The Anxiety of Influence: When Writers Steal (and Why It’s a Good Thing)

There’s a particular kind of fear that lurks in the mind of every writer: the fear of being unoriginal. The dread that everything they write is just an echo of something greater that came before. That they are, knowingly or not, standing on the bones of other writers, borrowing their phrasing, their rhythms, their insights. This fear is not new. In fact, it has a name: The Anxiety of Influence, a term coined by literary critic Harold Bloom. He argued that all writers wrestle with their predecessors, sometimes to the point of paralysis. But what if, instead of resisting influence, we embraced it? What if theft in literature isn’t just inevitable, but necessary?

Nothing is Original (and That’s a Relief)

Creativity is often painted as a lightning strike—a divine spark of originality. But in reality, no book, no poem, no idea emerges from a vacuum. Literature is a long conversation, stretching across centuries, with each writer responding to those who came before them. Shakespeare lifted plots from older works. T.S. Eliot famously said, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal.” Even modern novels, no matter how groundbreaking they seem, are built on inherited structures, tropes, and themes.

Recognizing this doesn’t diminish great writing. If anything, it should be freeing. If no one is truly original, then the task of the writer shifts: instead of trying to create something completely new, the goal is to rework, reinterpret, and remix old ideas into something that feels fresh. Influence, rather than being a source of anxiety, becomes a foundation.

The Writers Who Wrote Through Their Influences

Some of the most celebrated writers built their careers on the work of others. James Joyce’s Ulysses is a reimagining of The Odyssey. Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea is a response to Jane Eyre, giving voice to the silenced “madwoman in the attic.” Borges, always one step ahead, turned the anxiety of influence into art itself, writing stories about books that didn’t even exist, as if to say: if all writing is theft, why not invent the sources too?

Even Simone de Beauvoir, whose She Came to Stay inspired one of your fragrances, drew from real life, shaping her semi-autobiographical novel around her relationship with Sartre and the third person in their love triangle. Is that influence or theft? Maybe both.

The Fine Line Between Inspiration and Imitation

Of course, influence has its limits. There’s a difference between borrowing and outright mimicry. The best writers don’t copy; they distort, reshape, and expand on what they take. Influence should be transformative, not derivative. The goal isn’t to rewrite The Great Gatsby but to take the themes—class, obsession, reinvention—and bring them into new, unexpected contexts.

The real problem isn’t stealing; it’s refusing to acknowledge what you’ve stolen. The best writers recognize their influences, engage with them, challenge them. They don’t let the fear of being unoriginal stop them from writing. They lean into it.

Stealing Like a Writer

Instead of worrying about being influenced, writers should ask: What am I stealing, and how can I make it mine? The anxiety of influence only becomes paralyzing when we pretend we’re alone in the creative process. Once we accept that writing is always in conversation with other writing, the pressure to be “original” disappears. What matters is not where you take from, but where you take it to.

In the end, every writer is a thief. The best ones just steal better.