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Subject: 
Re: Chapter 2, plus 2 MOCs, too
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.castle
Date: 
Tue, 8 Apr 2003 02:15:07 GMT
Viewed: 
1584 times
  
In lugnet.castle, Bruce Hietbrink writes:

Matt, I really think you're doing yourself a
disservice here.  You are really missing out
on one of the best books of the 20th century
of any genre, and quite probably THE best in
the fantasy genre.

The only disservice I don't want to do to
myself is draw from something so starkingly
obvious that someone can point to it and say

'there's another mindless tolkein fan! See,
I told you nobody can write a fantasy story
without dwarves/ elves.'

Right now, I feel like drawing from other
sources besides tolkein, since I'm going
for a science fiction/ fantasy story, not
completely fantasy...and I'd rather not
have one object possess an ostensible amount
of power. That would be too simple...

The answer to avoiding being a copycat is not to
avoid the original sources. The answer is instead
to read lots and lots of sources--read Tolkien, read
L'Engle, read Lewis, read Le Guin, read McCafferty,
read Cooper, read the mythology of the Greeks and
Norse and other cultures, read the Bible and other
religious works, read etc etc etc.

Oh, yeah...you can definitely bet I'd read into
any of the aforementioned works, except for
Tolkien...I'll read anything stephen King,
I'll read Ray Bradbury, heck, I'm even reading
the bible, and I might check out the Koran and
assorted Japanese works, but no Tolkien. I'm
watching some James Bond movies, saw Swordfish
(very interesting), playing some Metal Gear,
and reading stories of basically anyone else,
but still avoiding Tolkein.

I feel if I can pull off writing a fantasy
project without utilizing Tolkein as a
reference, that should be considered a feat
within itself. It should be difficult, but
here's what I fondly remember from a fellow
writer classmate.

'Basically, don't tread on anything Tolkein...
there's hundreds of rabid people out there
that will rip it apart. I know it from personal
experience, no elves, no dwarves, and please
don't use a ring! Oh god, the ramifications of
that can get pretty bad.' I could tell from
the look in her eyes she was very serious.

Okay, maybe that was more of a speech,

Once you have all these different things swimming
around in your head, sure, you'll pull influences
from here and there, but it won't be a rip-off of
any one book.  In interview after interview I have
seen professional writers say how reading has helped
them grow as writer. Remember, Tolkien drew inspiration
from all kinds of sources.

Oh, definitely! You wouldn't believe all of the
odd science fiction ideas I conceived that
could be successfully integrated into fantasy
such as

magic > environ manipulation
nature > natural system OS
prophets > seeds, curators of the OS, probes.
religious faith > influence of the seeds
transformation > genetic amelioration

You know, I'm considering writing a
terminology digest to log in all of
these ideas...

And notice, I didn't use Tolkein to
conceive these!

http://www.lugnet.com/~1112/Glossary/ZeroYear

<<_Matt Hein_>>
Fellow lego enthusiast
O s p r e y

http://www.lugnet.com/~1112/Creations



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Chapter 2, plus 2 MOCs, too
 
(...) "Frankenstein" is definitely the best fantasy book. (...) I agree with Matt. It is impossible to read something and not pull from it. I think reading something like LOTR would have too much influence and frankly i do not wish to be sucked into (...) (22 years ago, 8-Apr-03, to lugnet.castle)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Chapter 2, plus 2 MOCs, too
 
(...) Matt, I really think you're doing yourself a disservice here. You are really missing out on one of the best books of the 20th century of any genre, and quite probably THE best in the fantasy genre. The answer to avoiding being a copycat is not (...) (22 years ago, 7-Apr-03, to lugnet.castle)

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