Not sure you've entered into the spirit of the thread. I'm just asking what type of art inspires you to write.
I focus on mood and stuff more so in my short works where they are more inspired by a feeling or an image and deal mostly with internal dilemmas. Most of my short works skew dark... So for one of my shorts (the Knife) was literally inspired by a pink hunting knife i saw. I thought it was kind of ironic... Something that was made pretty and pink and cutesy.... But was really deadly and morbid when you think about what it could do. So the story was about a woman who had experienced a tragedy... And was given this fancy pink knife. It was her emotions of having been given the knife, what she wanted to do with the knife, what it reminded her of (i likened the knife to a baby),and her slowly going crazy over the knife.
Sorry. I don't really do well with favorites or choosing only one. I don't have a favorite book, either.
Indeed. I'm thinking about a kind of external aesthetics, the imagery which fuels inspiration for the story. Generally I'm just talking about the art that means the most to you and which lies behind the words, if that makes sense. I bring this up as I know some people are more story driven, i.e. they'll formulate a story based on an idea or set of concepts. Obviously all writers deal in character and plot, but I find myself almost exclusively focused on the type of imagery I want to evoke from the start. For example, I'm currently planning my next short story which is a conflict of two opposing forces in a derelict city. I know I want it to be odd. The very first thing I thought of is a tall black headdress worn by one of the factions which tapers and droops like a worm. I see a figure on a makeshift throne carried through a blasted street. This was probably inspired by John Kenn Mortensen art, the short story Viriconium Knights, plus a little bit of The Penitent One from the computer game Blasphemous. Although in this explanation I've started with the plot, I'm fairly certain that single element kickstarted this idea. Edit: Eternal = external *
The aesthetics would be less about plot and more about style. I don't think you need to have visual art inspire the written word. And, sorry, but I really don't understand what it means to focus on imagery the way you've laid it out. I would think that a strong desire to invoke certain imagery would rely heavily on language, where language would in fact be the focus.
I'm not saying this is detached from language. It's really just what we've been discussing throughout the thread. I like darker aesthetics and often feel like I want to evoke these through my stories. I think and conceptualize and write in terms of odd imagery and weirdness. Everything I write is a tribute to the kind of artists I've previously discussed. I honestly think in these terms. I want to write a good story, of course I do, but I suppose I'm a visual person so I think in terms of imagery. I love the aesthetics of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas. I want to emulate that in my work quite often. I don't say to myself, "I want to write a story in which a character comes to change his town for the better." Obviously I need an idea and concept, but I view most of my work through the imagery of it first and foremost. I find myself saying that I want to honour this or that style. I wrote my last short story specifically because I love Burton's art. Earlier someone spoke about classical aesthetics. No doubt this person will have friezes and columns and pediments somewhere in their mind. Sure, there will be some overarching plot idea, but I reckon there's this load of imagery in the back of his/her mind that they want to do justice to.
Art has always been a source of inspiration for my stories. One of the best sources, actually. Because of this I've acquired (nabbed from the web) a collection of fantasy & science fantasy images, most of which depict landscapes or cityscapes. Spoiler: A few from my collection
huh. I didn't think that was unusual. I spend a lot of time thinking about the look and feel and mood of a story. I do things like gather images on a pinterest board, I make playlists specifically for the story I'm writing, I set up color palettes and choose specific typefaces for my workspace when I'm drafting, I even have specific perfumes I use to get my head into the right space. But the types of images I select, the music I choose, all of it serves one story. I can't use the same playlist for the next story. The perfume is different. The pinboard's imagery changes dramatically. Doesn't it have to? Or does the aesthetic not really shift from story to story for most people?
Very interesting, Hyacinthe. I know what you mean by the aesthetics changing with each work. I suppose it's because I think of my preference as a sort of personal ideal or target. Although my short story Ort's Last Undertaking is a completely different setting than The Fall of Osto Gren, another work, both of these were created based on those images I put in my OP, roughly. The specifics differ otherwise writing would be boring, but I find I'm always inspired by the weird, dark and twisted. That's what I mean when I talk about the images that kickstart one's work. I feel like I have a pool of these types of images to look at and that exist within my mind and I'm always wanting to bring those out and do justice to them. Although my stories differ in character appearance and setting development, I'd never create a western or a sci-fi as that's just not my aesthetic at all. I basically see this grand ideal of "the other" and "the weird" and I work towards that. I look at a Mortensen drawing and think, "I want to have weird characters like this in my stories". This is most often the jumping off point for me.
Always good to see someone's inner artistic mindset. You do indeed favour cityscapes and unique civilizations. Although these styles differ quite drastically, it's clear you take a societal approach to writing. Dystopian? Am I warm?
