Why the Most Original Writers Are Usually the Most Influenced
Every new writer wants to be original.
They want a voice nobody has heard before. They want ideas nobody has seen before. They want stories that feel entirely their own.
So they avoid influence.
They avoid reading too much.
They avoid studying their favorite authors. They avoid learning from writers they admire because they’re afraid of becoming copies.
At first glance, this sounds reasonable.
But it creates a strange problem.
The people who obsess over originality often produce work that feels familiar.
Meanwhile, the writers producing the most distinctive work are usually students of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of influences.
That’s the paradox.
Originality is rarely born from isolation.
More often, it emerges from deep exposure.
Influence Is Not the Enemy
Every writer is influenced by something.
Every single one.
From the books you read. The stories your parents told you. The films you watched growing up. The music that played in the background of your life.
The conversations you remember.
The heartbreaks you never forgot.
All of it leaves fingerprints. The question isn’t whether you’re influenced. The question is whether you’re aware of those influences.
Many writers treat influence like contamination.
As if reading too much will somehow damage their originality.
The opposite is usually true.
A writer who refuses to be influenced often ends up recycling ideas they believe are unique because they lack awareness of the traditions that came before them.
You can’t transcend what you don’t understand.
You can’t innovate inside a craft you’ve never studied.
Every great writer belongs to a lineage.
The difference is that great writers transform their influences rather than hide from them.
Taste Is the Real Creative Skill
Two writers can read the exact same books.
One creates something forgettable.
The other creates something unforgettable.
Why?
Taste.
Taste is one of the least discussed skills in creativity. It’s your ability to recognize what resonates with you and why. It’s your ability to separate what feels meaningful from what feels empty.
It’s the filter through which influence passes.
I’ve noticed this across almost everything I do.
Writing.
Music.
Software development.
Two people can consume the exact same information.
One copies it.
The other absorbs it, reshapes it, and turns it into something personal.
The difference isn’t intelligence.
It’s taste.
Influence enters through exposure.
Originality emerges through selection.
Beginners Copy What They Can See
One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is copying surface traits.
They see the visible parts of great work.
They miss the deeper mechanics underneath.
A writer reads Hemingway. They notice the short sentences. They imitate the short sentences. Then they wonder why their writing doesn’t feel like Hemingway.
Because the sentence length was never the point.
The real lesson was precision.
The same thing happens everywhere. A writer copies dialogue. A songwriter copies melodies. A developer copies code.
They imitate the outcome without understanding the reasoning.
Surface traits are easy to duplicate.
Principles are harder. The writer who studies principles grows. The writer who studies appearances gets stuck.
There Are No New Stories
This realization scares some writers.
It should free them instead.
Most stories revolve around the same themes humanity has explored for centuries.
Love.
Loss.
Power.
Fear.
Belonging.
Identity.
Redemption.
Sacrifice.
The themes rarely change. What changes is perspective. Two writers can write about grief. One story feels generic. The other feels profound.
Not because grief is new.
Because the perspective is new.
Nobody else has lived your exact life.
Nobody else has your specific collection of failures, successes, obsessions, insecurities, interests, contradictions, and experiences.
That’s where originality lives.
Not in inventing new human emotions.
In expressing familiar emotions through a unique lens.
Music Taught Me This Lesson
As a songwriter and producer, I’ve seen this principle play out repeatedly.
Every artist studies other artists.
Every producer studies other producers.
Nobody starts from zero. Nobody creates in a vacuum. The artists with the strongest identities aren’t the ones pretending they have no influences.
They’re the ones who deeply understand their influences.
They know exactly what they love.
They know exactly what they don’t. They borrow ideas. They reject others. Over time, those decisions accumulate into a distinct voice.
A producer isn’t trying to become their favorite artist.
They’re trying to understand the choices behind the music.
Writers should approach literature the same way. Study decisions. Study principles. Study perspective.
Don’t study imitation.
Programmers Understand This Better Than Writers
Software development offers another useful example.
Every developer learns from existing code.
Every developer studies frameworks, patterns, and systems created by someone else. That’s normal. In fact, that’s expected.
Nobody criticizes a programmer for learning from experienced developers.
The goal isn’t memorization.
The goal is understanding.
Beginners copy solutions.
Experienced developers understand principles.
Once they understand the principles, they can build something entirely their own.
Writing works the same way.
The strongest writers don’t memorize techniques.
They internalize ideas.
Then they apply those ideas through their own perspective.
The Real Threat to Originality
Influence isn’t what destroys originality.
Shallow imitation does.
There’s a difference.
Influence asks:
“What principle can I learn from this?”
Imitation asks:
“How can I make mine look like theirs?”
One creates growth. The other creates dependency. One develops voice. The other delays it.
The goal isn’t to avoid influence.
The goal is to move beyond it.
To absorb it so completely that it becomes part of your creative DNA.
At that point, nobody can separate your influences from your identity.
They become the same thing.
The Potential Paradox
Many writers spend years trying to sound unlike everyone else.
Ironically, that pursuit often makes them sound exactly like everyone else.
The writers who become truly original take a different path. They read widely. They study deeply. They learn from masters. They borrow principles. They steal insights.
Then they filter everything through their own experiences.
Originality isn’t the absence of influence.
It’s what happens when influence passes through a unique perspective.
The paradox is simple:
The writers most afraid of influence often create the most derivative work.
The writers willing to learn from everyone eventually become impossible to copy.
One thing I’ve appreciated about your content is how often you challenge common assumptions. Recently you’ve questioned assumptions about memory, assumptions about villains, assumptions about effort, assumptions about AI and now assumptions about originality. There’s a recurring theme running through all of it: what feels obvious is often incomplete. This newsletter is another reminder that creativity isn’t about avoiding influence. It’s about understanding it deeply enough to transform it into something personal. Thank you Idris for giving me and the rest of the community the tools to take our creative lives to the next level!
This made me think about learning dance with my daughter. In the beginning I was so focused on getting the moves right that I didn’t realize how much I was learning just by watching other dancers. Over time certain things clicked, not because I copied anyone but because I understood what felt natural for me. Reading your newsletters has taught me that growth often comes from exposure first and confidence later. Thank you Idris Elijah for the informative and encouraging content!