Has anyone ever watched a movie or read a book and been intrigued by one of the minor characters or situations? I watched Gattaca again last week and got an idea from one of those minor parts of the story to the point where I want to write a story of my own based on that minor element. Should I change the general nature of the world, not even mess with the idea, or something different altogether?
I've been having this same thing happen in the last few books I've read, generating ideas while I read based on some emotion the book evoked, no matter how loose or close to what I read.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Quite a bit. One example...a few years ago, a comic strip ran a story line about one of the regulars and a bully. Thanks to some unpleasant shananagans [is that how you spell that?], the bully wound up in the hospital...where his only visitor (besides family) was the aforementioned regular character.
It was only a couple of strips over a couple of months...but the idea fascinated me...it just stayed with me for a couple of years, until I bequeathed it to a story during my Internet Fan Fiction period.
When I came up for breath from that idea, I got to considering...seems a lot of stuff I'd been writing is, in some way, a bounce off something I've read.
It varies in degrees, too. If something seems too much like the original source, I suppress it---I sometimes write it up, but I suppress it in the end. But if it seems to have its own life and background, and if I decide a reader can't tell where it came from, well, I carry on with it.
Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :
I'm influenced by everything I read and see. I think the trick is to keep reading and keep watching things so that no one influence takes priority, rather you develop your own take on things, your own style, and that no single author's work is specifically noticeable in yours.
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
I've read advice from several authors that if you're writing a fantasy not to read one. You might inadvertantly inject what you're reading. I've found that if I'm writing a fantasy eitehr reading a fantasy or a historical of a near era will keep me in the same line of thinking.
As far as tapping books and movies go, I think many people will automatically know where you drew your inspiration from. If I use an idea from a movie or book, I do what I call the Jackie Chan method. When he was starting out, people thought he was trying to copy Bruce Lee. What he did to shake the stigmata was to punch where Bruce Lee would've kicked, and vice versa. Applied to a movie or book situation, it changes it.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
You can get lots of ideas from books and movies. All you have to do is ask yourself "what if this had happened instead?" at any time, and then go from there.
The thing to remember is that when you write up your ideas, you don't use someone else's characters or worlds or other copyrightable or trademarked things. Make it your story.
My WotF finalist story was partly inspired by a movie version of Cinderella in which the prince's father tried to ship her away to another country so the prince could make a political alliance beneficial to the country. My "what if" involved the idea that she had actually stayed away for the sake of her country, and, along with several other "what if" ideas, I wrote something that found a happy ending for them anyway.
Explore your idea with your own characters and a situation you created, not with someone else's.
Posted by cklabyrinth (Member # 2454) on :
Yeah, the idea in question was about all the electrical power Vincent/Jerome required to power all of those freezers. I've been thinking the electrician who installed all of that would be a great character to explore. It'd be particularly interesting if he was in on it, a sort of blackmarket electrician, I guess, and what kind of troubles he would go through.
I would have to change the circumstances that one would need a blackmarket electrician to add that type of power, but I don't think that'd be recognizable if someone read my story and then watched Gattaca.
Thanks for the responses.
Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :
This is one way I get ideas: I read two or maybe three books at the same time and let the motives and characters mix in my mind. Then I see if I get anything interesting and use it. This way there are less chances of copying but rather mimicing those stories.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
When I used to subscribe to WRITERS DIGEST, I remember reading an article about a sports writer named Red Smith. According to the article, Smith was extremely prolific, and when asked how he came up with so many plots, Smith answered (I'm paraphrasing, of course) that he would pick up a book and start reading. After he'd read for a number of pages, he'd ask himself what he'd do next if he were writing the story. Then he'd read some more, and stop again and ask himself the same question. He said he would do this every so often in the book, and he claimed that with a really good book he could come up with dozens of alternate plots.
So not only is it done, but it can be argued to have been encouraged, by WRITERS DIGEST even (if I remember the source correctly).
Someone once compared getting ideas this way to stealing cars--just make sure you file off the identification number (or whatever its analog may be in your fictional appropriation) and give it a new paint job, at least.
Posted by Jo1day (Member # 7800) on :
This happens to me all the time. I have my own version of what happened to Darth Vader that I want to turn into a story, but I'm waiting on my imagination to produce something that will replace the Force. (Replacing the rest shouldn't be TOO much of a problem)
Ideas aren't copyright-able. So long as you make the world your own and work the ideas to the max (using the initial idea as a starting point) you should be ok.
[This message has been edited by Jo1day (edited June 10, 2008).]