As a writer, should I be upset because I couldn't think of an idea?
I've just been struggling recently with this doubt that I could never think of ideas I've seen written on my own. If that sounds confusing to you, you aren't the only one.
Of course, I could sit down and be inspired by something another author wrote and write something in the same vein. That's not the issue. It's that now I've seen them, I can never have the idea off my own back. And that bothers me because I cannot take that back. It's done, it's fixed. And I can never know if I would have thought of it myself or not. Anytime I think of anything similar, it's just going to be based on what I read and not from my own creativity.
I know it's neurotic but has anyone else been in this position? I need some clarity on this, an external viewpoint you might say.
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Fiction is based on observation, not invention. The same stories are told over and over again because the same stories are lived over and over again. If new writers repeat the stories of old writers it is not because they copied them from the old writers, but because both the old writer and the new observed the same stories playing out in the lives of the people around them.
The writer's job is to refine and highlight the key points of story. If a story works for you it works through recall. A good writer makes you see the world more vividly. Having seen the world more vividly, you are better prepared to write yourself. Your debt to the writers you have read is not that you steal their invention but that their observation has sharpened your own.
We endlessly retell the old stories because those are the stories there are, and because there is apparently an endless appetite for the old stories told in new ways. What we prize is not the great inventors of stories (for there are none). What we prize is the great tellers of stories. Take the oldest, most trite, most obvious story in the world and tell it with extraordinary verve, sympathy, and insight, and the world will beat a path to your door.
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Inspiration is inspiration and it comes in many forms.
Let's say I go on holiday to a nice sunny place and see, first hand, the 'story' of poor local people trying to survive by competing for the tourist dollars that come each year. I may use that as inspiration for a story.
Instead of going away I could holiday at home and a read a book ( or watch a documentary) about poor local people trying to survive by competing for the tourist dollars that come each year. I may use that as inspiration for a story.
As long as I'm telling my story and it's interesting enough for people to want to read it does it matter which of the two scenarios above were the inspiration?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25322. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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