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EmailInfluences On My Writing (pt 1)
17 Aug 2009 View Comments
in writing Tags: influences, tamora pierce
This was supposed to be last week’s post, but then I lost the interwebs on Friday evening (when I was with my parents) and my plan was to write this Friday night and post on Saturday morning. Obviously, that plan failed entirely. Still, I did not lose the contest with Travis because A) I wrote two entries last week and declared it a buffer and B) internet dying is about the most legitimate excuse for not posting a blog entry ever.
Also, I moved. Again. On the 28th, I move again, but that’s just a move back home. I’m pretty excited about that cuz that means that I can buy and assemble my new computer! Yay!
But on to the actual topic of this post – Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books (and The Song of the Lioness Quartet in particular) and their influences on my writing.
I would start with why these books influenced me, but, well, I have no idea why I love these books so much. I suppose they do contain a lot of the topics I like – magic, swords, ass kicking, female leads and some romance (and sex, surprisingly enough for YA novels). And I suppose that they’ll always hold a certain fondness in my heart considering that my first ‘serious’ screen name was Mage Kitty – the Mage part was ripped directly out of those books (and actually inspired by the fandom) and that is the part that I still use on occasion. On Twitter, for example, I still use Mage (not that I could change if I wanted to – someone already stole aethre there) and, even irl, people will still call me that. (The screen name I used before Mage Kitty was Krazy Kitty 93 if anyone cares. Yes, it is lame. I was twelve. And, no, I was not born in ’93.)
Further along with the trend of what I ripped off from Tamora Pierce – when I was 13, I pretty much began writing a carbon copy of the Alanna novels (to go with my carbon copy of the X-Men comic) and, at 14, I hadn’t become any better. To be fair, I was ripping off Tamora Pierce andPatricia C. Wrede then. Moving up in the world! (By 15 I wasn’t ripping off anything… except for the post apocalyptic psychic bunnies on motorcycles buuut that was abandoned fairly quickly. Probably because I started writing fic when I was 14 and, thus, burned out my need for playing in other people’s worlds.)
But that is getting away from the point.
Things that you can find in my own writing that were either ripped from Tamora Pierce because I was a kid and pretty stupid or, if it’s my modern stuff, it was a complete and utter accident or a homage to her awesomeness. Take, for example, Alanna. Alanna’s distinct features are that she’s a short redhead with purple eyes and a wicked temper. One of the characters from the above linked stories is a (tall, graceful and feminine) redhead with purple eyes (a direct steal). Lourdes, who was made around the same time period and I was in a bit of a rush, is a tall, brutish redhead (with silver and white streaks added later) with purple eyes (a homage). Caelan, also from that time period (hence the ridiculous name), starts off as a redhead with hazel eyes but the hair turns silver and the eyes purple after the werewolf attack. Cae is also short but calm, though incredibly cruel at times. Again, another homage to Alanna. At least that one is more subtle, though very few people would accuse Lourdes of being a copy of Alanna!
So, yeah, apparently I made up a bunch of Alanna knock offs. At least their personalities are all different!
Lianne, on the other hand, was a bit of a rip off of Daine and, name wise, Jonathan’s mother.
Male characters!
Yeah, I think it’s partially the awesomeness that is Numair that started my tall, dark and handsome kick (if it isn’t genetic, that is) so, yeah, I certainly have a lot of male characters that look like Jon or Numair. Personality wise, I tend to draw more from Numair than Jon – academic, absentminded professor-y and mostly calm with a bit of a temper. (And snarky! And makes dumb jokes! <3) The guy who has no name but is Renée’s love interest is a lot like that. He’s tall, dark haired, tanned, quite a few years older than Renée and very academic. Gideon (aka the one blond character that I actually like) has the academic side as well as the snark and the calmness, though, with Gideon, he’s more serene and/or stoic hero-y. I’m not entirely certain – he hasn’t bothered to inform me why he’s the quiet type. Actually, if anything, he’s more like Jack (from SG-1, obviously), though I’m not sure if I was hardcore into watching SG-1 when I made him up.
Alexander, appearance wise, is more like Jon in that he has dark hair, blue eyes and is rather pale. However, he is not tall and, personality wise… is again a quiet academic.
Clearly I need to make my men less academic. It’s interesting… from this (incredibly short list), I seem to prefer the women to fight while the men to study. I’d like to point out that that is not always the case – Leigh, Amelia Crossard, Wraith, Clare and Tawney (Alexander’s twin sister) are all academically inclined and Renée floats between asswhooping and academics. For men who whoop butt (without magic), I’ve got Amelia’s luuurve interest, Jakob and, um, that’s it. Liam (who was named by Miranda and, unless she was ripping off Tamora Pierce, not another stolen character) is much like Renée in that he is somewhere between an academic and someone who can whoop ass.
I think that’s it for characters… magic wise, yeah, I definitely borrowed some stuff from Tamora Pierce. But, well, that’s okay since the Tortall magic is pretty common in fantasy lit – born with it, varying degrees of power, study to master, etc, etc. Quite simply, I stole from just about everyone. The magical creatures I certainly borrowed heavily from when I was a kid and, even now, I tend to make it impossible to lie around a gryphon (or something from a gryphon – like a feather) – something I have never found evidence for in any of my admittedly lazy research.
And, well, that’s all I can think of… at the moment. If you know of something else I stole, intentionally or otherwise, from Tamora Pierce, tell me in the comments!