Influences?

[caecilia]

I'm very much in the process of developing my own voice, and I probably always will be. Have you ever seen artists on tumblr posting their "influence maps"? I always wanted to do that with writing. Since I'm in a writing workshop for school right now, I've been experimenting with different styles. In general, I think a lot of my writing is influenced by media I consumed when I was little, most notably Goosebumps and Animorphs. But lately I've been consciously thinking about my influences.

The story for my 'beginners' workshop ended up having a very Night Vale (and writing it felt like pulling teeth, I hated that class.)

For the one I just wrote, I had The Sims and urban legends in mind and was listening to Ke$ha. A lot. Before that, I had been reading This Is Not Your City by Caitlin Horrocks and tried to go for the same gut-wrenching sadness that makes up a lot of her stories (didn't even come close, but it was fun). For the first story, I was thinking about Miranda July, so it was introspective, relationship-focused, and a little weird.

I don't mean that I've been copying them exactly and trying to be someone else. In all of those stories there is definitely something that's just me. My outlook on life, my sense of humor, my struggle with strong endings. I just seek out something that has a similar vibe to what I'm going for and keep it in mind as I'm writing. What I've noticed is that it keeps me focused, and I'm almost always satisfied with the end result, to the point that you can be satisfied with a rough draft, anyway.

Does anyone else have an "influence map"? Do you do anything similar?

Comments

[serria]

I guess it's impossible not to be influenced. A lot of who we are and the things we imagine were surely influenced by the stories that we read or are reading.

I think I tend to be the most influenced by whatever I'm currently reading or obsessed with, and consciously or not, try to imitate that style. Haha, you mentioned Animorphs - I remember reading those books throughout elementary school, they were totally the shit back then. I have a vivid memory of a fourth grade writing assignment. I had to write a short story. My sentences ended up being a (probably pathetic) imitation of the Animorph's author, and I got marked down points for it. I seem to remember that author using a lot of sentence fragments or single word sentences in the narration, as well as really casual writing (it was first person narration, after all). Anyway, one such sentence I wrote for this short story was - as my protagonist was shocked by finding himself in a "giant world" or something - was "Everything. Big." rather than "Everything was big."

Back then, nine year old me didn't really know any rules of writing, let alone when and how to break them, and my teacher certainly didn't understand what the hell I was doing, so she made me change it. :P But I remember thinking, this is how she writes in Animorphs, why can't I write like that?

Anyway, yeah. I definitely find myself influenced by songs, works of art, and the stories I consume (whether book, video game, or movie). I don't know anything currently that I'm aware is influencing me the most. I'm sure it is subtle a lot of the time, but there are definitely moments where I hear a song or see a picture and a story comes to me.

I've never heard of these "influence map" things, though! Probably because I am no fun and not on tumblr. :P

[caecilia]

Ha. The influence maps are basically just screencaps of things that artists felt influenced them--the first one google pulled up was this, if you're curious. I feel like it's easier to do that with art, because someone could look at this and then look at the art and think "Ah yes, I see it." With writing, they'd have to read all your work and really pick it apart.

Aw man. I mean at least you were having fun with the writing! Is it weird that I am kind of inspired by "Everything. Big."?

Who understands teachers anyway? I had one in high school who said it was impossible to write a story with all dialogue, and I was like "Really because I have a book with a short story like that." Oh well. Your writing probably got stronger from being made to change it, even if you weren't aware of that at the time.