Write, write, write

Just as every musical note's been played a countless times, one may well argue that every genre, every scene, every moment and every emotion has been written, too. Just as composers keep finding new variations, new ways of arranging music - we screenwriters do the same with our stories. Just how original are we?

Robert De Niro was once asked about his acting and where he got all his inspirations from. His reply was, as I remember it: "I steal. All the time. I see a bit of great acting, I take it." He explained that this wasn't about copying or imitating. The moment he saw something brilliant, he began to work it until it became a part of him. By doing so, it became a new thing, an original thing, a De Niro thing.

Good Russian Roulette inspiration

That bit of "De Niro" thinking is hugely helpful - because it enables. Everytime the little man in your writer's head looks at what you've just written and annoyingly proclaims "It's been done! That ain't original!" - you can tell him to stuff it. Allowing yourself to take from the creations of others and morphing them into something new is incredibly empowering. It opens up whole worlds for you to pick and choose from. The world of film is your supermarket!

Let's stay with Robert De Niro for a moment. The man may say that he steals - but he's De Niro. He's clearly a man at the very peak of his craft - a master of his trade. So don't think "stealing" is easy - here are the three things that can happen when you do the "stealing" bit:

1. It morphs into something new. You've taken the essence of another film's moment, twist, etc. and, because you've brought it into your world, your characters, with your style/voice, it's unrecognizeable from the original. That is what you want to shoot for.
2. It becomes an homage. You've seen this a million times. A famous moment is incorporated into another film in ways that keep it recognizeable. Some of these work - on a whole, however, try to stay away from those. An homage is an intellectual moment - the audience "gets it" and that moment takes them to a different movie - hence, out of your story, even if only for a moment.
3. It remains a copy. Bad writers will try to sell you those as "homages". But seriously now, if the reader turns up his nose because it reeks of imitation, then it probably is.

So steal, borrow - call it what you will - you're allowed. What you're not allowed to do is copying and imitating. Instead let yourself be inspired by every bit of movie magic out there - some of them may make for THE perfect moment in your own story ... and the beauty, no one will ever care or know where the initial bit of inspiration came from. Because you will have made it your own, with your own spin, your own hopefully inimitable voice.