12 Inspiring Prompts for Writers: Day 5
DAY FIVE—Authors/artists you admire & what can you learn from them?
Welcome back to day five of prompts! Today we’re looking at creators we admire. Who are authors (or artists) whose work you admire? What skills do they highlight? What is it that they do that you find so impressive? What can you learn from them, and how they work?
For me, a perennial favorite is Martha Wells. Everybody knows her for the Murderbot series, which is science fiction, but I love, love, love her Raksura series, which is fantasy, and I try to tell everyone about it. Starting with The Cloud Roads, the Raksura series is a second world fantasy that just feels wildly realistic. Wells, who has a BA in anthropology, builds her worlds without the constraints of our world’s history, or capitalism, creating a lush world that is wholly her own. I can just tell that she cares about the art and architecture and culture of the worlds that she creates. They are so textured, I feel like I can taste the humidity. Oh, and even N. K. Jemisin recommends them! If I could study her worldbuilding and take that to heart, I definitely would.
Another author I’ve been impressed with is Roshani Chokshi. She wrote Aru Shah and the End of Time, which is a middle grade, but also The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, for adults, and I was so impressed with this range of capability. This is a gal who can write. And Flower Bride is such a book-lover’s book. Similar to Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Chokshi's Flower Bride is a book that revels in the love of storytelling. It hums with it. And her knowledge of mythology is vast, crossing international cultures—Aru Shah was based on the Mahabharata of Hindu mythology, and The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a weaving of western fairytales into something modern and canny. The prose, too, is gorgeously lyrical. She’s a genius. I want to study her words and how she’s using them. How she interweaves mythology into her storytelling.
When it comes to film, Chris Columbus, Steve Kloves, and John Williams have put together some of my favorite work. Their inspired worlds create an ambiance of awe and wonder, especially for children. I want to create that in my stories, so perhaps I could look to these works to give insight as to how wonder is created on the big screen, which perhaps I could adapt to prose. Like, why is Home Alone so whimsical? Why is it so sweet? What are these three artists doing within their medium to create that sense of wonder and awe? And, since I’m working on a MG fantasy in a world of musical spellcasters, perhaps listening to John Williams, and paying attention specifically to what his music is doing—how it’s moving, the changes in volume, the instruments used—could give me insight on how to describe a world based around music in my own work.
Which artists inspire you? What techniques are they using that you could bring into your own work?