The Stories So Far...
A reflection on inspiration
The dark nights are drawing in, hence the picture above.
No story from me this week, I’m afraid. I’ve been working on a novelette I originally started many years ago. Indeed, I finished it and polished it up and took it into my then writing group. However, neither I nor my writing group were satisfied with the ending. Everything else went down well - they liked the beginning and the middle - but I recently decided to back up further towards an earlier point in the story to take it down a slightly different path.
Sometimes that’s what you need to do. Look for a fork in the road and take that path instead. I really like this story and it was inspired by art, like much of my work. Most of the stories I’ve already posted here were inspired by paintings or artwork, and not the artwork I’ve used to illustrate the story.
So I thought I’d write about inspiration today.
I don’t think the first story I posted here, The True Princess, had any visual inspiration, or even musical inspiration. It was simply a retelling of a fairy tale with a character I never liked. Hence the ending!
Sunkissed, a flash fiction piece, was inspired by a book cover image for Bonjour Tristesse. The two stories are not related in any other way other than they feature teenagers.
The Lady in the Lake was actually inspired by a musical track by Elysian Fields of the same name.
December’s Child was a flash fiction piece inspired by a prompt - write a short piece for an Advent Fiction Calender on a writing website - plus a book I own on Baltic homes. I do love books on beautiful interiors, homes, architecture, castles, etc!
The Bride was inspired by a sepia photograph of a bride or veiled woman. It’s too long ago, so I don’t remember much else about the picture.
Briar Rose was inspired by the Briar Rose sequence of paintings by Edward Burne-Jones, though I didn’t use the paintings as a guide to the plot. I deviated off down a different path, but I find Pre-Raphaelite and related artists to be among the most inspirational for story ideas.
South by Southeast had nothing to do with visual or musical inspiration. It was merely inspired by the UK’s railways, hah!
I can’t recall the exact inspiration for Winter’s Tale other than it was written back-to-back with Songs of Contentment Ended, I’ve always loved wintery things, and I’ve always had a love for hot water/showers, etc. But I do recall that I used some music from Peter Greenaway’s film, The Pillow Book, when writing it. I may have used other music too.
Truth Lies at the Bottom of the Well was inspired by both the painting of that name by Glasgow Style artist Frances Macdonald, plus research I had done on a novel that included some Glasgow Style artists.
For Songs of Contentment Ended, it was the combination of a photograph, and the mood of the film Margaret’s Museum, which I loved when I first saw it, plus a Gaelic song in the film, The Mist-Covered Mountains. I sang this song in a Gaelic choir in primary school. We weren’t Gaelic speakers, so we had to learn phonetically!
The Visitors didn’t have any particular inspiration. I just wrote it as a lighter short story.
The Mermaid’s Song was inspired by a strange skull-shaped rock I once saw on a beach, with the waves washing over it. When I wrote the story, I listened to Holst’s Neptune from the Planet Suite over and over, and had two Waterhouse pictures propped up against my PC screen - the mermaid and siren paintings.
Light was inspired more by the style of a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship, written in one single sentence over multiple pages. I love this story, but it’s magic realism and nothing to do with Light. I simply tried writing the idea I had in one single long sentence which led to an interesting flow of language. Then I went back and punctuated it normally!
The Passing of Time in the Square has no particular inspiration, music or visual, that I recall. Though there are South American writers I like and I love bossa and samba, which is referenced in the story.
The story I’m supposed to be working on now has both written inspiration - two famous Victorian poems, some older references, and musical inspiration - particular Loreena McKennitt’s The Mummer’s Dance.
I had a First World War story set in the German trenches I meant to post first, with a fantastical element - inspired by Burne-Jones again. But I need to polish it up first.
And that’s it for inspiration.
I’m also distracted by work-related admin - updating bits of my developmental editing website, etc.
I hope everyone is well and creative! If anyone is looking for manuscript critiques, etc, you can hit me up at karen@indiecateditorial.com.
Otherwise, I hope it’s not quite so cold where you are today!
The window image at the top is by Aleksandra at Fusion Dreams.
It’s so very interesting to read about your inspirations/writing processes, particularly the way you sometimes take inspiration from dual sources - images and music/lyrics. I look forward to reading more posts like this!