MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Hmmm... Stop Reading to Spark Creativity....

gmw · 07-16-2013, 08:58 AM

Thanks for the link.

Most of the advice that I've read is not that you should turn to favourite books for inspiration, the advice is generally that you should read widely. Yes, you should be familiar with your favoured genre, but don't let that blind you. Get unexpected ideas from unexpected places.

I don't doubt that reading deprivation may work for some people some of the time - for exactly the same reason that reading widely works: it expands your horizons. In the absence of reading you will seek fulfillment from other sources, movies, televisions, the world around you. It pushes you to look beyond familiar borders and that is where we are likely to find something new and interesting.

Recently, a large well known fantasy book that I didn't particularly enjoy set my mind wandering (while reading, which is never a good sign for a book) and sparked ideas that may well feed into my next project. A really cheezy disaster movie also suggested ideas for the same project. Aspects of an indie sci-fi book have had their own impact, and my reading of some classics recently has added even more possibilities. And so on. This one project is growing from ideas that have sparked from all over the place. Without that diversity of input the project would still be very sparse and probably not worth much. It would be more likely to be an emulation of what has gone before rather than something hopefully new and interesting (to me at least).

07-16-2013, 08:58 AM	#2
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,809 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	Thanks for the link. Most of the advice that I've read is not that you should turn to favourite books for inspiration, the advice is generally that you should read widely. Yes, you should be familiar with your favoured genre, but don't let that blind you. Get unexpected ideas from unexpected places. I don't doubt that reading deprivation may work for some people some of the time - for exactly the same reason that reading widely works: it expands your horizons. In the absence of reading you will seek fulfillment from other sources, movies, televisions, the world around you. It pushes you to look beyond familiar borders and that is where we are likely to find something new and interesting. Recently, a large well known fantasy book that I didn't particularly enjoy set my mind wandering (while reading, which is never a good sign for a book) and sparked ideas that may well feed into my next project. A really cheezy disaster movie also suggested ideas for the same project. Aspects of an indie sci-fi book have had their own impact, and my reading of some classics recently has added even more possibilities. And so on. This one project is growing from ideas that have sparked from all over the place. Without that diversity of input the project would still be very sparse and probably not worth much. It would be more likely to be an emulation of what has gone before rather than something hopefully new and interesting (to me at least).