Thought it would be interesting to discuss the fics/media you have read/watched which change the way you write, either in terms of style or content.

There's a few major fic inspirations for VP.

Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived by The Santi

This story is a great example (probably the primary example) of a fic which tracks the magical development of someone who has a lot of magical talent. Very "slice of life".

What You Leave Behind by Newcomb

@Newcomb and I used to have long, long discussions on IRC, ranging from magical theory to bouncing fic ideas off each other. Our thinking on HP magic is probably 95% aligned.

Of all the stories in the fandom, WYLB will be the most similar to my stories in terms of its depiction of magic. It also features a magically talented Harry and depicts his progression towards greatness.

Out of the Night by Raining Ink

Probably my favourite fic in the fandom, notwithstanding its flaws. The depiction of Knockturn Alley is so vivid, and the way the fic expands on Dark magic is fascinating (albeit in need of balancing).

This fic inspires VP in 3 main ways: in its loving attention to the detail in depicting the life of a location and all the people who use it; in its "little magic" (which is the tonal inspiration behind a lot of Victoria's wandless magic); and in its depiction of dark magic, which partially inspired deep magic in VP.

An Unfound Door by Joe

There is a specific scene in this fic which has stuck with me: the image of Harry navigating Hogwarts' rooftops, which lead to his secret room. It had never occured to me to even think about what was going on on top of the roof before.

For many years that scene has inspired my approach to depicting Hogwarts - firstly, to think outside the box; secondly, to always be adding more areas, unique in character but grounded in the functional reality of the castle.

And finally...

Gossip Girl

Pansy is basically Blair.

 

I feel as though my writing in general is heavily influenced by TV, movies, and plays.

It is very dialogue driven, usually providing the meat of the word count, exposition and characters thoughts are secondary.

For example

"Oh really," said Harry, wondering if this man could be serious.

"Oh really," said Harry with a raised eyebrow.

Second one just works better because its just, show v tell.

As far as exposition goes, eh? I see the point of it but generally I think its a crutch, if you don't explain anything to readers it can be frustrating to them, but thats just bad writing, re-write it so they can pick up on stuff quickly, but don't spoon fed them information.

Most of my exposition is achieved through dialogue, characters talking backing forth shedding light on the wider world. Which is heavily influenced by Martin.

As far as Harry Potter Fanfic writing, my big influences are,

Eliyfe and his fic, essentially providing a wider world of magic, and how Wizarding Britian is a part of it, but not a superpower or incredibly backwards, it just is.

ihateseatbelts, The Untitled Tome, is huge for my magic systems, making it more complicated and nuanced. The Leaden Coin is my favorite example of this, its an excellent evocative scene, where Harry transfigures a leaden coin for his end of year exams, and his proctor exclaims, because he hadn't seen one in years.

The Potters in this verse are famous for their ability to transfigure metal, and the leaden coin is usually the first thing they learn. It makes the Potters feel more alive, and makes you realize that losing the Potters is a tragedy, not just some young couple cut down in their youth. But an entire family forced to extinction, losing a critical piece of the wizarding worlds history and culture.

As far as character writing goes however, or rather designing characters, I'm heavily influenced by Salinger, and his most famous character, Holden Caulfield.

Caulfield, is the ultimate byronic hero to me, intelligent, well read, competent, and all of his conflict comes from his own mistakes.

Essentially, Caulfield is a depressed teenager with an absurd amount of confidence born out of his apathy.

All my characters end up reflecting him in someway, whether its fierce independence, apathetic confidence, or snide saradonism.

As far as settings go, Rowling plays some parts, as does the classic X-Men of secret societies and hidden people with abilities on our Earth in semi-modern times.

If I'm making my own setting, its usually Martin or Tolkien influenced, but I really don't do that often lol.

good thread.

 

There is one and only one piece of media that has inspired me in some thirty years on this Earth, if you know what I mean:



But seriously, and hoo-boy, I need to return to An Unfound Door. I still get a lot of messages about finishing that one.

I earned my writing chops imitating the usual characters - Stephen King, Rothfuss, and a whole bunch of YA authors like Anthony Horowitz and, to say the least, JK Rowling.

I like to think my style has evolved into something a little less obviously photocopied from established authors in the last 15 years. It would be surprise to no one that media with epic and broad-reaching plots are where I'm most comfortable.

 

Inspiration, wtf you talkin' bout Willis, all my ideas are OG and come straight from the center of my tortured artistic soul.










My biggest fic wouldn't exist without Renegade Cause (@Silens Cursor simultaneously wrote a story and a masterclass in weaving multiple plot threads), Prince of the Dark Kingdom and Circular Reasoning (@Swimdraconian -- one of the big ideas in my WIP fic project was largely inspired by your story). As for the original stuff that's veeeeeeeery slowly stewing on external drives, I probably knowingly and unknowingly draw inspiration from more things than I care to name here but I'll shout out @Joe because I find his worldbuilding (both in fics and original work) very deftly constructed despite often brief descriptions, which is just fucking unfair how well he does it.

 

That's kind of you to say @ScottPress. My approach there has always been to trust the reader - trust that they're smart enough to build the world themselves based on my, often scant, descriptions.

Sometimes that even works. Heh.

 

Generally I find with fanfiction I'll be inspired to write by things I want to see in fanfiction but I can't find.

Original fiction though is music. I won't be in the mood to write without listening to music and a random song in the background of a store can give me the feeling for an entire scene and an urge to rush and write.

