Ideas and Influences

Coming up with an idea is easy.  Coming up with an unique idea is very difficult.  That doesn’t mean you can’t write about what you want to.  As long as you have an idea you like keep writing and people will either like it or not.  The writer Peter David wrote a book about how to write for comic books and graphic novels.  He says you can look at modern writing and connect it to something else, original ideas are hard to come by.  Batman is like Sherlock Holmes.  Green Arrow is based on Robin Hood.  Aqua-man and Sub-marina are pretty much the same person.  One example he mentions has always stuck in my mind.  Apparently George Lucas almost got sued over Star Wars.  People said it was just a copy o Wizard of Oz.  Think about it; Farm Boy ventures to far off land to kill a powerful magic user.  C3-PO as the tin man.  Chewbacca as the cowedly lion.  Because of all this it has made me relax more with my writing.  No more am I stopping on and idea I like because in the back of my mind I’m thinking “I saw this somewhere before”.  Instead I just write for the enjoyment and getting more done.

Everyone has successful people they look to for influence and I am no different.  I’m lucky enough that I enjoy visual pieces of work.  I loved watching films, sometime three or four in one night.  Most of them where rubbish but helped me know what I like and don’t like.  I’ve always like comic books and thankfully many of the writers also write novels.  Here are some of my influences that I have either grown up with or have found recently.

Peter David is a talented writer, I first read his work when my brother collected The Incredible Hulk and have followed his work, in a round about way, over the years.  He has written for X-Factor and is now back on the series.  Final he also written the one of the only novel series that I have collected, Star Trek: New Frontier.  Due to his talent in Comic Books and Novels I have included him in this list.

Mark Waid, Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis are all included in this list as they have the knowledge of comic books to be able to twist what long time comic readers know to create something more dramatic and risky.

Ed Brubaker is new to my list, I like his work as he can mix super hero story lines with noir/crime.  His Secret Avengers run made me happy as he used new and old, almost forgotten characters, in his story telling.

Jim Henson is a great influence.  Several times I have tried to write a great dark fantasy like Dark Crystal and Labyrinth but have failed to capture the crazy unique creature that fills his world, same goes for director Guillermo Del Toro.

The Henson's television shows are amazing, The Story Teller and Farscape (his son helped create it) have both humour and horror elements in them.

Joss Whedon, the writer of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer need a mention as his character driven storyline and interaction in both television series and his run on Astonishing X-Men are second to none.

There are many more but I think I must go for now.

So there you go.

LLAP

Rob