There’s little new under the sun. Everything is a remix. As writers, we like to think our work is wholly original. But let’s be honest. All creative writing builds upon what came before it. Even the most innovative stories contain elements and ideas that the author over a lifetime was inspired by or outright borrowed from others.
The key is to steal wisely as a writer – to take existing concepts and put your own unique spin on them. Follow this three-step framework for effective remixing in your writing:
- Study source material you enjoy to closely to identify specific aspects to borrow. Make sure you understand the context.
- Extract the elements that appeal to you or support your goals. Don’t just copy verbatim. Be intentional.
- Transform the borrowed elements by modifying, combining and recontextualizing. Add your own flair, your extensions, your new ideas.
All writers absorb influence from the world around them. You can take inspiration from the tone of a novel, the pacing of a movie, or the imagery used in a poem. Combine and rework these elements into something new.
For example, you could:
- Use a Shakespearean soliloquy as inspiration for a monologue, modifying the language to be more modern.
- Borrow storytelling techniques from folklore when crafting a fantasy saga, putting your own twist on the archetypes.
- Adapt the fragmented style of modernist poetry when writing song lyrics.
The most innovative writers stand on the shoulders of those who came before them. As Austin Kleon says, “Nothing is completely original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.” So don’t be afraid to openly steal – just be sure to transform and recontextualize rather than completely copy.
Study writing you admire and incorporate aspects into your own voice and vision. There are endless possibilities if you steal thoughtfully and fearlessly to fuel your creativity. By skillfully pilfering from the world around you, you can develop stories that feel uniquely your own. We do it all the time.
Some may argue this remixing approach borders on plagiarism. But there is an important distinction. Plagiarism is passing off someone else’s work in its entirety as your own. Strategic stealing involves taking select elements of a work and transforming them into something new through your personal creative lens. It’s about synthesizing a wide range of influences, not duplicating a single source. You put your own identifiable stamp on the end result.
Of course, you still need to credit your sources where appropriate. But influence and inspiration are not the same as plagiarism. Borrowing sparks of creativity from the world around you to generate innovative new writing is fair game and legal. As Pablo Picasso famously stated, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Masterful stealing will make you a better, more original writer.
Chatbots like Bard, ChatGPT and Claude can actually help facilitate this remix process and stimulate creative thinking to improve your writing. Here are five tips for putting chatbots to work as your creative muse:
- Use them to brainstorm fresh ideas by describing a vague prompt and letting the chatbot riff on possibilities.
- Ask them to rework a piece of writing in a radically different style or genre. The new perspective may spark inspiration.
- Request examples of compelling imagery, metaphors, dialogue, etc. that you can borrow and rework.
- Have them recombine elements from multiple sources into an original outline or draft you can develop further.
- Ask for critiques of your writing to identify weak spots and areas for improvement you may not have noticed.
Chatbots won’t write the full piece for you, but they can assist at the ideation stage and provide seeds of inspiration through unique remixing. Don’t be afraid to steal any intriguing suggestions they propose! With practice, you’ll develop skills to remix writing on your own in innovative ways.
In fact, this whole blog post was co-authored by me and Claude based on some insights I took away from this article: Stealing Your Way to Original Designs! Matt Ragland‘s newsletter this morning pointed me to that article and made the initial connection. While reading it I was reminded of Austin Kleon’s earlier work “Steal Like an Artist”. Then I engaged Claude to help me draft this post. All in all, it took me about 10 minutes to write.
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