Writers: Ideas and Inspiration
A commenter on PlayForceOne suggested that I stole the story for Finding Miranda from an unnamed Japanese Visual Novel. I didn't, but not because I'm above such things. The beginning of "Royal Guard" is an homage to the Halo 2 trailer. I explicitly asked Mortze to make the pose when Xara comes through the portal look like an Iron Man landing. "Dreaming with the Dead" is practically Left 4 Dead fan fiction. I got the idea for "Getting to know Christine" from the Halestorm song "I Get Off." And the first Keeley game is ... extremely ... inspired by ArianeB's first game. No, the only reason I'm sure I didn't steal Miranda from a Japanese Visual Novel is that I've never actually played any Japanese Visual Novels.
Of course, there a ton of reasons why two stories could be similar even if the two writers didn't directly consume each other's work. Maybe we both drew our ideas from the same base source. Maybe the Visual Novel inspired something else, and I read/played/watched that. Or, maybe the base idea is really obvious, and many people in the world have had it. (A character who gets more done because she doesn't need to sleep? Surely, you've all considered that.)
Without knowing which story the commenter was talking about, it's hard to see how similar the stories are. But even if they're very similar, that's common in storytelling. One of the best science fiction writers of all time used to talk about "filing the serial numbers off" of other stories when writing his. If you squint a little bit, you'll find that most stories are retellings and mashups of a relatively small number of previous tales. That's okay, humans like it that way. We like variations on common themes. We like things that are "different, but not too different." So, most of our modern stories have roots in earlier stories, some thousands of years old.
Truth be told, most of the time I don't know where my ideas come from. Like everyone else, my brain consumes inputs every waking moment and jumbles them up. Some of them stick with me. Some inspire me. Some dive deep into my subconscious and come back unrecognizable to me, but maybe obvious to someone else. A singer who's so good she can induce emotions in people? There are hundreds of songs that together have made me feel an entire spectrum of emotions. Which one gave me the idea for Jessika? Maybe all of them? And Elsa? There were like ten horror and science fiction movies in the 80s about controlling your dreams. Did one or more of them take root in my mind and come back out 30 years later? Probably? I don't know.
In the end, I hope you don't think I'm so pretentious as to believe that my writing is unique. I just write the kind of stories that I want to read. And I'm immensely grateful that you folks enjoy them.
So let me get back to writing my next story. See, it's this wonderful tale about two star-crossed lovers whose families hate each other and won't let them... oh damn.
Tlaero
Comments (15)
I was reminded of your post here when I came across this. A little support for your argument: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FLQxOVPXLM.Keep" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FLQxOVPXLM.Keep</a> up the entertaining, engaging, and sexy writing.
Tlaero, anyone whos ever done something creative knows this is inevitable. When you finish something, someone will have done something similar before. I once attended a seminar for screenwriters and the lector said that when you really try to write something that no one has ever written about before, three things happen: You write about something you have no idea about, anyone who reads it will not understand it, and you will write about things that don't matter to anyone. Tlaero, you are a great writer. And you ply you trade in an area thats generally frowned apon. Which i don't understand, because telling stories about people falling madly in love and then making love is smutty, but telling stories about people killing each other is ok? Which one is more natural, i wonder?
If a creator in any field should come up with a brand new idea before a release, there would max come one new game, one new movie, one new song every year and more likely it would take a decade or more to figure out truely new stuff.....Hell, you couldn't even make a sequel to a game or movie or make, because you would "steal" part of plot from your game/movie. And there's no way to make a game based on a movie or other way around.....Gosh, world would be a boring place to live in. So Tlaero, keep ste...ehh getting inspired from reading/playing/watching.
One person's plagiarism is another person's homage.
To take Mortze's Lord of of the Rings example a bit further, one might point the similarity between a couple of scenes in LoTR and two scenes in Macbeth. I know that when I read Macbeth for the first time the "Birnham Wood to high Dunsinane comes" sequence reminded me rather strongly of the Ents march on Isengard. Similarly, I found Macbeth's "no man born of woman shall harm thee" prophecy to be very similar to Glorfindel's prophecy (concerning the Witch King) that "not by the hand of man will he fall."
And I don't even want to comment on The Force Awakens plagiarism of The New Hope... Gasp... A totally less erudite example than yours Chaucer, I know :p --Mortze
You could let the commenter know that their criticism isn't original either. :p
Mortze speaking; Even the Lord of the Rings got something from North European old sagas, like elfs, dwarfs, trolls, orcs. Most, if not every, piece of creation is a revisitation. I'd like to note that I've asked the accuser that said Tlaero copied the idea from the japanese visual novel, which novel that is, and until now the accuser hasn't told anything. No facts to back up the accusation. That is enough to filter the seriousness of such comments.
Hi Mortze, question for you, the same one I asked Tora, would you use nerote, cuckold, cheating or gangbang for a moment in you games?
Many modern movies are based on fairy tales like snow white, sleeping beauty or cinderella. If you are popular, you make a remake of a movie where sometimes even the dialouges are the same, but you uses modern celebraties as actors and everyone will tell you what a great movie it was (Oceans Eleven, Three man and a baby......) And sometimes you even make a remake of a remake ( The Magnificent Seven) I belive that NEARLY all tales are already told one way or another or based on an other story (how many different copies of the romeo and juliet theme are there?), but decisive is how you tell a story and your story telling is just great! So i will enjoy the next tale and the next and the next...... as long as you are going to tell these tales :) CU
If we couldn't use any inspirational source as material for our constructs, be it for books or rpg scenarios, there wouldn't be that many new things around. Given your working premices, some classics instantly comes to mind as possible story material (e.g. Jekyll/Hide), and yet you keep on using your own ideas instead. As tacky as the comment was, letting it go is rightfully the best course of action. We're here to support you for your own work, and not because this or that manga was created before/after. Even if the ripoff is blatant, the magnificent 7 is a good a movie as 7 samurais, and this isn't the case here.
Hi Tlaero, I realy don't feel that you stole anything. I think your stories and the way they are pictured by Mortze is very surprising and unique. iI like very much your way to do it. Thank you.
Hi Tora, your work is amazing along with Mortz, I think many would not really care so long as the games story is immersive, I have a question: have you ever considered having a cheating, cuckold or netore moment in your games?
There's a Cockold scene in RfJ with Cynthia and Gary. There's a roleplay cheating scene in LwK. An actual "player cheats on his wife" scene is unlikely from me, though. I'm not sure what netore means. --Tlaero
You write a very interesting story. Continue in the same manner. 👍