ah ha! it's coming clearer now. I write fantasy, romance, and science fiction, and I have gone with dramatically different aesthetic sets and for me that's a lot of the fun of it. like the last science fiction story I wrote was just a novelette but I wrote it to a soundtrack that was mostly house and dubstep and while the setting implies that there is luxury and opulence elsewhere, i was concentrating on the make-do and often shabby spaces behind the "employees only" doors. It contrasted with the majesty of the aliens in the story. it's very jumpsuit and shaved head and small, tight spaces. but before that I wrote a fantasy novel that was 100% about me getting the chance to write the aesthetics of the ostentatious wealth displays of 18th century Europe--i just wanted to write descriptions of the fashion and built a book that would let me do that. Before that I wrote an early 20th century thing that had some art nouveau/art deco influence with the cold, bleak feeling that came after the war and before the roar. I've written a couple examples of what I guess you could call urban fantasy short works, but they're again different in aesthetics--one is deeply beholden to the pulp detective story and Raymond Chandler, and the other owes its existence to Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. (I'm working on a sequel to this one.) They're both historical, though. The first short story I ever wrote was a marrying of the modern-day goth club and old timey grandpappy gothic supernatural stories. Poe in vintage Fluevogs, if you will. Shit that was a long time ago. i'm working on a novel now. It's high epic fantasy, but I'm trying to stay away from making it resemble any particular earth culture or historical period. and the aesthetic building is *tough* when you're trying to avoid those comparisons.
Societal approach, most definitely—at least how I would define that. I'm impressed (and somewhat pleased, if I'm honest) you inferred that from such a small sampling of my images. As for dystopian, that's also fair/mostly true. I stray from that preference from time to time, especially in my middle grade stories. But by and large I'm drawn—both as a reader and a storyteller—to fantastically dark and dangerous settings.
I'm struggling with this concept. I think of my story in "tone" and think of the visual aspects (cover and ad images) with aesthetic. I don't really use visual things for inspiration for stories. Perhaps I'm just not a very visual writer. I will use songs more often than anything else. Pictures are too concrete and distracting.
Reading the other responses about music and certain images that spawn creativity, ive found that, for me, when im working on my sci-fi i gravitate toward EDM and Ambient music. Robert Miles, Dj Sammy, Alice Deejay and others. Music with a lot if feeling and not a lot of words. Thats the only playlist that ill listen to when writing, and pictures i gravitate toward are landscapes (specifically deserts or tundra where its flat and empty). For my fantasy story, its the exact opposite. I listen to dancehall music and like looking at boats and oceanscapes. I can just smell and taste the salty breeze!
Indeed, it helps to have soundscapes as well as a bank of inspirational images. We all gravitate toward different aesthetic interests. I usually listen to dark ambient when writing my stories. This track happens to exemplify the mood for most of the stories I write. Maybe I'm just odd in that I really don't have much variety in what I like to write. It all comes back to the same atmosphere.
How on earth do I even know that song? I know the melody but I've literally never listened to it before
Did you used to be active on DeviantArt? Apparently someone wrote a song with this melody and posted it to dA, and then someone else made a Sonic the Hedgehog MVA with it
Hello. I've been thinking about aesthetics tonight and I wanted to resurrect this thread to ask you all another question or two. Do you write stories with the same pool of images in mind or is it always something different? Do you have any consideration for building a "coherent network of imagery associations?" Forgive the jargon; I can't describe it any other way. I know I hinted that I work in the same general area of imagery (Burtonesque, slightly weird, dark, twisted), but that's not always true. My second latest story submitted here was The Twofold Jar was not at all like my more experimental stories (Ort's Last Undertaking/Laughter of the Egrets) in terms of style. I've been thinking lately that I should focus in on what I want to write and actively cultivate my own style. I suppose I really am more visually focused since I think about this quite a lot. I even try to identify authors with their own styles, their cover art, the way they approach the whole aesthetic world that surrounds them. You know, I have such a strong inclination to aesthetics that I feel my work should be presented as a whole. I feel that so strongly that I might withdraw TTJ from a submission as it would clash with my soon-to-be-published story Ort's Last Undertaking. The former features an attic full of strange objects, but it's not as Burtonesque and odd as the latter. I'm guessing most people wouldn't dare do this. I just like the idea of cultivating a particular "world of images" and being associated with a particular style. I think I can best explain it by wanting cohesion. I always tend toward neatness and order in the things I do. Maybe I'm a bit on the autism spectrum, I don't know! A good example of this is that I'd almost want to remove some of my stories from the workshop just so I could maintain a specific aesthetic and presence. Odd, right? Well, it makes sense to me... Take the back cover of this book as an example. It's the impetus for my resurrecting this thread. I adore this aesthetic and it's reminded me of what I was trying to do myself in writing form. The reason I fell away from it as I thought it might not be taken seriously and so I wrote the more human and sober The Twofold Jar. I'm also always changing what I value. Experimentation is obviously important, but I'm now thinking I should've just stuck with trying to achieve this type of feeling. And yes, I'm very much aware that 99.9% of my posts here revolve around gripes, internal musings or things that no one should really spend that much time thinking about. Edit: I forgot about my recent flash fiction story posted here. That was dark but not fantastical or odd at all. I seem to go through phases. I guess that can be a third question. Does anyone else do this?
@Teladan I'm just asking what type of art inspires you to write. Feeling terribly déclassé right now since I just make up stories from stuff composting in my brain rather than being inspired by fine art or music. No doubt the odd Klimt frieze has found its way into the pile along with a few Scotch-Irish mountain ballads, but by the time I go poking around for inspiration, the originals are not recognizable as either art or music. Picasso's Guernica is as perfect as anything I've ever seen or read. The horse alone stops my breath every time I look at it. But inspire me to write? No. It stuns me even fifty years after the first time I saw a photo of it. Phobic as I am about cities, I would brave Madrid if I thought I could see this in real life.
