Quick. Think about your favorite writer. Imagine your favorite story by that person.
How has that story influenced you? Do you see traces of that work showing up in your own writing?
Photo by Jimmie “Home School Mom.” Painting by Van Gogh. Drawing by Sprite (age 8).
Imitation Doesn’t Work!
I love taking my cues from other writers. From dialogue to pacing to self-publishing schedules, I try to incorporate new and exciting techniques into my own stories.
Just recently, I tried to write a serialized sci-fi adventure with a release schedule similar to the writing duo of Sean Platt and David Wright (Yesterday’s Gone and many other works). I believed I could juggle a demanding writing schedule for my fiction, turn out quality work, and maintain my blog all at the same time.
Unfortunately, the gap between my serialized adventures' publish dates grew longer and longer with each passing episode.
I’m not as quick of a writer as the talented writing duo I so admired. Maybe it’s just because I’m so hardheaded, but only my publishing schedule failure could show me my limitations.
Imitation vs. Influence
The allure to imitate is incredibly tempting. After all, if a writing style or publishing schedule worked for someone else, then all you should have to do is copy it. Unfortunately, there’s an inherent problem with duplication.
As with art of any sort, influence is helpful. Imitation is the kiss of death. We can’t “out-Stephen-King” the real Stephen King.
And that’s okay.
As author Todd Henry (The Accidental Creative) says, “Cover bands don’t change the world.”
What will you do to change it?
PRACTICE
Take fifteen minutes to figure out what makes your storytelling original. Look at past practices, your finished pieces, and your work in progress. Specifically, look for the reasons your writing is different from your favorite author. Embrace those differences!
Then, share what makes your writing unique here in the comments.
A lot of my storytelling is from the point of view of an outsider, one who repeatedly and deliberately places himself outside the circling of the wagons, and who is sometimes perceived as part of the threat. I seek in my stories to afflict the comfortable, those smug ones who believe that everything is cut-and-dried.
I write as one who is acquainted with self-sabotage, the mangling of one’s own life, because that is part of my experience.
My favorite authors are those who take commonly held and widely unquestioned views and beliefs and show their absurditythrough life experiences and the logic that follows. Bertrand Russell did this as skeptic and rationalist, although in a different and more exalted language than I would use. Owing to the part of the USA in which I’ve lived my whole life, I often make use of the voice of one who speaks in a countrified, twangy dialect that hides a subtlety of wisdom and mental quickness from the careless listener.
That’s fascinating, John. I lie that you focus on the themes you portray, not just the style. Thinking about this today, I realized I like to tell stories about breakdown.
…and I like to write stories about seeking… the mythical Quest framework for story is what gets me going!!
Good one, Yvette. I like reading those kinds of stories.
Imitation is boring.
Agreed. Even when it’s a sincere form of flattery. I’m going to confess! There have been two times in my writing life so far that I loved a line in a book so much that I tried to copy it almost word for word. But thing is, it never sat comfortably with me. Every time I read my manuscript those lines screamed out ‘not yours’ and eventually they went under the butcher’s knife. I couldn’t live with myself….unless I felt it was as mine as it could be!
I take real events in my life (the good, bad and ugly) and try to convert them into compelling stories that encourage others.
I have messed up plenty the content is plenty. Learning to write in a compelling style, now that’s hard.
……….and as someone who has also messed up plenty, to me writing about the bad and the ugly takes courage — sometimes I’m brave enough, and other times, I quail.
….the same could probably be said for all of us.
With all due respect, I disagree, at least with the guest post above as it is written. Imitating or copying is not the “kiss of death.” That’s a misunderstanding of human nature and how we learn and the power of human individuality.
Just because Michael couldn’t copy another writer’s schedule doesn’t prove his point, far from it. Copying or imitating is bad only if you write your own original works as imitations. It is not bad as practice.
Copying, imitating, is a centuries-honored apprenticeship technique. Michelangelo copied his mentor, but it didn’t become the kiss of death for his art. Copying and imitating works because it helps you explore your own writer potential, the undiscovered aspects of your voice, perhaps more quickly than just plodding along.
The only way copying, as practice (note that important word), could hurt your writing and creativity would be if you determined to be a clone of the writer when you write your own pieces. And you’d have to work at it very hard and with rigid consistently. Otherwise with enough words put on pages, your originality, creativity with inevitably emerge.
I’m sure Michael is a good writer and fine comic book author, but his advice above is simply mistaken. And his point about seeking to find your unique subject matter and voice is good. But being afraid of some copying is merely superstition.
