Inspirations from anywhere

It is natural for an author (or any other creator) to look to similar authors for inspiration.

A fantasy author, early in his or her career, would most likely look to the writings and behind-the-scenes stories of J.R.R. Tolkien, R.A. Salvatore and other fantasy writers to stir their own creative juices.

A writer who dreams of publishing a story about England in the 1800s would most likely drawn inspiration from Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and other authors of that place and time.

Even if the new author does not look to books, the tendency is to find something in the same genre. A writer of action stories may hope to find something in a Marvel or DC movie. Someone who is forming a story on world travel might look to films produced in Bollywood to get the feel of another culture.

All of these are good and useful approaches (as long as you are taking inspiration and not just stealing scenes and characters, but that's a blog for another time). However, a writer should not limit himself or herself to only one style of story when gathering ideas.

When I wrote my first novel, The Pride of Central, it was natural for me to draw some inspiration from other baseball stories. Like "The Natural", actually. I also found inspiration in a book by former Phillies manager Dallas Green, The Mouth that Roared, along with my own observations of baseball players on and off the field while working as a sportswriter.

No surprises there. But I also took inspiration from a series of children's books that are over 60 years old. C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia haven't a thing to do with baseball, but Lewis's use of allegory was influential on me, pushing me to make my characters not only people in their own right, but also symbolic of real people, and making events in the story symbolic of real events.

The same thing happened when I was developing the story for my second novel, The Jewelry of Grace. As there was only a little romance in my first story, I had to consider what worked well in other stories where romance was the center of the narrative. "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "My Best Friend's Wedding", "Sense and Sensibility" (also as a movie, I still haven't cracked open the book)...I needed to see what worked for how I wanted to show the relationship between Grace and Adam.

And some came from myself, and my desire to tell a romance that starts with the wedding instead of ending with it.

But I found inspirations far outside the romantic genre. Alfred Hitchcock's use of a macguffin, the thing that seems so important at first that everyone is chasing, shaped how the story of The Jewelry of Grace is told. There are other examples - even an episode of "The Simpsons" gave me the idea for one chapter - but I can't talk about them without spoiling the second half of the book.

Don't avoid the historical fiction just because you are a sci-fi writer. Don't skip a quality rural coming-of-age tale just because your dream is to write a war novel. Inspiration for a scene, chapter or even the main theme of your next project might be found on pages or on screens you never expected.

Next week: Don't give it everything you've got