Post by account_disabled on Dec 30, 2023 10:08:57 GMT
A few days ago a reader asked me an interesting question: in his email he talked about the tendency "to copy other people's ideas". However, he also added that he is not someone who reads much, but we'll get to that in a bit. When you're starting out, I think it's normal to tend to copy the plot of a well-liked novel or the style of a beloved author. More than normal - it should never be copied - I think it is easy to stumble into this trend. An autobiography as an example It has happened to me in the past and I have mentioned it several times in the blog.
As soon as I read the fantasy novel The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, I fell in love with it, both the story, the genre, the characters and the author's style. At that time I had started scribbling down short stories and poems and fantasy had just bewitched me. Epic fantasy like The Sword of Shannara . For me there was no better literary genre. That was also my 13th book read – but maybe I had read a few more. Of the 39 books read subsequently, 22 were fantasy. The first fantasy novel I planned was heavily Special Data inspired by The Sword of Shannara . The characters had to face monsters and problems because the characters in The Sword had faced them too. I never wrote that novel, fortunately.
Then I came to Tolkien, first reading The Silmarillion and immediately after The Hobbit , to then read, some time later, The Lord of the Rings . And here a new love was born, a more complete conception of fantasy, perhaps. And it also sparked a new idea for my big fantasy novel. Another copy, this time of Tolkien's most famous work: a novel divided into 3 parts and each part into two books and each chapter with a title and at the end a series of appendices. Total plagiarism. I still have all that material, stored in an envelope full of stacks of handwritten papers. From there ideas also arose for various anthologies of short stories, in the footsteps of the well-known Tolkien collections Racconti Ritrovati , Racconti Perduti , Racconti incompiuti . Then I read more. I met other genres and other authors and other stories.
As soon as I read the fantasy novel The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, I fell in love with it, both the story, the genre, the characters and the author's style. At that time I had started scribbling down short stories and poems and fantasy had just bewitched me. Epic fantasy like The Sword of Shannara . For me there was no better literary genre. That was also my 13th book read – but maybe I had read a few more. Of the 39 books read subsequently, 22 were fantasy. The first fantasy novel I planned was heavily Special Data inspired by The Sword of Shannara . The characters had to face monsters and problems because the characters in The Sword had faced them too. I never wrote that novel, fortunately.
Then I came to Tolkien, first reading The Silmarillion and immediately after The Hobbit , to then read, some time later, The Lord of the Rings . And here a new love was born, a more complete conception of fantasy, perhaps. And it also sparked a new idea for my big fantasy novel. Another copy, this time of Tolkien's most famous work: a novel divided into 3 parts and each part into two books and each chapter with a title and at the end a series of appendices. Total plagiarism. I still have all that material, stored in an envelope full of stacks of handwritten papers. From there ideas also arose for various anthologies of short stories, in the footsteps of the well-known Tolkien collections Racconti Ritrovati , Racconti Perduti , Racconti incompiuti . Then I read more. I met other genres and other authors and other stories.