My Biggest Creative Influences

I started thinking recently about what works had the biggest influence on my story-telling.
Here they are. A combination of books, movies, and games.


Studio Ghibli is a given.
I hope to be able to write the way Miyazaki makes movies.
I grew up with Totoro and Kiki. His films have been part of my life forever. I love that you can love the films, no matter how old you are.
And I love how detailed and alive and gorgeous they are.


There's an old computer game called The Longest Journey. I was super into that game during middle school.
In that game, you travel back and forth between two worlds. The main character lives in a futuristic world called Stark. She can travel to a fantasy world called Arcadia. The cultures they developed in that game are amazing.
That game is probably the reason that I have multiple worlds. I have three separate worlds, on different planes of existence. They are like sister planets that exist on different dimensions. It is possible (though very difficult) for people to travel between the three worlds.


The Immortals is a four-book series by Tamora Pierce.
While I was reading that, I was blown away by the idea that someone could have magic that let them talk to animals and turn into animals.
That idea lead to a character who was the predecessor of Fern.
Fern's magic has changed a lot since then, but she can still talk to animals and turn into animals @_@


In middle school, I saw the first X-Men movie.

I was immediately hooked on it. Even more so when the second movie came out.
Fern first developed as my own X-Men character. She started as a side character, and then she grew from there.
I wrote out an entire X-Men fanfic starring Fern. Which I've never shared with people, and never will because of the sucky writing. Plus I'm sure the plots would interest no one besides me.

In Middle school (wow, a lot of my influences are from middle school. I guess that makes sense, since that's when I started doing a lot of writing), I stumbled across a short story called The Smallest Dragonboy.
It was a short story from the Dragonriders of Pern series.
That short story got me hooked on dragons. I even started designing my own dragon story, which was basically a knockoff of the Pern world.
My dragon society has evolved a lot since then. But there are still some similarities, like the different varieties of dragons. And the telepathy thing, although I didn't get the idea of "thought Speech" from Pern.

Speaking of Thought Speech (AKA telepathy) that became a major part of my stories because of a book called Kinship With All Life.



So far, all of these have had clear influences on my writing. The following are not so clear. I can't point to anything specific that these have lead to. But I think that their existence has been an influence on my creativity.


Pokemon. The idea of traveling with fascinating creatures. Training them, bonding with them, fighting evil, and catching them all.


Harry Potter did influence one of my older stories. But that story needs to be trashed and redone from the ground up.
Still, it's a great inspiration for creating magic worlds.

The book Watership Down has been one of my favorite books since I read it in middle school. I want to read it again.
The way he developed the culture, mythology, and society of rabbits is amazing.


I feel like Star Wars (mostly episodes 4-6, but also 1-3) must have had some impact on my story stuff.
Probably Legend of Zelda too.

Maximum Ride (which I read in high school) is the reason Fern became so reliant on her wings.

The movie Atlantis. I watched it over and over when it was in theaters. I bought a bunch of magazines that talked about the culture of Atlantis, as well as bios of all the awesome characters.


I'm pretty sure Steven Universe has become a new one. If nothing else, it gives me a drive to create (a lot of things do that, depending on surrounding circumstances).
But Steven Universe does have great characters. And I love how the people of Beach City are so accepting.