The Sea of Stories |

Not mentioned below, though it should be.

By Nick Hayden
May 17, 2013

There’s this poem by Walt Whitman, “There Was A Child Went Forth,” that I studied in high school. The point of the poem is that everything one experiences become part of who one is.

Inspiration for a writer is much the same. Where do I get my ideas? From everywhere.

In previous blogs we’ve discussed some influences that went into our magic system and our cities. We also like to use the blogs so that you can get to know us and we can get to know you. So I thought I’d share some of the influences in my writing, not just for Children of the Wells, but in general.

In a somewhat logical order:

C. S. Lewis – Not so much Narnia–well, okay, The Voyage of the Dawntreader makes me want to write a long series of adventures of a crew heading toward the rim of the world. But also Perelandra and Till We Have Faces. Big ideas compressed into wonderful stories.
J.R.R. Tolkien – Because his language is beautiful, and so are his characters. The Lord of the Rings is one of the few fantasies where our protagonists want to get rid of power. And, also, The Silmarillion is ridiculously awesome.
The Wheel of Time – I grew up reading this and just finished it this year. The sheer scale of the thing fascinates me, and Mat Cauthon will always be hiding away in the back of my mind where I keep cool characters.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky – What? Who’s this? Some classic Russian author? You better believe it. No one examines the spiritual aspect of man better, and the dramatic nature of his confrontations is excellent.
Neon Genesis Evangelion – For better or worse, this was my first anime, and I was thunderstruck by how much pain, emotion, and brutal action one could fit in 20-ish minutes. One of the first shows I watched that didn’t pull its punches in conflicts. I mustn’t run away, I mustn’t run away….
Babylon 5 – The first show that opened up how one serializes a grand story on TV. A series with fabulous characters, long plot arcs, and a moral center. Also–Londo Mollari.
LOST – I’m one of those people who adores this show. To weave a web of mystery and character, consistently, on a TV’s schedule, and to reinvent yourself every year, that’s great stuff. And for all its ins and outs, it would take the sort of concept other shows would use for an episode (should we trust this guy? can you change the past?) and expand it over multiple episodes or entire seasons.

There are others, of course, Star Wars and Ray Bradbury and The X-Files and being a father and Final Fantasy and the Bible and Moby-Dick and visiting Brazil and Puss ‘N Boots Travels Around the World. (What? You haven’t seen that? For shame!) Many others–but that’s the point.

THERE was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.

What influences your creative tendencies?