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In the current issue of Heavy Metal---I guess most of you guys know Heavy Metal, the graphic art magazine, that in some thirty years of publishing, has made every effort to avoid artists capable of telling a story with their pretty pictures. I feel a certain constant frustration in looking at the pictures, but I keep buying...
Anyway, in the current issue, there's a story that does have some plot. Three pages or so of it consist of a chase scene, followed by a ghastly sex / rape scene. I don't want to go into too many details---out of consideration for the age group of whoever may read this, at the very least.
Anyway again, it seems this section, part of a greater whole story (that's also, I think, Part Two of a lengthier story) stayed with me. (My fatal attraction for the lurid, I guess.) In this story, it's part of a dream sequence, apparently. (It's hard to tell.)
But it stayed with me. I picked up the issue Tuesday, read the story Wednesday morning---and a lot of my waking hours have been preoccupied with justifying what's been drawn there---working on the biology of it, and trying to work out a better plot as well. I've thought of a few things, but would need a few more---and it seems a hopeless exercise, 'cause it's somebody else's picture.
In any case...this isn't the first time I've been affected by artwork, from Heavy Metal or elsewhere. Any of you guys seen any art, and try to work out a story from it---even if it's different than the story the art tells?
[edited to correct a spelling error---hopefully the only one]
[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited December 04, 2008).]
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Yes. Actually, I'm friends with an illustrator and we've begun an idea exchange. She gets some ideas from my stories to illustrate and I get some ideas from her artwork to write about. Posts: 299 | Registered: Oct 2008
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When I'm out of ideas I tend to look at art work and build a story around it.
The website below has a wonderful and massive gallery of all sorts of illustrations. I will say that I've started at least five stories based off of artwork I've found on this site but for some reason I've yet to finish one.
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For me it's usually when I encounter a good story, whether in book/movie/or other form, and I get a mixture of feelings. part of me wishes I'd thought of it first. And part of me wishes to influence or change the exact direction they took it. "No, no don't kill of that character yet, let him do this first" or whatever.
Posts: 2195 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Everytime I see art I wonder about the story behind it. If I don't know it then I make it up. The art I have in my house is art that makes me think and wonder. I have a picture of a girl standing in the middle of a meadow of flowers with a contemplative look on her face. She makes me wonder what her story is everyday. Then I have a picture of a vineyard with a house. I think about who is living in the house and their relationships and how the house got started.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Jul 2008
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That's my wish. To get an illustrator interested in my stories so they would draw what I cannot because I have absolutely no talent for drawing.
Posts: 1271 | Registered: May 2007
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I find that keeping a writer's journal really has helped me in the past with what you describe-- random, sudden writing creativity. This is great tool and it is actually a remnant from the creative writing classes I took years ago. It is just like the sketch book art students keep. I use it to write down specifics regarding movies, art, books, magazine articles, etc...
Writing little informal reviews about books, then going back through it years later really is interesting.
Over time it becomes a great source for material and ideas as it becomes stuffed with thoughts, articles ripped from newspapers and magazines, etc...
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Holy Cow! How am I supposed to get anything done now? What a great bunch of art links, one of my many weaknesses and distractions. I browse alot of art and have used some images as prompts for stories and poetry, its great inspiration for me. AWSullivan- thanks for the link, what a fantastic place!!
Posts: 171 | Registered: Oct 2008
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Aside from crude sketches of this or that by me, for me, and only for my benefit...the only story of mine ever to generate any artwork was an Internet Fan Fiction piece. A character I created was quite popular (to my great surprise), and besides popping up in other stories, at least one person painted a portrait. (I didn't find out about it until years later, actually.)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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hey, right now im working on something that combines the two mediums. a graphic novel. not something you post here, but still writing. only trouble is, I need an artist to draw the scenes. until then, I write it as a novel.
One of the first things that got me into writing was that whole recurring Deep Space Nine thing where Sisko was a black science fiction writer back in the 1950s. I think they did two episodes like that, and both were fantastic. Anyway, when all the writers gathered to "choose" stories, they did so by picking a different illustration that had been drawn up for the magazine. So, the artist draws pictures, and then the writers choose a picture to write about.
Sort of the opposite of illustrating a story. Writing an illustration? I don't know.
I've done similar things in writing classes (as writing exercises). We're given pictures and have to write stories about what we see. I think it's a pretty cool exercise, and has generated some pretty good little stories. In my case, though, they tend to be a bit on the short side.
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I draw and write so as a natural extension of my creative process I do illustrations, mostly character sketches...
Posts: 175 | Registered: Jan 2008
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I did come up with a decent plot around those Heavy Metal pages...seems compelling enough, with a bang at the end (a character has to make a decision) that could go either way, depending on how I decide to write it.
But the heart of it is still those pages...I'll write up some plot, then spend some months thinking about it and seeing if I can tease that story center out of all resemblance to them.
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