Who inspired you to become a writer?

Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Daemon Wolf, Jul 27, 2015.

  1. paperbackwriter

    paperbackwriter Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Apr 24, 2018
    Messages:
    571
    Likes Received:
    1,468
    Location:
    uluru australia
    I'm not a writer.
     
  2. Azuresun

    Azuresun Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2017
    Messages:
    418
    Likes Received:
    573
    Mr Cook, Mrs Kirkham and Miss Quinn, my English teachers in secondary school. I had loved writing for as long as I could remember before that, but having good teachers who encouraged me probably made a huge difference.

    And a long-gone erotic RP community on RPOL.net that I frequented from 2008-2010. The positive feedback I got on my writing from my partners and other readers was what really made me think "hey, maybe other people would want to read my stuff?"
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  3. John-Wayne

    John-Wayne Madman Extradinor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2017
    Messages:
    3,169
    Likes Received:
    4,986
    Location:
    Badlands
    ^ This right here, so basically no one but Myself .
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  4. TheRealStegblob

    TheRealStegblob Kill All Mages Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2016
    Messages:
    588
    Likes Received:
    291
    Location:
    Massachusetts
    That's a little hard to say. My first answer would probably be "myself", yet at the same time I don't think that's really accurate. Thinking back, it was probably (for better or worse) video games that inspired me to start really reading and after that, start writing. My earliest attempts at writing stories were basically fanfictions of shit like Super Mario/Final Fantasy/Crash Bandicoot/etc.
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  5. GABradley

    GABradley New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2017
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    4
    Location:
    The Ether.
    My mom. I still write for her now, twenty five years later.
     
    Some Guy and GingerCoffee like this.
  6. S A Lee

    S A Lee Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2017
    Messages:
    1,070
    Likes Received:
    1,396
    Location:
    Greater London, England
    I really got into writing because it helped me deal with some emotional issues when I was 14. Never been able to stop.
     
    Some Guy and GingerCoffee like this.
  7. Kenosha Kid

    Kenosha Kid Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2017
    Messages:
    163
    Likes Received:
    83
    Probably a non-existent version of Nabokov. I misunderstood the ending of one of his short stories. When my gf at the time pointed out I'd got the wrong end of the stick, I re-read it and I was a little disappointed. I preferred my ending. I still haven't written that story, but it's been chugging along in my head ever since, pretty much there now. Alas I am no Nabokov.
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  8. talltale

    talltale Member

    Joined:
    Jun 23, 2017
    Messages:
    92
    Likes Received:
    122
    Location:
    Midwest
    Let's see,

    I have many favorite writers but the ones who I feel most influenced me to start writing are :

    Michael Crichton, George RR Martin, and Chuck Palahniuk
     
    The Bishop and GingerCoffee like this.
  9. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2018
    Messages:
    4,129
    Likes Received:
    8,663
    I don't think I was inspired to become a writer... I just loved telling stories. I'd make them up on the fly and tell my friends. I was in first grade, once, with a whole audience out under the slides just telling stories.
    I'd have my mom type poems up for me, then when I learned how to use a computer, I typed my own poems.
    I started writing poems first. Filled up 4 journals of poetry, then I moved on to short horror stories. My first full length "story" was a fan fiction in middle school after reading the first 3 Maximum Ride books by James Patterson. It wasn't typical fanfiction with pairings or "ships", but a "what happened if the books continued and if the scientists came back" (little did I know, James Patterson decided to continue the series and the next few books that came after SUCKED!). I didn't write anymore fan fiction after that.

    I loved reading as a kid, but those authors and stories (other than the James Patterson series) didn't really inspire me to write. I read different genres from what I wrote. I read dramas and romances and happy endings, etc. I wrote about un-happy endings and horror, irony, nothings goes right, etc.
    I'd say that a theme that I liked in my books was adventure, and despite the negative themes of my fiction, my longer pieces had some element of adventure or discovery in it.
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  10. Night Herald

    Night Herald The Fool Contributor

    Joined:
    May 23, 2012
    Messages:
    1,393
    Likes Received:
    2,621
    Location:
    Far out
    Hard to say. I've loved telling stories since childhood.

