Inspiration from places you've visited

[Alex97]

I just got back from a fun (and slightly tiring) two day walk in the Chiltern Hills and it got me thinking a bit. Just walking through the hills/woodland/fields gave me some inspiration for writing about the countryside in the world in my story. Just wondred if anyone else has got some ideas from places they've been?

 

[Ireth]

I'm not particularly inspired by places I've been; it's the places I want to be that give me the most inspiration. Scotland is one of the places that inspires me most; I'm 1/4 Scottish on my mom's side, so I guess it's in the blood. I've wanted to go there since about as long as I can remember.

 

[Lawfire]

All the time. There is something about being close to nature that gets the mind working (for me). I also enjoy spending time going through scenic pictures. Museums are another great source of inspiration. One of the most interesting/inspirational experiences for me was a mine tour. It is something to experience given the chance. There is dark, then there is deep underground dark...

 

[Alex97]

I know the feeling.. I'm 1/2 Greek and had to wait years before I could go to. The ruins at Knossos for example have given me a lot of ideas. Rome to a lesser extent has also given me inspiration.

 

[topazfire]

Always. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to a dozen or so countries and I find that each experience has had an effect on my writing. Sometimes it is a meal, a phrase, a particular person, or the amazing scenery. The valley where I have set the beginning of my WIP is based on a particular valley in Switzerland that I have spent some time visiting. Of course the castles all over Europe have provided inspiration, especially since the oldest buildings are little more than 200-400 years old in Canada. I am heading to Barbados tomorrow for a few days and hope to find some inspiration there for sure... I'll let you know when I get back

 

[Sheilawisz]

I always find inspiration when I go, with my sister or with friends, to the beautiful forests up in the mountains to the North of my city =)

The trees, the wind, the smell of forests, the high altitude thin and cold air... rowing in a boat at the lake, hiking and camping somehow manage to replenish my creativity and my writing energy reserves, I really love that forest!!

I have always included forests and mountains in my Fantasy world.

 

[Caged Maiden]

In a word? YES!

I'm inspired by places, and I can tell you exactly how:

Driving through the Cascade Range in Washington: I've never felt such loneliness. Just rocks and more rocks. No life for a stretch, just a sheer cliff going up and another going down on the other side of the highway guard rail.

Albuquerque, where I live now: A unique micro-climate. On the west side of town, we get clear skies while fifteen miles away it's pouring down rain because the clouds have to rise above the mountains. we get winds that gust around 80mph and smoke from local wild fires turn the sky magnificent colors on summer evenings.

Southeast Wisconsin, where I grew up right on the lake: A massive wetland with swarms of mosquitoes. I mean, there are so many bugs, you have to spit them out if you're talking with a friend on a walk near a swamp. When camping there, you just pick moths and mayflies off your hotdog and keep eating, hoping to not accidentally eat a bug.

Leicester, England, where my husband grew up: We went for a visit, and I was awed by the architecture, the city center, and the cathedral. The history is so tangible, when you touch those old stones you can almost imagine you are back in history. I find myself putting a lot of that into my towns.

And there are loads more. It isn't just places, but people, things, conversations, etc. I'm inspired by everything around me, and while not every thing I see is inspirational, some things just strike a chord and I keep them in the back of my mind until I need them for a story.

 

[ThinkerX]

Hmmm....

My corner of the woods really is woods. Mile upon mile of birch, cottonwood, and especially spruce trees, with lots of alder and a wide range of brush tossed in for good measure. Lot of hills - all completely tree covered - and a lot of lakes and swamps.
Get just a wee bit out past the towns and rural subdivisions...well...lets just say you can get really, really lost. No people, no roads, trails going nowhere...Makes it a bit difficult to get a good overview because the trees keep getting in the way. Stilll...used to be, I'd drive to the nearby mountains, and take a footpath which climbed all the way to the top of one of them. Not much of a mountain (2500 feet), but the view was truly incredible.

Growing up and living in this type of place has inspired a number of my stories.

