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In all walks of life, we build on what has gone before. Well, there is no point in reinventing the wheel, so to speak. One person’s discovery often does lead to someone else taking that discovery and doing something special with it.
Isaac Newton confirms this thought with his quote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Literal Building on What Has Gone Before
London is a wonderful example of a literal interpretation of this thought. It really has been built over time and time again. I don’t know if the capital was the inspiration for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld where Ankh-Morpork is referred to as being built upon earlier versions of that fantasy city, but it would never surprise me if it was.
Not long ago an ancient Roman basilica was discovered in London under a new office block. The good news here is the owners plan to incorporate this basilica into their building and people will be able to go and see it. The idea is the basilica will be part of a museum in the basement. I hope that works out.
I’m sure there will be more discoveries, Roman era and otherwise, from London. It’s a question of time before someone finds them. If you can find a king in a car park in Leicester, it does beg the question, what or who else can be found elsewhere? It will often be building work which will literally uncover these things.
I suspect there would be plenty to discover in York, Winchester, any of our historic towns and cities, all of which have been built on over centuries.
Writers Learning From Previous Writers
Writers, naturally, and indeed most creative types build on what has gone before a lot. No writer reinvents how we lay out a story, for one thing. And themes from previous published works can inspire us to find our own takes on those themes.
We also learn from what has gone before – what works and, just as importantly, what doesn’t. Save us from making the same mistakes.
Shakespeare famously used Holinshed’s Chronicles as inspiration for his own work (and as basic source material but then bringing in his own imagination and thoughts to bring about the history plays we know now).
Every writer I know is or has been inspired to write by their own love of stories, some of which at least are far from contemporary, but these tales still have meaning for us. I will always love the classic fairytales.
You can get to a point with certain kinds of stories where they have become timeless. Aesop’s Fables would be a good example of that. The parables of Jesus, especially to my mind The Good Samaritan, will always have a timeless message (and I take encouragement from the thought that messages are often best got across to people via stories. People remember stories. My late father-in-law always said he could repeat a sermon every now and again but he could never repeat a children’s address. People remembered the stories in these!).
My Experience of This
I’ve learned so much over my writing career thanks to tips and advice I’ve read/listened to from other authors so I am building on that. I love P.G. Wodehouse – A Life in Letters. It is a huge tome but Wodehouse’s vast correspondence sheds so much light on his writing methods, especially the virtues of persistence and learning your craft.
Naturally I have also been grateful for advice received over vanity presses and other scammers. Saves me being caught out. I spread the word when I can about these things in the hope others won’t be caught out by them.
Building on what has gone before then is a good thing then. The important thing is to ensure you are building!
You don’t just learn from previous writing either. One reason I share a number of author interviews here is we all have different experiences of writing and marketing. No one writer can know it all.
So in sharing those posts here, I hope I, and my guest authors, are spreading knowledge, and share tips other writers can use. No one writer writes for ever either. You do want to pass on the baton to ensure there are other writers coming up after you, while you continue to improve your own writing. I see it as giving back to the world of literature as a whole. I’m not in competition with any other writer. We all bring different things to the mix.
I’ve lost count of how many tips I’ve been able to use myself. I’ve also lost count of those I thought interesting but with no relevance to me. Sometimes I discover a relevance later. This was especially true for advice on short stories and flash fiction, given I write in those fields now, but hadn’t done so at the beginning of my trying to be a published author.
Knowing How to Build on What Has Gone Before
This is where a well written how-to guide comes in useful and I have a number of favourites on my shelves. I do continue to refer to them as and when I need to but I take comfort in knowing they are there for me to be able to do just that.
A good guide will expand your knowledge and give you pointers to further places to look for advice. I like the ones which also give you things/exercises to try for yourself based on their topic. It is true the best way to write is to just get on with it (a thought Wodehouse expressed in his advice “apply seat of pants to seat of chair” – well, he’s not wrong!).
But you can avoid a lot of mistakes by reading and listening to as much good writing advice as you can.
Conclusion
Inspiration for ideas of your own does come from your own love of stories. You have to know what’s out there to be able to be inspired by it. It is also fun reading what has gone before and being inspired by it, as well as reading from contemporary works. That too is “before” given those works have come out before yours can possibly do so.
It has been interesting to see how certain genres have developed too. Take detective fiction – Edgar Allan Poe led the way leading to fabulous works by Conan Doyle, Christie and so many others. Now there are sub-divisions such as domestic noir, legal thrillers, heists and so many more.
But someone had to lead the way by creating the first detective story (Poe’s The Murders in The Rue Morgue) so others could take that basic idea and put their own take on it. From that we received the fabulous characters of Holmes and Watson, Poirot and Hastings, and many more. That is for just one genre.
It definitely is a good idea to build on what has gone before then! The challenge to us as writers is to come up with work which inspires others, even if we don’t know it.
Happy inspirational writing!
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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