I’m confused. You make a point of differentiating between practice and writing, but doesn’t your practice become incorporated into what you write. I realize that you won’t try to publish Dostoyevsky word for word but if you practice by copying him and then incorporate what you learn from that into your work doesn’t it all come to the same end. Practice is part of writing not something different from it.
I’m confused. You make a point of differentiating between practice and writing, but doesn’t your practice become incorporated into what you write. I realize that you won’t try to publish Dostoyevsky word for word but if you practice by copying him and then incorporate what you learn from that into your work doesn’t it all come to the same end. Practice is part of writing not something different from it.
Okay I get it. I got confused by your next to the last paragraph in your first post.
I agree.
Thanks for telling me. At least one person believed me 🙂
“Copying or imitating is bad only if you write your own original works as imitations. It is not bad as practice.”
I agree with you, Bill. I can certainly see the benefit in copying and/or intensely studying others’ work for the sake of practice. My focus was whether creators choose to remain imitators or not. When we only imitate, the rest of the world loses out on a new voice.
The last quote about cover bands resonated with me because I have played in cover bands before. I certainly learned from the process, but I don’t want to stay in a cover band forever.
I don’t like that the marketing world thinks we can’t come up with something original that will engage with people.
So we have sequels and prequels of old books.
We have sequels and prequels of movies.
At the end of the movie we no longer are satisfied it seems, we can see the hook for the next even if there is no known sequel in process e.g. Prometheus.
We have franchises and we have branding and nothing seems to be original anymore.
Then I come here, read wee vignettes that people write as practice and there is more imagination in one of those than the whole of the bestseller list or Hollywood.
All these talented writers, all this talent. Some in the style of great authors from the past. Some in a new style, not yet defined. Some a mixture of the two. All honest to goodness imaginative talent
I agree, Suzie, and I found it the same way in the music business years ago when I was trying hard to “break in”; artists were almost expected to be prequels and sequels of each other, branding and categorizing was rampant, and if you listened to what the “experts” advised, it could stifle any originality. Now I’m older and less careful of what people think, having learned that you can’t please everyone. And that maybe I have to write badly in order to learn how to write better!
“Then I come here, read wee vignettes that people write as practice and there is more imagination in one of those than the whole of the bestseller list or Hollywood.”
Those are very encouraging words Suzie. Thanks 🙂
Yeah I agree Suzie. I’ve really wondered lately about all the rehashing of the old stuff esp when there’s such huge competition out there in the world. Like what’s up with the redoing of fairy tales at the mo? Now last night I see that there’s a new movie in the works called Malieficient (spl?) starring Angelina Jolie as the wicked witch, due out in 2014?? What the? Why don’t we redirect some of that money and backing to the NEW talent?
I love seeing writers and creators break out of the sequel / prequel system with indie artwork. Indie publishing certainly has its own set of challenges, but it’s so refreshing to see that people are willing to try new and fresh materials!
Well my favorite author is Virginia Woolf who is basically inimitable but I do think my writing gains some rhythm from reading her works, and I try to create an emotional environment with description like she does.
I recently read “The Feast of Love” by Charles Baxter and about two week later started a short story. I exchange work each week with a friend and we edit each others work. When I typed up my short story to send to her, I thought, Oh no, my narrator, Tammy, is very much like the protagonist, Chloe, in Baxter’s work. They are both young, lower middle class, energetic and in love. They are both blue collar Vensus. I was really upset feeling like I’d “copied” (such an aversive word for us “creative types”). But then I thought Baxter’s story is based on “A Midsummer Nights Dream” and his Chloe as well as my Tammy are kind of the fairy queens of love for a brief amount of time. So the archetype is sound and I don’t feel bad or like I’m copying anymore. Baxter’s Chloe is so real that I feel like I know her, lived with her for a week or so while I read her story. Since all my characters are composites of people I’ve known or heard of I don’t see how really I can avoid having somebody like Chloe emerge every now and then. She just showed up soon enough after reading Baxter’s book that it made me feel somehow like a cheater.
Agree. I have the repeated experience of writing a story and then worrying, whose work have I unconsciously plaguerized? But your point about sound archetypes is well taken.
Yeah John the unconscious copying is a worry isn’t it! I know exactly what you mean. However, as with the point PJ made above, you can “try” to imitate a writer you admire but before long it falls away because it’s not you… Therefore I feel, whether we consciously mimic or unconsciously do so, what comes out at the end is 100% our work.
