Ok lets rephrase this. Do you think we write from memory or the subconscious even? We may exaggerate but there is a hint somewhere that is part of our life experience that may be good or bad and needs expending. our ideas must come from somewhere.
The way someone's life has panned out will greatly affect the way in which they write, whether they want it to or not. 'Tis the curse of our subjective points of view. I don't personally write much from my own memory, as I've had a pretty boring life thus far, but I do take bits and pieces of myself and sprinkle them throughout everything that I write.
Yes, I think we write from experience. It may seem like we write from ideas, but all ideas are experiences that get recreated.
@Shnette -- I think our experience shape and even create our ideas, but the two things are not one in the same. My experiences allow me to imagine things I have never experienced. My ideas don't have to be about my experiences. They just have to be something I can imagine.
You've never met anyone with the same idea/s as you? Or found out that someone else already had the idea you just thought of?
I think you will be surprised what the environment the media they way you were taught what you were taught the books you were read people you know books you have read newspapers all of these are the contributing factor that make you write the way you do. In psychology it is called compartmentalisation of the brain. The way the environment conduct itself whether be it bad or good is going to influence the way you write. It is a fact. In other words one is being dictated about how one should write and then to add the editors on top who they have the upper hand or the final word on how your story should be. One small example you just have to look at poetry and the many rules and forms about how to write it. In prose take a look and show and tell. Who says writing should be about showing and not telling?! Who has decided we have to write this way? and most importantly why should one write this way? Rules are one sided. Writing is multidimensional otherwise it is just ultimately extremely boring. Enough said.
not sure. I have dreams. I wake up and write them down. I remember a lot of my dreams vividly, and I am never the subject of them. Its kind of like when people say "my mind has a voice" and that "voice" is there own.... I don't hear my "voice" (i've been asked that; I stutter, so people typically ask me if I stutter in my head or in my inner voice has a stutter...... answer is "no") Maybe certain events have meanings that came from a certain event? or a feeling? I'm not sure.... I wrote a flash fiction piece about a little girl and her hatred of pigeons but she sees 2 pigeons when she's out with her grandma and decides they are ok for birds. Dont know where that idea came from other than the fact that my grandma sits out on her porch and feeds the birds. Pigeons never come... its normally song birds that come up to her when she feeds them. I've never fed pigeons. The only interaction I've had with pigeons as a kid is chasing them at parks (i like how they walk faster and faster, like its a HUGE inconvenience to fly) but I dont hate them. Another short fiction piece I wrote, and it was my first publication too, was about a woman who found a child. Dont know where that came from either. Woke up in the middle of the night and typed it up and went back to sleep. a week later, i read it wondering what the heck this document was.
I don't really see the connection to compartmentalization... But in general, of course we're influenced by our environments. Not just what we've read and what we've been taught, but also what we've smelled, tasted, heard, felt, etc. But.... that's all part of what makes us unique people. Are you arguing about an absence of free will in general, or just in terms of writing?