    As for who made me want to pursue it for real... I suppose Tolkien did a number on me with The Hobbit, and Orson Scott Card with his Ender's Game. Those would be the first nudges in that direction.
    Since then, there have been any number of influences. I can't really point to any one author. I guess it's just in my blood to want to turn daydreaming into hard currency, or at least some tangible product that I can take pride in.
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  11. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2017
    Messages:
    4,886
    Likes Received:
    8,763
    It wasn't a who. It was a "what". I started writing fiction when I was 6 but I didn't enjoy it. It was something my teachers and parents wanted me to do. On my own, I started writing non-fiction when I was 14. The fact that non-fiction opened doors to meeting interesting people and doing interesting thing was the draw. Still is. If I could do that without having to write about it, I'd still be perfectly content.

    Now that I'm writing fiction again, I still don't have a "who" inspiration. I love reading, but I can't say that a book or author ever inspired me to write something. I'm always inspired by other things.
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.
  12. Dracon

    Dracon Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2016
    Messages:
    691
    Likes Received:
    939
    Location:
    England
    I have to go back to Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. A little more obscure than some names I can see here, but that is the first novel I remember that really kicked off the creative writing urge for me at the age of eleven. I began to write a very similar book at that age about a group of nearly-extinct dragons making their first dangerous migration from Arctic and Antarctic, running a gauntlet of villains who want to eat them alive to absorb their magic along the way.

    Eventually, after I had almost finished a sequel to that novel, I was reading a lot at that time (more than I do now) and that was when I had the self-assured essence to wake up and smell the coffee. Not too long ago, I dug it back out of the computer, and shockingly, the prose actually is actually not bad, but the plot is so atrocious it's basically unsalvageable. Though I would never return to either, it still does have a special place in my heart.

    It was a few years then before I got back into writing again, and no dragons or magic this time, but nevertheless, I'm still a fantasy reader.

    That's really hit up some nostalgia now, and I'm glad to see such positive reviews for Dragon Rider on Amazon. And I see that there's actually a sequel. Children's book it might be, but I've just got to check that out now!
     
    GingerCoffee and izzybot like this.
  13. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2013
    Messages:
    18,385
    Likes Received:
    7,080
    Location:
    Ralph's side of the island.
    Me. I have a story to tell.

    Three of them actually, if I live long enough. :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2018
  14. John-Wayne

    John-Wayne Madman Extradinor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 21, 2017
    Messages:
    3,169
    Likes Received:
    4,986
    Location:
    Badlands
    Yep! Remember as a wee lad I used to draw little comics with my friends and myself going on stupid Adventures. Hopefully one day I'll find those comics!

    Also had a cyborg anamorphic eagle named Eagltron. and other animals based off my friends. I wasn't even in double digits of age yet.
     
  15. Youssef Salameh

    Youssef Salameh Senior Member

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Messages:
    302
    Likes Received:
    102
    Once a person has a literary talent he\she should hardly work on it to let it appear through writing.
    Honestly speaking, Kahlil Gibran, was a major influence on me.
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2018
  16. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

    Joined:
    May 13, 2016
    Messages:
    159
    Likes Received:
    81
    Location:
    North Carolina
    There isn't any one particular person who inspired me to start writing. For me it all began with an overactive imagination, and doodling as a kid. I used to draw constantly and eventually I started to draw several characters over and over. After a while I created names, personalities, and histories for them. Writing just became a natural extension of my fantasy drawings. Although if there was any particular author(s) who got me interested in the idea of one day publishing my work, that'd be Terry Brooks, author of the Landover and Shanara series, and Robert Aspirin of the Myth series.
     