Marianne on another level, apparently we are all linked via our subconscious. A creative thought we may have in the privacy of our own homes may show up in someone else’s mind on the far side of the planet. I started my fascination with insect characters back in the ’80s. About a year after I finished putting my three stories together (the original incarnation was three picture books), the movie ‘A bug’s life’ came out and then a bit later ‘Ants’ (not sure if that was the title, but the one with Woody Allen’s type thinking in it). I felt like no, stop, I haven’t got my books out there yet and someone else with more money and clout is doing it!! So you were probably just linking in on the creative ether 🙂
Thanks Evette. Your example about the insects is funny. People do seem to kind of link into things at the same time somehow or another.
Whoops that should have said Yvette. Sorry
Two things… re Virginia Woolf: yes! I became willingly infected with her “immediate” style while reading “Mrs. Dalloway”, and then returned — very excitedly — to my novel “Roxy” and rewrote the thing.
Secondly… In my experience, all this imitating and emulating eventually eventually distills down into one’s unique voice. I’m talking about years of experimenting. I’ve been writing for over twenty years and my voice may only now be emerging. Styles that don’t ring true will be abandoned, I feel. Because it’s actually hard work to imitate.
Oh no twenty years. I’ll probably be dead or nearly dead in twenty years. Oh well it’s fun trying.
I always gauge how long I’ve been writing by my oldest son, because I wrote my first children’s story when he was born, and he turned 30 this year!! Sorry Marianne, but I have to agree with PJ, I only feel my true voice is distilling from the mish-mash that came before now that I am this age. However, don’t worry, I don’t think this applies to you, your voice already shines through! Hey Marianne are you on Faceboook? I’d love to befriend you there as well….
I’m there under Marianne Vest. Thanks for saying that.
Yup, you put it perfectly.
Both posts were interesting and thought-provoking. But the coolest thing was the Van Gogh visual. Loved it.
I loved that too. You can see how the child imitated the brushstrokes of Van Gogh which is a way to explore how to put down color, in fact copying Van Gogh is probably one of the best ways to look at color and brush strokes.
I tend to be better at dialogue-heavy scenes and get jealous at well done descriptive scenes. So I keep trying to make scenes that are description heavy in order to compensate. Maybe I should stick to dialogue?
I think it’s good to practice what you’re not good at, Bronson. I remember reading a story about how Tiger Woods was the best putter and driver in the game, but he was terrible at sand traps. He brought his sand trap game up a little, then went back to practicing putting and driving. He won a couple of tournaments after that.
If you’re really really good at one or two things, you can afford to be mediocre at another thing. You can’t afford to be terrible at it, though.
Ha ha, true!
I think you can also use the one thing you’re very good at to compensate for that one thing you’re not so good at.
I’m not sure but, in your case, you can use the dialogues you’ve written to give description to the place where your characters are currently at.
If there is one thing I am, it is original. I don’t believe it would work out to be any other way.
This has Ben a long time dilemma of mine. Copying or imitating another already-published work. Me wr
I try to write with authenticity, from the heart, about things I know about. The idea is to write about things that will help people, in a way that will inspire and interest.
I’m only beginning to discover my voice.At this point, I like to play with weaving words in a way that will make “normal” things sound interesting and appealing. I try to think of one person as the audience for my writing, and often, that audience is myself! So I end up stepping out of my experience, in a way, in order to tell ME about something. It seems to work well for me!
You made an excellent point here. Back when I was starting out as a newspaper columnist and essayist, I wanted to BE Anna Quindlen, Anne Lamott, and/or Annie Dillard, depending on the day you asked. (I wondered if I should start using my middle name, which is Anne, instead of my first. I think the name “Anne” helps a writing career?) Anyhoo, I didn’t exactly plagiarize these writers, but came a little too close. Another writer suggested that I closely examine what it was that I really loved about these writers, then find my own path to “it”….
When I started freelancing, print journalism was king. Which meant having your own newspaper column — a forum of your own — was really something special, even if you weren’t as famous as Erma Bombeck or Mitch Albom. But newspaper columns were still coveted, and not many journalists had them.
There are so many people out there blogging and publishing today — which makes it even harder to stand out in the crowd. I wish I had a dollar for every “Mommy blog” I read when everyone started writing them a few years ago. My eyes began to glaze over every time I read essays about breast feeding and diaper changing — until I found one or two writers who were doing something different, or saying the same Mommy story in a different way. Finding your own voice and being a true original is more important than ever — now the the Internet has given us all a crack at being read.
I know! All those Annes! I also love Annie Proulx, although she writes fiction. Thanks so much for sharing your experience Cindy “Anne”. Do you still write your column?