and good picturing someone in your head in the format of an anime character, but if you were to write them exactly like one they'd probably be terrible.

I do have a bigger and semi-related concern that I will end up creating something that has already been done. What I think is a brilliant Sci-fi story, only to have some bloke in my writing group go "hey, this is exactly like that new book by such and such". I guess there's nothing new under the sun, but I'm still worried that I might take too much influence from something and forget I did. Apparently that's how Lolita got written; Nabokov accidentally re-wrote someone else's book he had read ages ago and forgotten all about.
 

Zen Bard

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I don't think the examples the OP posted are necessarily because of "bad" inspiration so much as just an author trying to find his/her voice. And it's actually credible that you can point back to certain things as the source of those writing choices.

Mind you, that doesn't necessarily make them wrong. I've had a story passed over by three or four publications because it was too "this" or not enough "that", only to have the final magazine buy it because it was "just what they were looking for".

Writing, like any other art form is subjective. I mean, I personally Dan Brown is a hack. Yet, he's a best-selling author. So...go figure.
 

happyninja42

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sageoftruth said:
Wow, this thread sure grew overnight. Thanks for all the input. I'll take a look at the clips on making good characters.

Looking back it seems my fear was not about inspirations but rather that the media I consumed was getting in the way of my ability to "reality check" my characters, since so much suspension of disbelief was often required to enjoy it. We all know about the importance of suspension of disbelief in games, and in other media, I'll often forgive some odd behavior if it results in something funny or entertaining.
And that's fine. You can write in any way you like. Despite what I said earlier about those being flawed examples of a well rounded character, that statement really only applies depending on your writing style. If the writer intends for the characters to be 2 dimensional and slightly over the top, that's fine then.

sageoftruth said:
On the other hand, HappyNinja may be onto something too. Two of the members of my workshop are in their 60s, basically my parents' age, and the differences in what media we consumed growing up definitely shows. Perhaps I'm trying too hard to impress those two. I've been trying to be selective about what advice I take to heart from them, but even though we're all writing sci-fi/fantasy they seem to like their material to be more grounded in reality, basically less Star Wars and more Star Trek. Trying to measure up to their standards seems to be taking some of the fun out of writing.

Still, well-crafted characters are important regardless of genre.
Ok so, this begs the obvious question....do you want to write like them? Or do you just want their approval/recognition of your skill as a writer? I mean, if you want to actually write in a style similar to theirs, then it would make more sense to try and measure up to their standards, as they are writing in a style you want to use as well. If it's the latter, then I think you are setting yourself up for failure trying to write in their style....in a different setting. I mean, trying to shove Cowboy Bebop for example, into Star Trek, just doesn't work, nor should it.

I'm personally always of the opinion of write how you want to write. There isn't really any wrong way to write a character, if it's done intentionally. Even the 2 examples you gave aren't truly "wrong", if done properly. There ARE people who are overly emotional, and jump mercurially from one mood to another at the drop of a hat. I've met many of them. There are also people who aren't bothered by killing people. So, if those traits are done on purpose, then it's fine. If they are a side effect that you didn't really intend, then it's a flaw that needs to be addressed.
 

happyninja42

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maninahat said:
I do have a bigger and semi-related concern that I will end up creating something that has already been done. What I think is a brilliant Sci-fi story, only to have some bloke in my writing group go "hey, this is exactly like that new book by such and such". I guess there's nothing new under the sun, but I'm still worried that I might take too much influence from something and forget I did. Apparently that's how Lolita got written; Nabokov accidentally re-wrote someone else's book he had read ages ago and forgotten all about.
Eh, I wouldn't worry about it. People do this all the time. As long as you are actually changing things, and putting a new spin on it, it's fine. Being inspired by something isn't "copying" it, or stealing. We don't live in a vacuum, it's impossible to divorce yourself entirely from the things around you. Your brain sucks in data all the time, without you thinking about it.

I mean just look at 7 Samurai, and all the various retellings of that story. They are (usually) good stories in their own right, even though they are obviously the same basic story. But it's ok, because they were good as well.

I know I've used him before, but Jim Butcher, is a self-confessed yoinker of stuff from other sources. Random stuff he comes across that gives him an idea, and he then runs with it. He mentioned once, about his character Bob, the animated human skull with glowing orange eyes that he thought was super original....and then he saw a rerun of Last Unicorn, and saw the talking skull with glowing eyes, and was like "Oh...I'm not as original as I thought I was..." He said it jokingly, but he did acknowledge that he takes stuff from all over, and there's nothing wrong with it. As long as it's simply inspiration, and you then tell your own story, you have nothing to be worried/ashamed about.