Post by profh0011 on Jul 25, 2024 15:31:01 GMT
And I agree generally with Kirby but I think there's a time and place for both.
I started out-- always doing comics-- writing about TV characters. Then one day my brother decided to do "his own" characters instead. He basically took one TV cartoon series and changed the setting and names. I thought, okay, let me try that. But in my case, I somehow, in an instant, came up with something that borrowed elements from 7 different series at the same time!
Over the years, as my writing improved, I'd "cast" real people (from TV or real life) in my stories, it made it easier to write each character with different personalities & speech patterns. Sometimes I'd outright borrow (swipe, heh) characters from another series and just change the names. Every so often, I felt I was giving some actors better writing than they got on TV (heehee).
For about 4 years, I got obsessed with writing a sequel to one TV show that ended too soon in mid-story. It was fun (especially as I stressed comedy), but eventually, I quit in mid-story, as I realized, I could never go anywhere with this without it being a Copyright violation. So, back to "my own" characters it was.
There is a difference between "inspiration" and "plagiarism". It may be a fine line... but it is there. Anyway, some of my best writing has been me doing better versions of BAD stories from other people. (John Huston once said, "There's NO POINT in remaking a classic." Heh.)
While doing my massive POE comics blog project (during a long stretch when I could not focus on writing at all), I learned that MANY authors do variations on other people's stories... EVEN Poe! But in his case, nobody remembers the people or stories he was paying tribute to (ripping off).
The art ALWAYS takes too long. Thankfully, these days I'm finally just writing TEXT stories! I wish I'd started doing that decades sooner.