Desi
asked
Mark Lawrence:
Hi Mark :) As you can see from my reviews I'm a huge fan of your books :) Anyways my question is more writing related. What books were you inspired by, if there are any? And if you were inspired by certain characters or a certain book as a whole and want to write something in that direction, how do you avoid basically ripping off whoever created that story in the first place?
Mark Lawrence
I'm sure I'm indirectly inspired by many books. In the Broken Empire trilogy though Jorg's character is directly inspired by that of Alex in Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. And in The Red Queen's War Jalan's character is directly inspired by that of Flashman in the eponymous book by George MacDonald Fraser.
Your question seems a little confused between story and character, but the answer to how to avoid ripping off a character is two-fold. First, why avoid it? Second, 'character' at this level simply means a handful of adjectives. For Jorg perhaps "young, brilliant, charming, amoral, violent" for Jalan perhaps "cowardly, idle, lecherous, untrustworthy, amusing". I doubt anyone owns the rights to any given combination of five adjectives as applied to a character.
Your question seems a little confused between story and character, but the answer to how to avoid ripping off a character is two-fold. First, why avoid it? Second, 'character' at this level simply means a handful of adjectives. For Jorg perhaps "young, brilliant, charming, amoral, violent" for Jalan perhaps "cowardly, idle, lecherous, untrustworthy, amusing". I doubt anyone owns the rights to any given combination of five adjectives as applied to a character.
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