What inspires to write?

[ShadowSJG 62]

)*What inspires you to write*)- sorry about the title

Like where do you get your ideas from and what keeps you motivated to continue your story?

Edited January 31, 2016 by blake orlando

[twilight24 323]

I would say , for me , it's many things . Books, life, past , drawings , pictures , others stories , etc. I try to focus and see how the outcome will look like for my first story .

[reader8363 1,281]

for me, I looked at peoples work, movies, stories, games, etc. then when I get an idea, I branch out from the idea. The fact that I like reading and writing keeps me motivated to write. 

[ShadowSJG 62]

When you are feeling a lack of motivation, how do you get that motivation back?

[Jaxsie (Inactive) 1,343]

I get my inspiration through many different channels; reading books and fanfictions, listening to music, watching movies, listening to spoken word etc. Basically, any artistic medium has the potential to inspire, if you seek it. Also, watching people's lives and learning about their life stories are a great source of inspiration.

 

What keeps me motivated with a story is wanting to reach the end. I want to read it in its entirety and every word and page is a step to the completed package. I find that writing a story by the seat of your pants makes it come alive as you write, because you're discovering it for the first time like a reader would. Lastly, I stay motivated to stick with a story to make someone's day. If I feel like it's a story that other people will enjoy, it motivates me to keep writing. And 9 times out of 10, when I force myself to write, I end up enjoying myself.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Jaxsie

[SugarfootWillie 383]

Mostly other bodies of work inspire me to create literary pieces: For example in my OC Andante I use what I learned from Aristotle, Arthur Miller, Bladassare Castiglione, and Robert Browning to make a tragic, dramatic mono/dialogue.

 

And for one in progress, I'm using Skaldic poetry as a base for how he speaks.

[ISleepNow 20]

Reality TV started me writing because TV became so bad that even stuff I came up with was better.

Besides that, I tend to be inspired as most fans are, seeing things that I think would be neat to see.

Crossovers are a Cheap & Creatively Lazy Easy source of inspiration

Sometimes it's nothing more than watching a blown opportunity to do something good in an episode of a series and thinking about how it could have been done right.

[RattPitt 172]

Sometimes it's real events and sometimes it's from things my friends I've done.

 

For example, I've got a few stories based off of actual things that have happened in the past. One story I'm writing is based off the Jonestown mass suicide where 909 people committed suicide. Another is inspired by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

I've got a major work in progress that's loosely inspired by a game of Risk a friend and I were playing. A while into the game, she started to think out loud what the colors meant. It kind of spread from there.

[AmbientBeat 27]

I watch a lot of old movies. The visuals are what influence me. Also, music. When I listen to music, almost any song I hear, I make up a movie scene where the song would fit. When I write stories, I associate every character and location with their own song.

[ShadowSJG 62]

If you publish your fic somewhere and don't get as noticed as you thought, are you still discouraged? If so, then how do you get re-encouraged again.

[Taialin 217]

@@ShadowSJG

I get my ideas from a lot of places—other stories, other people, things I see on the street. Someone trips on a newspaper on the way to work, and I think, "What if that newspaper contained something really important? What if, as it was fluttering down behind them, it showed some scandal that they were involved in? What if they're of a high enough social status that no one dares to talk about it to their face, but rumors are spreading?" Boom. Story.

 

And I'll be completely blunt with what doesn't motivate me to write: fame. Fimfiction.net and other communities are wonderful for posting stories about MLP, but what they should really not be used as are outlets to get attention. Fame is a lot easier to accrue through making art or videos or music or something that's more easily consumable—writing is the only endeavor where potential consumers have to put effort into your work to get the enjoyment out of it, and most people just don't have time for that. Writing for fame does happen all the time over on Fimfiction, though. I call them firecrackers—make a lot of noise for a few weeks, then they burn out when not every story they make gets thousands of views.

 

The reason I write is because I have burning ideas, and I enjoy weaving them into a narrative someone could potentially enjoy. So if something doesn't get as much attention as I may have anticipated, there's no discouragement to be had—the job is already done.

[EQ_Theta 465]

Most of my ideas start with a "What if?" Well, most of them, anyway. Usually how one story went will leave room for another angle or another outcome to be explored. At other times, I just think about what goes on in everyday life and see how that can be spun into a story. There are lots of places to gather ideas and find ways to develop them. 

I usually wrote and posted stories on Fimfiction but I decided to stop after a while and focus on writing original pieces outside of MLP because there's plenty more to write about outside of ponies. Writing a few stories that don't generate a lot of views because it doesn't interest a lot of people isn't something that discourages me because even if it doesn't attract a lot of readers, I'm usually content with the few people who do read it and say they enjoyed the story. That's more than enough to encourage me to keep writing. 

[ShadowSJG 62]

As well I'd like to ask why do you write? What feeling does it give you exactly?

[Idris 241]

Well, strange that you should ask, because I have a vid blog thingy on that very subject

Which I wrote because writing is hard and I wanted a solid natural statement about why I got into writing and how I had failed in the past.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7em_tnCOu0

Going back to the earlier question I kind of vomit up concepts. I have an idea and boom, I have a thousand words. I can do the bigger ones though with 8000 words. I have to say that my big Grimdark was a hell of a thing to write and took maybe 14k words as I built it and slashed it back. But it felt 'right' as a concept so I kept going. And I think maybe that the emotion you have on a story is what keeps it going or leaves it for dust. And it is certainly difficult to get motivated if you have no ending in mind.

Essentially I like to read and enjoy a brand new story that is a personal favorite that no one has ever heard before. I even wrote a prequel to one because I was itching to know how a Pony came to be commander of a battle tank. It took me 4000 words but then I felt the whole story sat right with me. It was 'finished'

This time around I have always written with the aim of making them audio books. That changes it all a bit in the text layout. My grimdark does okay on YouTube and fimfiction, which pleases me considering it is a very unusual subject for MLP. But what does well on one often bombs on the other.

Once I can listen to a story I feel completion on that project. And I like listening to them in the van. It's good inspiration

Edited February 25, 2016 by Idris