Find Inspiration In Your Creative Family Tree

Think like your creative heroes to find untapped creativity

A lot of art I find online is the same. A copy of a copy of a copy. There’s no personality. It’s just so… boring.

But there are some pieces of art that jump off the page. These creations that I can’t help but share. And when I find someone creating things like that on a consistent basis, he or she becomes an influence.

So, who are your influences?

Do you know? If not, it’s worth thinking about it. I recommend you pull out a piece of paper and just think about it for a minute and jot a few down.

Figure out who influenced you the most and then you can even start to see connections.

You might think you have tons of influences, but you can really narrow it down quite fast.

If you were to ask me one of my influences, I’d say Chuck Palahniuk.

But in order to think like him and not just rip him off, I need to climb his creative tree. Let’s use him as an example. One of Chuck’s biggest influences is Amy Hempel. And Edgar Allan Poe. Denis Johnson too. I recommend that you pick up his book Jesus’ Son if you’ve never read it. And even modern writer Donald Ray Pollock. You might have heard of Don’s new movie Devil All The Time on Netflix that is getting some rave reviews. It’s sooooo dark but also sooooo good.

I have to mention Nami Mun too. Her work is great as well, and I remember Chuck mentioning her in a recent interview. It’s probably some of the best prose I’ve read in years. I break down some of her work in detail this post.

Next, take your influences and those who influenced them and blend them together. You can’t help but be more creative.

You can’t help but be inspired. And it all comes from love, so it’s pure.

I’m not saying you want to copy something directly — that’s plagiarism. Rather, you want to create an homage. You want to honor those other creators.

Chuck is great about this. He mentions Amy Hempel in most of his interviews. He tells everyone to read her (as well as many of the other writers mentioned above).

Art is not a competition, it’s a collaboration.

Digging Deeper

So how does this apply to you? You must know your influences. What books stand out to you? What movies stand out? What poems stand out? You might even figure out some of your influences by taking a closer look at your own work.

I remember picking up an Elmore Leonard book years ago at the library. I was reading it and I thought to myself…Wow, I could have wrote this! It sounds a lot like me!

The amazing thing is I’ve never read Elmore Leonard before. But I’ve always been a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s first screenplay, True Romance. In one Tarantino interview he said, “True Romance is my Elmore Leonard movie.”

Interesting. As you can imagine, this connected some dots in my own creative family tree.

The point is this: to think like your creative heroes, you need to figure out who inspired them.

If you ever find yourself stuck — and you absolutely will at some point — just look to your creative family tree.

You can even ask some of those influences for help. How would Edgar Allan Poe handle this problem? How would ________ solve this problem?

You probably know the answer, once you start to think like those artists. And that’s the key. Most people don’t dig deep like this. You’re reverse engineering how your favorite art was created. And that makes you dangerous, and creative.

So dig into your creative family tree. Do you know who falls on it? Who inspires you the most?

Want to know how you can blog, write a book, and build a platform at the same time? I’ll show you in a helpful mini-guide here.

Jim Woods is a writer who believes stories can change the world. He is the creator and founder of StoryCrafting.