Where Does Inspiration Come From? - Method Mondays

    Where does inspiration come from for my writing?
    Everywhere.
    Thanks for reading, have a good week!

    I'm kidding, of course. Well, I'm not. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and everywhere. It's actually kind of incredible, all the different places. For me, it comes especially from real life, TV and movies, music, other books, and Pinterest. This would be a massively long post if I covered all of those things in one go, so for today I'll just cover inspiration coming from books and TV/movies.
    You might be wondering how you can take inspiration from movies or TV or other books without plagiarizing. It's quite easy, in fact.
    I could take the "deep" route and argue that any story has been done before - after all, at its heart, every story is just character vs. something. Character vs. character, vs. nature, vs. society. You see where this is headed.
    Honestly, one of the most important things to do is read in the genre you write in. You don't know what's popular and what people want to read if you don't. I'm not saying you should see that, for example, books set in high schools are popular and immediately sit down and write a book that's set in a high school if that's not what the story in your head is about. If you're not passionate about your story, it won't be as good as it can be, so don't just jump on popular plots or settings just because they're popular. But reading in your chosen genre will show you what is popular and what's getting published; what types of conflicts, what sorts of characters, all kinds of abstract concepts that make novels great.
    Similarly with movies or TV shows; maybe a line of dialogue sparks a scene between two characters, or a certain character or plot idea may inspire you. Does that mean you should copy a character completely from a movie or TV show, or copy the plot of a movie? Definitely not, but taking inspiration is perfectly okay.
    I just want to stop right now and say this isn't legal advice. Don't copy the plot or characters of a movie, TV show, or another book and put it in a book, then say "well this blog said I could" if you get in trouble. I'm not saying that's what you can do. What I am saying, is that you should, basically, be looking for inspiration anywhere. The littlest thing can plant a spark in your brain and result in a subplot, a plot twist, a character trait, or maybe even more than that.
    The most important thing to remember is MAKE IT YOUR OWN. It's easy to just copy a character from here, a plot point from there, and smash them all together into a novel. But that's not really writing; that's clever plagiarism. I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this, and I'm aware of that, but hopefully you're getting the drift. Inspiration is everywhere; let it burrow into your brain (that's a disturbing way to word that) and see what comes of it.
    Bottom line: absorb ideas and let them grow within your mind; don't copy them. That's the best way I can put it, hope it makes sense to all of you!
    As always, Tweet any questions to me or comment them here!
    Thanks for reading!