Great Artists Steal (Part Two)

I know that everything good has been done before. I know that. But just like how internet advertisements seemingly know what you’ve been thinking about buying before you even search for it, it seems like when I’ve been sitting on a writing idea for too long someone else just sweeps it away and means that if I do end up using it, it looks like I’m inspired by something I probably wasn’t at best and plagiarizing at worst.

For example, I’ve been interested in Prospero’s final monolog in The Tempest since I saw it performed. I wasn’t sure where I was going to use it (I don’t generally write about plays from the inside (a “don’t write what you don’t know about situation)), but I did keep it around as something to consider. Though now that Lady Bird’s out, with Lucas Hedges’ interpretation appearing as a turning point in the movie, that enthusiasm has died a little.

Similarly, I had at least a semblance of an outline involving a film about the creation of a film (because I like meta stuff like that (I know what I said last week and I meant it)), but it turns out a film called Madeline’s Madeline just premiered at Sundance this year that in interviews the director describes as an interpretation of her own process of filmmaking. So it’s a bit more subtle, but it’s definitely there. And if that doesn’t count, there’s also Synecdoche, New York.

I wouldn’t be as upset (to be clear, I’m not that upset) if they weren’t all really good movies. Which means these ideas haven’t just been done, they’ve been done well. I can’t even justify keeping these ideas trying to do better. I mean, I can, but it feels like I’m lying to myself when I say that.

But on the other hand, I feel like I’m selling myself short a little too. Like, this sort of thinking surely isn’t the sort of confident thinking that gets ideas onto paper, right? Because the alternative is looking at these movies and thinking “I totally could have done that” and not doing anything about it. And that’s a stagnant style of living that I’ve been trying to avoid by, for example, starting this blog. Or writing regularly, at least. What I should be doing is treating these as inspiration. Maybe it will be better, maybe it won’t. But it’ll definitely still be my idea.

-F

Here's an interesting blog about Japan: https://ohiomiyazaki.blogspot.com/

Terraforming (Part Three) -- Great Artists Steal

I still don’t know how Naviim was created (again, in universe. Of course I know how I made it), but I do know how it ends. To be more specific, I stole how it ends. I stole Naviim’s grand apocalypse from someone else.

That shouldn’t be too surprising, right? There are so many archetypal apocalypses that me having one isn’t that big a deal, right? If Naviim fell to the inexorable tide of Zombies, initially spawned in the capital and pushed east by their insatiable lust for blood, that wouldn’t be held against me, right?

Right?

So, I was playing some horror games to celebrate Halloween, and came across a text-based adventure called Hornets by someone who goes by Kitty Horrorshow. I’ve been a fan of hers for a couple years now, and I’ve specifically enjoyed how she manages to do more (in this case, creating the unsettling atmosphere of a city overrun with monstrous hornets) with so little (Twine is a valuable tool for creating interactive text-based stories, though she also uses a personal edition of Unity from time to time). I couldn’t tell you why the idea of Hornets -- that one single act of wrath caused the world to end -- appealed to me. Maybe it’s my latent fascination with purple prose. But I took it, basically wholesale, and inserted it into Naviim.

I couldn’t actually have it end, though. That’s the one thing I changed. Through some luck and a heavy dose of protective magic, a small community developed in the center of the main continent. And who knows? The hornets might die off and the world can develop again. But that would be my own story, and I haven’t gotten that far yet.

-F