Sources and Outworkings

[rj_anderson]

It's always fun to read an interview with an author and find out that you share some of the same enthusiasms and inspirations.

Yesterday's interview with Elizabeth E. Wein at Finding Wonderland (syndicated feed is wonderland_blog) was fun, because given that Ms. Wein's Aksum books are serious, lyrical historical novels I would never have thought to map Lleu and Goewin onto Luke and Leia (for one thing, Lleu is about a million times more interesting than Luke!) or considered that "Ras Meder" sounds a lot like "Darth Vader". Hee. But I can't really claim Star Wars as a profound influence on my own work, much as I did enjoy it as a child.

But today's interview with D.M. Cornish made me all kinds of gleeful, because while I knew that we shared a love for Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books, I had no idea that he was also influenced by the Daniel Day-Lewis Last of the Mohicans, the writings of Patrick O'Brian (yay!) and Frank Miller's Elektra: Assassin. The latter was definitely an influence on me as well. My brothers ran a comic book store while I was in my teens, and I used to sit behind the counter after school reading every new issue of Marvel, DC and the independent comic publishers that I could lay hands on. (Yes, comic buyers of Sudbury, your cherished mint-condition issues were pre-read. I am sorry to break this news to you.)

I couldn't really tell you the plot of Elektra: Assassin now and I'm kind of glad I can't, because I think there was a lot of grim, violent, nasty stuff in there that's probably better forgotten. But I remember Bill Sienkiewicz's gorgeous watercolored art for the comic, and I remember being fascinated with the character of Elektra herself, her mystery and emotional closedness combined with that fierce determination and fantastic fighting ability. And now that D.M. Cornish has mentioned that comic too, I can see the echoes of Elektra in his character of Europe, the cool and deadly monster-fighting woman that Rossamund (the hero of Cornish's Half-Continent books) encounters early in his adventures.

And yet would I have guessed that if Cornish hadn't specifically mentioned Elektra: Assassin? Not at all. And I doubt most people would see Elektra in Knife either, because ultimately a lot more things went into that character and that world than just one comic book -- as is true of Cornish's character and worlds as well. I think all writers borrow inspiration from other sources: if they say they don't they've just forgotten where their ideas came from (or perhaps are too embarrassed to admit it!). But the more experienced writers draw from a wide variety of sources, whereas beginners tend to cling to only one or two. Which is what sets a fantastically detailed world like Cornish's Half-Continent apart from the score of pallid Tolkien and Peake imitations that have emerged over the last fifty years, and what makes the characters and relationships in Elizabeth Wein's Aksum books so much more rich and diverse and interesting than anything George Lucas came up with.

What about you? If you're an author, what do you consider to be the most interesting or unusual influences on your own writing? Or as a reader, have you spotted any odd influences on other people's work?

ETA: I forgot to include my favorite bit from the Cornish interview, which would be this quote:

One role women certainly do NOT have in Half-Continent stories is that of flesh-exposing objects of pubescent fantasy; I really enjoy clothing them sensibly and beautifully, especially the more "fighterly" types; it is like some kind of relief to dress women in properly protective, practical, functional and aesthetic clobber.What is there to say to that, except "Yay!"

Comments

[tltrent.livejournal.com]

D.M. Cornish ftw! I am a big fan-girl, so thanks for linking to that. *suppresses squees*

I share with Dean a love of big, elegant world-building, so I was delighted to see Peake and Herbert among his influences.

An odd influence of mine is "Battle of the Planets" aka "Gatchaman" (subtitled Science Ninja Team Gatchaman). Loved that cartoon as a kid and it really influenced how I shape villains, esp. always having a little surprise twist in there somewhere.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Dunnett's influence on a bunch of women writers has been fairly clear over the past couple of decades...but I once saw bits of a non fic book called A Nervous Splendour in a John Irving book--what's more, his view of Vienna seemed to be based on it, as well as his tone.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

I think all writers borrow inspiration from other sources: if they say they don't they've just forgotten where their ideas came from (or perhaps are too embarrassed to admit it!).

Mm. Mark Twain, commenting on accusations of plagiarism leveled at Helen Keller:

The kernel, the soul - let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances - is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction borne of the superstition that he originated them...

Less flamboyantly, I once read an interview with Dean Koontz in which he added that this being true, the best training a writer could have would be to ensure his sources were the best possible. It's something I've always tried to keep in mind.

[kerravonsen]

I think all writers borrow inspiration from other sources: if they say they don't they've just forgotten where their ideas came from (or perhaps are too embarrassed to admit it!). But the more experienced writers draw from a wide variety of sources, whereas beginners tend to cling to only one or two.

Absolutely.

And this can be a conscious thing, too. If I'm writing a particular kind of story (yes, I know I'm not a "proper" writer) then I'm aware that I'm likely to be influenced by the ideas of other authors who have written something similar. So I take one of two routes when I'm writing said story; either avoid reading the similar stories completely, or read a lot of them, so that I'm not influenced by too few sources.

To take a specific example, right now I'm writing a Doctor Who/Buffy crossover, where Buffy is the Doctor's companion. I know of the existence of another story, which I would like to read, which has the same premise, but since it's the only other story I know of with the same premise, I'm putting off reading it so that I don't get too influenced by it. However, if there had been lots of stories with that premise, then I would happily have read them all, because then my subconscious would be cherry-picking from the lot of them, and the synthesis would be my own.

Or as a reader, have you spotted any odd influences on other people's work?
Well, my favourites have been some of the stories in which some of the characters are heavily influenced by favourite characters from other sources, such as Parl Dro and Myal Lemyal in Tanith Lee's "Kill the Dead" being avatars of Kerr Avon and Vila Restal from Blake's 7.