 

[TWErvin2]

Places I've visited around Ohio provide ideas and inspiration. I blogged about a specific example not too long ago: Novel Inspiration from Hocking Hills State Park.

Vacationing in Florida gave background for a setting for one of my short stories, "Vegetable Matters." Ideas come from museums, zoos, rivers and lakes, even buildings and towns. Just keep an open eye, and maybe a note pad (I keep an index card or two) in your pocket to jot ideas that strike so that they're not forgotten after the moment. Usually I remember, but there have been a few times where I knew I forgot something.

 

[icewindel]

I've been in Scotland for almost a week now and I'll be staying there for another month and a half. As most of my writing is in medieval settings, my surroundings with all the history, castles, and green is absolutely perfect. I draw inspiration from most of the places I go, so I always carry a note pad or a journal with me where ever I go. England and Scotland have indeed struck a chord through, the countryside is an ideal setting for my writing ^^,

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I actually would like to spend some time in the English countryside, just observing the landscape. One of my weaknesses is in descriptions of things I'm not familiar with; it's hard to say what kinds of things actually catch your attention in such an environment unless you're really there.

 

[Devor]

I've been around. I've seen a lot. Germany, Prague, Copenhagen, Paris, Seoul. A number of places stateside. I've seen some beautiful places.

I don't know why, but I haven't really found it helpful in my writing. If it's surfaced in my work, it's pretty buried. The people have been more helpful than the locations.

I think it's because I try to create settings that are almost a little over-the-top and really very different. Even the one instance where I'm aware that of thinking about a place I've seen looks almost nothing like it.

I do google for paintings and photos which specifically relate to the setting I'm working on, and that's sometimes been helpful.

 

[Chilari]

Leicester, England, where my husband grew up: We went for a visit, and I was awed by the architecture, the city center, and the cathedral. The history is so tangible, when you touch those old stones you can almost imagine you are back in history. I find myself putting a lot of that into my towns.

Leicester is indeed a great place. There's a wooden framed building in the city centre, near the clock tower, which I adore. And on Granby Street there's a old bank (currently empty I believe) opposite the coffee shop I used to meet my writing group in with beautiful brickwork in red and white. I was for sale the whole time I lived in Leicester and we frequently expressed wishes to buy it, if only we had some money. And the Cathedral, almost out of the way down narrow Silver Street, with the Guild Hall. And did you ever notice the wyverns on crests and windvanes? They're hidden all over the place. I love how, in Granby Street, every single shop frontage has different architecture above it from all of the other buildings in the street. You've got such a meld of styles from the last 200+ years.

I miss Leicester. Where I live now is nice enough, and we've got plenty of bits of various periods of history around, but its so hilly and also rather too full of parents.

It was in Leicestershire that one of the real moments of inspiration hit for me, when I went on a field trip with uni to Borough Hill, an iron age hill fort, on a day that was really foggy. The atmosphere, the sense of history, the soggy grass and twisted trees sticking out of the top of the earth bank. Marvelous. That became a haunted hill fort in a story set in a post-iron age society.

I've travelled fairly well enough. France, Italy, Greece, Australia, South Korea. As far as Greece is concerned, I think really I was more inspired by studying it from the safety of the University of Leicester library than I was visiting it. Athens is a dump outside the tourist areas. Delphi is stunning and certainly inspired by choice to study Greece's ancient past, but as far as creative endeavours are concerned, I'd be more likely to be inspired to paint it than write based on it. When I was in South Korea I was really just doing the tourist thing and looking forward to my cousin's wedding - the reason for my visit. The part of France I've been to, where my parents will in fact be by this evening because they're going there on holiday without me, is certainly worthy of inspiration and last time I was there I started working on a story with plenty of gusto, but I am not aware of it getting into any story I've ever written. Not really sure why not, to be honest. I've painted bits of it. I've taken hundreds of photos. I've visited a particular chateu a few times and always been interested. I guess on holiday I'm not really thinking about inspiration, I'm just enjoying the chance to relax (or, come to think of it, arguing with my little brother).

