The Inspirations Behind Fallen Ribbon & A Sneak Peak Quote
Good Morning Readers,
Today brings us into another day for a blog post, and after some tedious rearranging of topics, I decided to delve further into the inspirations that helped produce the first ideas behind my first novel. The funny thing is no one particular thing inspired the story. It was really a concoction of various mediums that I’ve grown up around and therefore grew fond of. In my first post, I mentioned the very first inspiration for Fallen Ribbon’s concept was an album by an indie artist I listened to, Kill Hannah, specifically the album “Until There’s Nothing Left of Us”. Today, I still find that album so inspiring and epic, it’s very beautifully written as is the rest of their music.
That was in 2009 that I first heard Kill Hannah and I proceeded to become more and more influenced by various other artists such as 30 Seconds To Mars, Celldweller, and a lot of soundtracks. Different pieces by these artists influenced different aspects of the story and I would go through phases of listening to one group over and over again, writing down the ideas that were being brought to life by the melodies in my head. Ironically, I think in terms of imagery instead of words, I’m a very visual kind of thinker, so it’s always been somewhat of a struggle to get those images in my head out onto a piece of paper in the form of words that makes sense.
Music hasn’t been the only source of inspiration; however, I’ve taken a lot of ideas from shows; live action and anime, movies, books, and even dreams. As a part of being a visual oriented thinker, I also have incredibly vivid dreams. It is annoying though to have a vivid dream that could be a really great idea for a story and then not have the time or the means to jot the idea down before it inevitably slips away from my conscious mind. Often, I find myself thinking incessantly about the dream in the hopes of not forgetting what it was. Some stick better than others and I get that opportunity to write it down eventually, but a lot of ideas have definitely gotten lost in the depths of my truly buttery mind.
Some shows that truly played a part in inspiring Fallen Ribbon; The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, for sure. Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse played a big role in some ideas I have for later in the series. Not so much the show itself, but the soundtrack of Game of Thrones has definitely gotten the creative juices flowing from time to time. Same with the Lord of the Rings movies and soundtracks. I don’t have the mental capacity to create a high fantasy world like those two stories, but their epic motifs and deliveries do contribute to getting me motivated and thinking. Fallen Ribbon wasn’t heavily inspired by many movies, but some of the books that have contributed to it are the Wicked Lovely series, Vampire Academy, Impossible, Blood & Chocolate, Looking for Alaska, and many others.
I don’t like to seek out my muse in one sole concept, I prefer to take bits and pieces of various medias that evoke a certain level of emotional response to awaken my ideas. I think I owe that to the fact that I have too many interests for me to keep up with any of them consistently. There will be times when all I am doing is watching shows and wont touch movies, or I will listen to Critical Role podcasts and not touch any music for a long time. The unfortunate part about that is that I don’t necessarily get to choose what mood I am in, it just sort of happens when I will drop an interest for a long time and not touch it until I have very likely cycled through my many other interests.
Usually when writing makes its way back into the cycle again, I try to utilize what feels like the little time I have with it. The timeframe in which I feel inspired to write often feels fleeting so I have to take advantage of it to the best of my ability so I can get as much out of the creative production as possible. At times it can be frustrating because of how fleeting the inspiration is, but if I get something down, I have no choice but to be satisfied with what I’ve managed to accomplish in what little time I did have with it.
Right now, my inspiration is coming from the show Attack on Titan. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack nonstop and have been watching it with my son on his first watch through. He actually made a comment about Eren Yeager about twenty episodes into saying, “Of course Eren isn’t dead, he can’t die, he’s got plot armor!” Oh, if only you knew, my sweet winter child. But that did inspire me, also in thanks to Game of Thrones, to make the decision that none of my characters would be protected by “Plot Armor”. I apologize in advance to anyone who may become attached to certain characters in my story, if they die, it was meant to be. A small insider into Fallen Ribbon in relation to its inspirations, one of my characters was actually heavily influenced, later in development, by Attack On Titan. Below, I have included a quote from the book as a quick snippet into the story.
“Straight ahead, Geordie found Matt sitting at the bar, drinking a dark cocktail while deep in thought. Before he could take notice of her, Geordie took a moment to try to read his thoughts. It was difficult for her to get a sense of what he was thinking, she couldn’t get much of a reading except that he was worried his vampire friend was avoiding him.
She approached him warily as she felt Matt’s emotions and mind screaming in anger and frustration. They were so strong, and intense, it was impossible to ignore the pain Matt’s emotions were sending through her head. She couldn’t help but hurt from his hurting.”
To find out more about Fallen Ribbon ahead of its launch, check out my social medias and subscribe to my website tiaravasquez.com! Make sure to order your copy of Fallen Ribbon, exclusively on Amazon at the end of the Summer 2024! Thanks for reading!
