A golden ring has the power to turn its owner invisible, but at a great peril to his soul.Sound familiar? Well I bet you're wrong on the source! It's a 2 pages parable from the over 2 millennia old
Plato, The Republic. It's about an ancient (by even Plato's standards…) shepherd in Lydia who found a magic golden ring that could grant him invisibility. The deprived shepherd abused the ring's power to slay Lydia's king, take his wife and usurp his throne. Now Tolkien forged his brilliant
Lord of the Rings epic inspired by that ring concept --and don't get me wrong, I've nothing against Tolkien here-- that's a great legitimate way to get inspiration! I mean if the great Tolkien did it… it's OK!
Actually it's ok even if he hadn't.
Reading is essential for inspiration! Not to mention it's essential for writing too. In fact if you don't read, don't write. Also write in order to learn how to read… but that's a whole different discussion. To get back to the point, the value of Tolkien's work is not in the initial ring idea. Tolkien was hardly the first man to have read Plato. He was however the first one to put all the hard work and research into building
HIS specific fantasy setting and then writing
HIS timeless books.
Even though this blog intends to aid you in getting your story idea,
ideas are cheap. What matters is how much work you put into them.
I will prove this to you in the end by giving you out my next story's idea!
Wow, what is this guy crazy?! Yes he is… but among other things he also knows there's a HUGE gap between a starting idea and an actual story. So if you find the discipline to do all the work before me and beat me to it, well… you have yourself a "free story"!
You can read the rest of the blog on this
[link]
Sta.sh
Poly wraia gallery! 
