This week I'm celebrating and exploring the idea of inspiration--where
it comes from, and how it can be stirred to life. On Wednesday we looked at travel as a source of inspiration, and how that can feed a writer's stories. Today we look at...
4. Other Books
Nobody creates art in a vacuum, and every writer stands on the shoulders of the ones that came before them in one way or another. Books are one of the biggest ways that writers are inspired, because reading is how most writers became interested in writing in the first place, and they are the best way to learn the craft. Award-winning author John Green even calls reading the "only apprenticeship [writers] have."
All authors have influences. Maybe those influences were characters and the stories themselves, the way Lord of the Rings has been inspiring fantasy fiction for years now, or maybe just the way the book made the writer FEEL.
If you're feeling creatively dry, return to the things that you love most. Ask yourself, why do you love ______ so much? What is it about that book, movie, or show that captivates you, keeping you coming back for me? Study that, whatever it might be, and try to capture and mimic it in your own unique way.
Learn from the people who came before you, and then make something special and passion-inspiring of your own.
4. Other Books
All authors have influences. Maybe those influences were characters and the stories themselves, the way Lord of the Rings has been inspiring fantasy fiction for years now, or maybe just the way the book made the writer FEEL.
If you're feeling creatively dry, return to the things that you love most. Ask yourself, why do you love ______ so much? What is it about that book, movie, or show that captivates you, keeping you coming back for me? Study that, whatever it might be, and try to capture and mimic it in your own unique way.
Learn from the people who came before you, and then make something special and passion-inspiring of your own.
So true. Whenever I'm in a rut and just can't write, I turn to a good book. I always get my inspiration back by the end of it.
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