Enchanted Inspiration

What is sometimes the most inspiring in my writing, is reading other genres. Truth be told, if I hadn't harbored a love of Agatha Christie or James Patterson, the Interstellar Intelligence Agency Series would never have been born... okay, okay, Caves of Steel also had something to do with it.

Wait, now that we're discussing this, I think Caves of Steel peaked my interest in investigatory fiction like Agatha and James' works... Okay, now we're delving deep down the Hole of Distraction.

"Pull out of that dive, AR! Pull out of the dive!"

Reading other genres, like reading in general, provide insight to a writer. Like an anonymous forum. Author So and So published this work about This or That. I've always had an idea about This or That, but in my head it went There and then There. Author Other Man published this about Gidget Widgets... I didn't know Gidget Widgets did That. I wonder, if they did That, with this other villain archetype, maybe they could do This. Doing This could then lead to There.

Get my confusing drift? That's okay, I barely hung on there myself. All I'm saying is reading, and reading outside your writing genre, can be helpful.

For example, I've been interested in attempting a SF-inspired fairy tale retelling. I know, I know, there are works out there already in the SF community that re envision a fairy tale. But, I'm still interested anyways.

Partly because of this I think, I spotted "Midsummer Night" by Freda Warrington in my local bookstore (aka AR's Crack House).

It was beautifully told. Freda's descriptions are masterful and I'm impressed by her writing. She actually made me feel the mist of the evenings and the powerful energy of the sculptures. I ached for the main characters back story. And I felt tugged and enchanted by the locale as she did.

The book itself is an urban fantasy, I guess. (I've never been good a labeling, unless it's Agatha or James or Isaac.) In the story, she explores the fairy world. It's almost SFey in the way she explains how the fairy realm and human realm are interwoven dimensions with "doorways" to each other.

This story really revved my creative juices to forge ahead with a fairy tale story. I just need to really decide which one now. I want to try and find one that hasn't been retold at nausea in novels and movies. That excludes Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella. I think I also want to take on the more grimmer Grimm telling of the story and push my grittier boundaries.

Brainstorming Thursday: Inspiration from the Every Day

I know that since the Brainstorming Thursdays have kicked off I've delved into more sciencey things, but the truth is most of the story is human, every day elements. The characters meet, react to each other (positively or negatively) and shit happens (good or bad or both).

And every writer knows the best inspiration for that comes from the mundane daily stuff: grocery shopping, commute traffic, or sitting at a deli street side table watching the people go by.


Photobucket Upload by "hesined"



Take the photo here. Normal busy day with people innocently going and doing what they're doing. Shopping, walking home, meeting someone.

Or are they? Is it really that innocent?

Maybe the guy there with the red backpack is carrying some biological weapon and heading to the pub there up the street? Or maybe the woman in the black and white shirt has just stolen intelligence from the man there in the white shirt and tan shorts.

Ooh, or there's a hired sniper up the steps there in the shadow of the stairwell taking aim at the insanely rich woman with the brown purse.

I love sitting and watching people go about their business and making up a fictional story about them. Sometimes I don't even have to do that. The other day I sat and spied a wonderful couple who were so in love the world around them disappeared. They weren't grossly PDAing it, but they were just so connected.

What real life moments have captured your attention and have you used them as elements in your story?