remotefiction

Under The Influence

What are you influences? It’s a question we’ll all have heard writers asked, and sometimes they aren’t conscious of it, sometimes they are. Sometimes it’s everything, sometimes it’s nothing. Why does it matter?

Because, whether we like it or not, they shape us, they inspire us, they form us. Whether it’s consciously or obviously, such that we are writing tributes, parodies or rip offs of our one favourite author. Or whether its scraps for the stew, the melting pot of eclectic references, something that can only perhaps be seen in a nuanced phrase here or there, by someone squinting with a magnifying glass and a thesis to write.

For China Mieville, part of the influence for writing Perdido Street Station’s cactus people was to give Tolkein the finger. While Richard Morgan, who I saw speaking at the weekend, was influenced to write Altered Carbon after reading Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy, and being frustrated that the material that followed didn’t have the same edge.

Talking about his influences Morgan went from Neuromancer to The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, I wonder where I find myself, when in the same conversation I’d just as likely go from Neuromancer to Chungking Express. I suspect that is one of the factors I am trying to reconcile at the moment, wary of knocking out sub-cyberpunk pulp (which is a comment on me, not Altered Carbon, which I enjoyed), or on the other hand going for character drama that degenerates into soap opera.

A number of the short pieces I’ve written have been influenced by the classics, and I know it, I can see it. Adventures influenced by Gateway, Roadside Picnic, The Stars My Destination, The Eternal Champion, The Call of Cthuhlu. But, especially recently, I’m thinking about some more of those influences like Chungking Express, Asian film and comics, with people eating noodles, drinking tea, and chattering about things that are important to them.

Of course, even then, you need some kind of plot to drive the idea along. In Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 we have the combination of science fiction scenes, excerpts from the novel the main character is writing, based on the hotel room number he has, mixed with his own womanizing ways. Or say Won Ton Soup, where a master chef throws it all away to become a space trucker, so he can travel the known worlds in search of the best won ton soup ever.

So what is my plot? What influences are driving me the most? And how do I get my head round the mechanics of those?