Inspiration
So, as you know, last weekend I had a little AMA on Reddit, which kept me immensely busy, but was also immensely fun. I’ve learned at least as much from it as the redditors who asked me questions, like what aspects readers are most interested in when they hear about erotica, or what other autors’ experiences are with self-publishing. And one recurring question has been, over and over: “Where do you get your inspiration from.”
Now I have to admit that I don’t understand the question at all. I always thought that all writers had enough inspiration, enough ideas – in fact, more than they would ever be able to implement in their entire life, so I find it strange that someone might not understand where inspiration comes from. And since I was reminded of that again this morning, let me give you a live example of how it works:
I love videogames. It’s one of my vices, and one of the games that provided me with some inspiration is called Banished. It’s pretty simple; it’s about a group of settlers in a foreign, virgin land where they need to survive, thrive, explore, gather resources and start creating their settlement. Playing it, I had thought for a while now that it would make a great setting for a story – a small group of people, far away from home, pretty much by themselves… it has an atmosphere of adventure, independence, freedom, room for new ways of living, freed from the constraints of the old country, but still bound by their own cultural traditions and views. It was a rough idea, but I kept it in the back of my head, just one word in my “story ideas” note: Settlers
What I was missing was a good environment to put the story in. I love having stories set in different environments, and not just ones I’m familiar with. So, many of my stories play in lots of different European countries. So when I met an older gentleman who had emigrated Romania in the 70’s, and who was originally from a german-minority region there called “Siebenbürgen”, we talked a little, and I found the region interesting. Not so much because it conjures up images of Count Dracula, but because two cultures clashing creates the most interesting stories to me; in this case, the germanic culture that clashes with the romanic culture.
So afterwards, I read a little about the history of the region. Turns out, the germans settled it in the high middle ages, right around the time of the second crusade. That seemed like an AWESOME setting for my settler story to me. A medieval/fantasy setting, the rugged landscape of Transsylvania, an old germanic culture (which I somewhat understand) clashing with a romanian culture (which I don’t). And there was plenty of room for mystery, suspense, paranormal elements or something similar, should I feel like it.
So, as part of my love for videogames, I’m also a regular reader of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, where today, I found a short little piece about a game called The Yawhg. I’ve never played the game, but the first two sentences already put a missing puzzle piece into my settler story: A “fantasy city on the brink of a mysterious disaster” where you can “roam around doing whatever the hell you like”. That was it! My settlers’ settlement would be on the brink of a mysterious disaster, maybe prophesized somehow, which would shake things up a bit, create incentives for the protagonist(s) to become active while at the same time allow people to let their guard down and possibly be a little more loose with their sexuality than they would typically be. (Similar to my Zombie Apocalypse story.)
And that’s where we are now, with the inspiration to one of my story arches, which I haven’t even started yet. The inspiration came from two video games, combined with a personal encounter and lots of history. And who knows what else may find its way into the story? But whatever it is, it already feels deep and full enough to keep me engaged, and I’m actually quite looking forward to seeing it written down.