 

I don't know why my Amazon reviews of your books got deyeeted (still kinda pissed about that, like wtf) but I did write about Distant Star something to the tune of: I think your choice of words in descriptions, regardless of how deliberate it is, is very effective in evoking a feeling or imagery. One of my favorites is the Tome Wars. Simple, short, kind of unusual (a war about books? say wut) but it conveys a lot. Then once I found out how tied the entire structure of the universe of Declan Hale is to stories and writing, the name "Tome Wars" made perfect sense. And you didn't need 100k words to explain this shit cough Brandon Sanderson cough.

Still waiting on Atlas Lexicon. Or that ghost thief thing in London. Update plz.

I hate myself for typing that last thing just now.

 

While planning my long gestating original story, I found myself thinking "If this were a Dresden novel, what would happen now?" at points where I was a bit stuck; probably not the best approach to take, whatever your opinion of Butcher, but it certainly got me through a couple of rough patches. More generally, I think my dialogue is a semi-conscious mash-up/imitation of Joss Whedon and Steven Moffat.

In a more specific way, in my first foray into fanfic, I was inspired by the Sacrifices Arc to make use of Evan Rosier as an antagonist, albeit a less pretentious (in-universe) take on him. I was aware of that at the time; what I'd forgotten, so good was Sacrifices!Rosier, was that canonically speaking he should have been long dead. It was a heavy AU anyway, so it didn't really matter, but I felt like a right idiot when I realised.

 

And that was when [object] burst into flames.

 

At the moment, Salman Rushdie. Owed largely to the fact that I've been steeping myself in his writing for the past six months and have now almost finished reading every bit of fiction he's ever published. The carry over in terms of style -- albeit only a poor attempt at imitation -- is really noticable. And while I'm sure things will balance out again eventually, I'm also fairly certain that a lot of it will stick, which is not the worst that could happen. He's a terrific writer, even if his writing can be incredibly dense at times.

He also puts a lot of focus on interpersonal problems, relationships, family, etc. circumstances that have also found their way into my writing.

Other influences are, to some extent, Chandler, Faulkner, Hemmingway. Also Sanderson, Rothfuss, Le Guin, and quite a few more, though their contribution to how my writing style changed is rather subtle and hard to define. Usually, after I've read a good story (quite often without realizing it at first) I try out their styles to the best of my ability like a pair of shoes. It's a bit like throwing pasta at a wall and seeing what sticks.

I used to worry a lot about finding my own voice but I've come to accept that for now this is simply how I operate, and whatever my voice turns out to be, I'm fairly certain it'll be an idiosyncratic amalgamation of the aforementioned styles.

This got kind of rambl-y. And on second thought it only refers to published books. For TV/Movies I tend to like history cinema (Gladiator, Robin Hood, Alexander, Troy, etc.), even if some of the movies are of a questionable quality. It's been a long while since I really dove into fanfiction, but I know that while I was still reading a lot, @Inert @Newcomb @Joe were among the greater influences, though again, it's hard to pin down exactly.

 

10% other fics like The Unforgiving Minute and Prince of the Dark Kingdom
20% original stories like Heart of Darkness and Catch-22
15% meta; fan discussions and speculation about the canon world
5% weeb shit
50% classical mythology, which I basically devoured as a child and will probably always serve as my greatest inspiration.
I don't know where real life would fit in, but some of my characters are based on people I know, though I basically never write myself into a story. If I've ever appeared, it's in a single character that serves as a reminder not to otherwise include myself. I guess a few storylines from American comics have to factor in somewhere.

 

After thinking about it some more, I've come up with a formula:

10% luck
20% skill
15% concentrated power of will
5% pleasure
50% pain

Comes to a 100% desire to have people remember my name

 

This is your approach to Politics, too, isn't it?

 

I’ve spent nearly two decades failing to suppress the yen to write pale imitations of Ambrose Bierce.

 

Honestly, as much as I get shitting on Scott for his political stance, it's kinda weird how this has actually seeped out of DLP/politics into the rest of the forum, even in threads like this where nothing even vaguely political is being discussed.

 

Adam Mickiewicz wrote in Pan Tadeusz

"O, gdybym kiedy dożył tej pociechy,
Żeby te księgi zbłądziły pod strzechy!"

which roughly translates to: "I want people to read my stuff"

 

I grew up reading the Secrets of Droon series. It was the thing that got me into fantasy (and reading in general). I'll sometimes look at what I'm writing and ask myself 'does this make me as inspired and engaged as I was when I read those books?' Obviously the answer isn't always yes, because those are children's books, but I do try and use it as a litmus test for how excited I should be about what I'm writing. I used to freak out every time a new book came out and was available at the book store, and it's that level of passion that makes me want to write my own stuff both for myself and the desire to inspire that kind of joy in other people.

For Flutter, my longest piece, my biggest inspiration was probably Kill Your Heroes. I used to hate Sakura fics, and then I read this and for a while that was all I would read. I felt the same way about Ginny as a character as I did about Sakura, and saw a lot of potential similarities. I also love the tone of KYH, which ended up being what I largely tried to emulate.

I think I'm still doing a lot of experimentation with the things that I write, though. I'm still exploring a lot of what I do and don't like. I'm sure there's more things that I've been inspired by or that I end up mimicking or leaning on, at least subconsciously. Unfortunately I can't seem to pick them out when the question is posed this way. Might jot them down and edit this later if they come to me.