    Youssef Salameh and Cave Troll like this.
  17. Necronox

    Necronox Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 1, 2015
    Messages:
    724
    Likes Received:
    802
    Location:
    Canton de Neuchatel, Switzerland
    mhmmm... let me see. I always had a proclivity (I like that word) for telling stories, and I inherited an insane imagination too. The two made me combine into some of the strangest, most wonderful and interesting scenarios, tales or stories that I could come up in my mind. I more or less decided that I needed a hobby. So. I started writing.
     
    The Bishop likes this.
  18. Tessitore

    Tessitore Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2018
    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    5
    I daydreamed a lot when I was a kid (actually I still do, it's just more structured), but while most people daydream about stuff that involves them and those around them, for me it was always completely fictional. When I got older I figured that since I had a head full of stories I may as well do something with them.
     
    J.T. Woody likes this.
  19. The Bishop

    The Bishop Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2018
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    152
    A dream I had inspired me, thought it would make a good book. So I wrote it down and just added details
     
    Some Guy and John-Wayne like this.
  20. Shadowlancer

    Shadowlancer New Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2018
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    1
    This is going to be hilarious as my first post, but Fanfiction inspired me to become a writer. I was so into the shows I liked as a kid I taught myself to write because I wanted to be a part of it. Now I do original work. :D
     
    Agasa R likes this.
  21. TheRealBird

    TheRealBird New Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2018
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    United States
    I started writing as a kid. I wrote stories about space and other worlds and aliens. Still do today. If I was inspired by anything, I honestly don't remember what it could be. I've kept a journal since first grade (still have all of them in a trunk), so writing has always been part of my life. I think I started writing mostly as a way to feel heard since I grew up a middle child in a very large family (eight of us kids all together) and it was a crowded home. So I'd go sit in a tree and write there.

    It's really interesting and fun to read all your stories about what inspired you all!
     
  22. Agasa R

    Agasa R New Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2018
    Messages:
    13
    Likes Received:
    4
    Harry Potter got me into reading. Fanfiction got me into writing.
     
  23. apalachn

    apalachn Member

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2018
    Messages:
    37
    Likes Received:
    14
    I always wrote as a kid. It was just something I felt drawn to do, but I didn’t really identify as a writer then. It was my best friend in high school who really encouraged me. She worked on the literary magazine and I mentioned that I wrote some poetry one time and she suggested I join the magazine, which I did. I became passionate about it then and it has been my main creative outlet that really works for me.
     
  24. 921Blackwings

    921Blackwings New Member

    Joined:
    May 28, 2018
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    I started writing around 12 years old. Mostly song lyrics (was in a band with friends at the time), and just wrote random nonsense, almost humorous stories for laughs. What made me want to take writing seriously was when Fellowship of the Ring was released in theatres. I’d never even finished a novel outside of school but I read The Lord of The Rings because I wanted to know how it ended. I know it’s probably cliche, but the scope of that world took me places. So I’ve been writing ever since. Mostly for my self though. Hopefully going to change that.
     
  25. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    May 2, 2018
    Messages:
    6,738
    Likes Received:
    10,227
    Location:
    The kingdom of scrambled portmanteaus
    I went with a friend to a place called Murphy Hogback, and we camped on a knob of rock with a giant boulder next to us. It was perched atop a tiny beachball sized stone. It looked like a scary table The ground was like concrete, but we pitched camp anyway. That night, a monster storm came through, so we hid in the tent while 60mph wind assaulted us. I stepped out to see if the massive rock was going to fall on us, and my first step sank about a foot and a half into thick slop. The entire area had turned into liquid cement. I surrendered my boot to retreat into the tent, and informed my friend that we were going to die. I had been bugging him to tell me the story he wrote in junior high, and joked that if we're going to die, he should tell me the story while we waited. We ended up 'finishing' the story all night long, as we waited to be smushed, or blown off the cliff, or sink to our doom. That story stuck in my head for the better part of fifteen years, and everyone told me to write it. I finally relented, fearing the vision of it would drive me insane. It has evolved into an epoch in history that has consumed me entirely. I have no regrets.
     
    GingerCoffee likes this.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice