McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Do you fear being influenced?

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ihatepeas:
I don't think influence is something you should be afraid of. The only time it's a problem is if your work becomes derivative or plagiaristic. And if you're serious about writing, there should be enough people looking at your work (including you) to catch things like that. Influence is good. Influence is part of inspiration. I think if you push away what you love in order to write what you love, you're distancing yourself from it, and that's not good. If you're writing something close to what you're watching/reading, etc., you just need to have your antennae up and pay a bit closer attention to your writing.

--Sarah

Nessus_Wyndestrike:
Mmmm. I must agree that I have feared being too "influenced" as it were, by other writers [like Laurell K. Hamilton, most recently with the creation of my own version of the Incubus  :-\]. I still do, at times. But you can work through it by engaging yourself in your own brainstorm. I guess.

And avoiding plagiarism. That's a big one too.

Uilos:
I am constantly influenced, even without realizing it. My writing shows this. But instead of trying to cover it, I've built in my novel the conceit that people like Tolkien, Herbert, Lukyanenko, even musicians, actors and and others in history, are either a part of the "magical" world or in the Know.

For Instance, I mention that Tokiens Conceit that The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are actually translations of the Red Book of Westmarch is actually NOT a conceit

Herbert's wife was a powerful psychic, and most of his material on prescience and seeing the future is based on her beliefs and philosophies.

Lukyanenko wrote Night Watch as a tell-all book about the Russian Branch of an Agency that investigates the "Magical" world. Much like The Jungle was based on the Meat Packing industry.

I do mention JB, that he got the magic right for the most part. I also mention that JK Rowling is way off "She wrote so much about that world, do you honestly think any of us would let her live after that?"

Spectacular Sameth:
I'm pretty sure The Dark Tower series was influenced by T.S. Elliot's "The Wasteland," but I mean, the Fisher king stuff and the Dark Tower and all that come way before T.S. Elliot.

Dom:
Mickey Finn summed up my own opinion...you're always going to be influenced, and it only becomes an issue when the sum of your influences don't make a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.

I'll occasionally have a span of a few days where a new great book I just read colors my writing, but eventually I always turn back to my own style, as the majority of the influence 'wears off'.  Case in point, I would love to have half the talent Scott Lynch, who wrote The Lies of Locke Lamora, has.  But my personal style is, and always has been, closer to Jim Butcher's (even before I read Storm Front for the first time).

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