Actually there is one place that has inspired me. Another iron age hill fort, but on rather a higher hill: the Wrekin. I've lived near it since I was 5 and you can see it from loads of places. It's got some beautiful crags at the top, at the south end. I like to think of a dragon perching there.

 

[Robert Donnell]

I have lived all over the world and you bet your sweet bippy that walking down the Karluv Most in spires me. (That is the bridge in Prague.) Surfing in Hawaii, mountain climbing in Washington State, Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, Shopping in Santiago Chele, the Candle shop in Boston's Fanual hall, Talking with fishermen in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. But none of that can get ya like the blow that will hit ya getting your picture on the cover of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

 

[studentofrhythm]

Mountains, always. Especially the ones in Utah-Idaho.

 

[Eeirail]

Oh yes, I have gathered alot of cultural ideas and such from places I have been to, i.e: the Baatara Gorge Waterfall in Lebanon.

 

[Zophos]

I think it's the small details you get from travelling that makes it most valuable. You can imagine all sorts of cultures and places, but actually seeing something strange and different is a real multiplier. People are as much a part of it as scenery or fauna.

...Usually I remember, but there have been a few times where I knew I forgot something.

Nothing irritates me more than having a moment of inspiration and not writing it down. The older I get the more that happens. I'll see something and even think to myself that I should take a note. Then I wind up chasing the kids around or getting distracted and POOF! Gone.

I've been in Scotland for almost a week now and I'll be staying there for another month and a half. As most of my writing is in medieval settings, my surroundings with all the history, castles, and green is absolutely perfect. I draw inspiration from most of the places I go, so I always carry a note pad or a journal with me where ever I go. England and Scotland have indeed struck a chord through, the countryside is an ideal setting for my writing ^^,

Agree. One of the most beautiful places I'ver ever been.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Water is another thing which inspires me. Where I grew up, it was as easy to find as parking your car and walking thirty seconds into a river. Here in New Mexico, we visited Jemez Falls... and oh what a very different experience that was. After a mile hike on a narrow frightening path, we finally neared the river... Twenty feet below down a treacherous climb. My mind reeled at the sheer amount of children playing in it. Had their parents actually allowed them to make the journey? Shows you just how hard it is to find water in some climates, and I freaked out because I'd let my dog off his leash as we walked because I didn't want to fall off the path because he was jerking on the leash. Well when we came to the end of the path and I saw the sheer drop, I freaked. My heart started racing and my hands shaking... my dog was nowhere. Pictures of a furry corpse floating by the kids filled my mind. He'd jumped off piers in the past to get into Lake Michigan when he was much younger. I searched for over a quarter hour and finally found him. Then, just as we were wading into the still, shallow part of the river, looking down over the seventeen foot waterfall, my idiot dog leaned over a little too far and actually DID fall over.

Ah water, you give life but you are dangerous as well. Okay so my dog surfaced after the fall, and paddled back to the bank, but it was about all the fun I could take in one day. However, I wrote that river into a novel, and I am thankful for all the unique little pockets of the world I've seen, because many of them appear in my writing.

 

[studentofrhythm]

Landscapes have always been a very important part of fantasy haven't they? Maybe we should all be taking time to read Wordsworth and Edward Abbey. Maybe there need to be more magic systems that incorporate that universal immediate enchantment that everyone feels being in beautiful places.

 

[SeverinR]

I know the feeling.. I'm 1/2 Greek and had to wait years before I could go to. The ruins at Knossos for example have given me a lot of ideas. Rome to a lesser extent has also given me inspiration.

I was told Greece considers all Greek people to be Greek citizens(no matter where born), all male must serve in the military, so it would be possible for a short stay to turn into a long stay with military service.
You might want to check before you go.

I use the sights of Germany, Greece, Belgium in my works. Nothing specific, but in general. My fantasy is based on Western Europe style.