The Thing About Writing...

The thing about writing, whether it's a book, novel or novella is it has to be your own work. I don't think it really hit me until today when I came across information about author Suzanne Collins (author of "The Hunger Games" Trilogy). The trilogy is another one of my favourites and definitely up on the recommended list, one of the things that struck me whilst reading it was how on earth did she manage to come up with such a fresh, original story? A lot of people i've spoken to draw inspiration from books and stories they've all ready read, there's nothing wrong with it but i've always felt that by doing that there's always an element, a part of the story that doesn't belong to you. However Suzanne Collins' idea for The Hunger Games came almost by chance in a sense but is a fantastic example of how to create your own completely new, utterly original story line...
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS!!


Collins says that the idea for The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on the T.V. On one channel she observed people competing on a reality show and on another she saw footage of the Iraq War. The two blended together and the idea of children fighting each other to the death was formed.

Of course, that doesn't mean that you can flip from BBC1 to Channel 5 and automatically have yourself a story line, Collins draws from her own experiences and makes them a running feature throughout the book, she has also incorporated in her own interests in Greek Mythology drawing from the Greek myth of Theseus, even describing the heroine Katniss as "like a futuristic Theseus." 

The thing about writing, I feel, is that if you haven't thought it up then it isn't yours. If you're drawing from someone else's work, using similar elements and ideas then the work you create can never fully belong to you. Collins shows that actually there are some really quick and simple ways to form a basic plot idea, what you choose to feed in to your story is completely up to you. Unless you know how to take a loose idea from someone and turn it into something completely original people will know the work isn't all yours.

Examples?

- A school of Magic
- Ohh, like the Harry Potter books?!

- Magic Kids trying to defeat a bad Wizard
- Basically Harry Potter without Hogwarts then?

- A Vampire Romance
- You mean like Twilight?

- Elves and Mythical People on a long haul adventure.
- So, basically Lord of the Rings?

It's near impossible to write a book that doesn't have anything in common with any other book, of course there are going to be similar elements but the thing about writing is that unless you thought of the idea for yourself, that story just doesn't belong to you...and it'll show.


References.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games