For the last ~6 years, I’ve been working on a novel (sometimes more actively than other times), and I’ve lost track of how many drafts it’s gone through. But, this book wasn’t born in a vacuum, and I’ve been inspired by quite a few different media.
Here are the top 3 things that inspired my novel.
Spirited Away (Film by Studio Ghibli)
Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen 10-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the spirit world. After her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba’s bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.
I’ve been a lover of Studio Ghibli movies since I was a child. Spirited Away is my absolute favourite and the first inspiration for my novel. If you read my most recent draft, you can pinpoint a few key elements that have made it through all the drafts that are directly drawn from this movie.
If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it.
The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic
by Emily Croy Barker
Nora Fischer’s dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman. During a miserable weekend at a friend’s wedding, Nora wanders off and walks through a portal into a different world where she’s transformed from a drab grad student into a stunning beauty. Before long, she has a set of glamorous new friends and her romance with gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It’s almost too good to be true.
Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora’s new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school. Her only real ally—and a reluctant one at that—is the magician Aruendiel, a grim, reclusive figure with a biting tongue and a shrouded past. And it will take her becoming Aruendiel’s student—and learning magic herself—to survive. When a passage home finally opens, Nora must weigh her “real life” against the dangerous power of love and magic.
As I was working on the very rough first draft of my WIP, I discovered this book at my local bookstore. When I read the back cover, I knew I had to read this. It was the portal fantasy I had to read! It was just similar enough to my own work that it gave me a sprinkle of inspiration, especially how to handle the going through and coming from the portal.
Pstereo by Emilie Nicolas (music video)
I can’t even remember when I discovered this song. But when I saw the music video, the imagery just spoke to me. I’d already had this idea for my WIP, but this helped me visualize it and gave me some much-needed inspiration. And it’s a great song to boot.
Inspiration can come from anywhere, and these are not the only things that have influenced my work, but they are the most impactful.
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Jenna Goldsmith 