What are your influences?

I'm sure we all get inspired by different things at different times without intending to, but is there anything in particular that you go to for inspiration or are there specific areas (history books, scifi movies, a favorite anime, music by a certain artist, paintings, etc.) that you find spark more ideas in your head than other things and that you go back to again and again for more ideas?

My big inspiration and influence for writing has always been Discworld books. But I also find that starting to focus on one non-fictional culture or country brings out a lot of ideas as I figure out how things work and can be incorporated into what I'm building up.

Different real-world religious mythology and lore, assorted fiction that I've read(primarily Tolkien), certainly several anime and manga are all sources I turn to for ideas when building any story and most particular the Izaga Region, which ties in themes from the Japanese creation mythology heavily.

Oh boy. Inspiration is a big one and not something I can point out easily. A lot of my ideas are based off what I saw, thought was cool, and implemented. For my only active project, Lorithane, some of the inspirations off the top of my head are:

The idea itself came from the many Planes of Existence in D&D cosmology. Most planes around Lorithane are based off the Original D&D planes, and the idea that they're all interconnected and in frequent contact with each other. The MMO Rift executed this idea in gameplay, but I wanted to make some of these large interactions more permanent in Lorithane.

Dragon Age: I set my dwarves close to Dragon Age dwarves, being primarily underground (well, that is a lot of Dwarves isn't it) and the idea of them not carving out their tunnels (potentially), but finding them already there. I've moved away from a lot of the Dragon Age influence over time, however. A more recent inspiration would be a scene in Inquisition that inspired the idea of Demon Binding in some of the far reaches of the continent.

http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/ supplied a lot of inspiration. They're a lot of non-traditional takes on traditional races in there. In particular, the idea that Elves consider themselves the pinnacle of beauty (and sometimes violent in an attempt to make others "beautiful") and Orcs having some form of blood worship originated from ideas there.

Warcraft inspired the Aseran and Violet Echos with the Outlands and Dranei. The idea of another, completely alien world being forced into another one interested me. In this sense the Corruptors (which I haven't dove into yet) are like the Burning Legion in a way, but less demonic and more undead + Lovecraftian.

And there is plenty more I can't recall.

Connect has literally been based on numerous games that I've played, shows that I've watched, books that I've read, over the few years I've been developing the Connect multiverse, and honestly, I still feel the sense of guilt because I feel as if I'm just copying their ideas, albeit with a splash of new paint over it... idk

For the characters and land itself, I didn't really have much inspiration; just a notebook to draw on, a friend, and a pen.

For the history, Epic Rap Battles of History kinda inspired me, making me interested in such notable historical figures such as Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. I also once watched a video about true facts on Tudor England, and I got interested in being exiled after farting in front of the queen.

Nowadays, I get more inspiration. Some of the characters I made for Biddenfore were based off some Pokémon characters (like Mago Ice and Mago Blaze being based off Team Aqua and Team Magma, respectively). I also get some inspiration from Futurama, which made me go with its more sci-fi take.

I'm very inspired by Magic: the Gathering when it comes to fantasy worldbuilding. A lot of games I've played have also influenced my thought processes when it comes to magic building, such as WoW, LoL, just to name a few.

A lot of architectural inspiration and city building also comes from real world places. I always like to imagine "How would a cyberpunk <country name> look like?" or "Imagine if we had a certain technology instead, how would the place be different from reality?"

I think my influences are too numerous to list really. I think every piece of fiction I have consumed in my life has in some way influenced my own creativity and ideas and if you look hard enough you can probably see similarities to numerous things in the worlds I create.

gimmepie said:

I think my influences are too numerous to list really. I think every piece of fiction I have consumed in my life has in some way influenced my own creativity and ideas and if you look hard enough you can probably see similarities to numerous things in the worlds I create.

Click to expand...

I mean yeah that's pretty legit. Every piece of media I have ever encountered, every experience that I've ever had, every lesson that I've learned... it all adds up and is reflected in what I create. There are certainly focal influences sometimes but. Everything matters.

Atomic Rockets!

It has a few articles on government and lifestyle and things too, not just spaceship technology.

While I use references and overall ideas from a lot of sources (Metroid, Final Fantasy, Golden Sun...), I'm not sure I would be able to properly say at what point any of them elevate from reference to influence, nor which are the ones that do. I'd take a wild guess the Final Fantasy franchise as a style thing is probably the closer thing to a straight influence, as I draw much of the zeerust style for my world from how stable the zeerust is in most FF games, and I draw some other lore and stylistic aspects as well.

But as @gimmepie and @aquacorde say, down the line everything influences. It got to the point where I had to set up a small text file detailing what stuff I was getting from what franchise so I could keep the synchronization of the references right. And... It's just that some sources aggregate more than others, to the point you can end up doing whole-franchise homages.

Religion and music. Reading through the various setups of religions (fictional or 'non') always ends up sparking ideas in my head for different things, and if that doesn't work then metal music is always next up.

A big influence of mine is my faith. This is more apparent in The End which has a huge message behind it and is something I try to incorporate in all of my writing in some way.

Other inspirations - for The End it would be RPGs, particularly near the beginning. The world was massive and largely inspired by Japanese videogame RPGs with the use of gold for purchases, running missions for The Guild and moving from town to town defeating enemies. For my upcoming Dystopian Mystery Dungeon story, the premise of that is heavily inspired by Hunger Games and No.6.

I also listen to music for inspiration, as I'm sure a lot of people do. Inspirational bands for me include Thousand Foot Krutch, Nine Lashes, Flyleaf, and remixes by GlitchxCity. I also listen to a fair bit of EDM and dubstep. The latter is probably why the cyberpunk theme keeps cropping up a fair bit in my writing recently... I'm not complaining though XD

My biggest influences at most, are Carly Fleischmann and Amy Sequenzia. It also really depends on what I'm writing as well. I think another huge influence for me is Simple Plan because many of their songs relate well to my stories and characters. Same goes for Linkin Park, though not as much as Simple Plan does. Another really huge influence of mine is Aya Kito. She had a condition that caused her to lose control of her body due to a progressive disease. Yet, despite her struggles... she continued to write in her diary, even when she could no longer hold a pen. She has inspired me to keep writing because I would want my stories to be published if something ever happened to me as well.

I linked to Aya's, Carly's and Amy's stuff in case anyone has interest in who they are.

my big influences are certain authors, like jodi picoult or laurie halse anderson, as well as ellen hopkins. i really like their books and how they write, so i sort of try to draw inspiration from their way of writing or the subjects they write about.