Your Major Literary Influence

[GOLLUM]

OK folks I'm retiring for the evening but before I depart I thought I'd ask:

Q1) Who is the single major literary influence for those of you who profess to be aspiring writers?

Now I know most of you will want to answer this by qouting mulitple authors but I want you to name your single biggest influence.

Q2) Also as a followup is there an author whose style or prose you particularly admire but because you wish not to be classified as a "clone" or overly influenced by them in reality attempt to write in a different style in order to be more unique or original? I ask this because I know people who are this way inclined and was interested to see what responses I would get from members here.

Bye for now....

[knivesout]

Should this be moved to the Aspiring Writers board?

1. Douglas Adams. I'll rarely admit it because it's so basic I tend to overlook it, but Adams is a background influence on the fact that I write at all. I simply love the mix of intellect and the absurd. He was throwing mythical characters into anachronistic modern-day settings long before Neil Gaiman, in his Dirk Gently books, and the Hitchhiker's books stand as one of the most smart, witty and irreverant books ever written.

I don't know that I've ever written like Adams, at least not unless I was attempting an out-and-out pastiche, but I think the whole notion that you can write stuff that's intelligent and funny and disturbs reality all at the same time really appeals to me as something to aspire to.

I know you just said one writer, but other writers in whom I see the same qualities include Fritz Leiber, Jeff VanderMeer, Italo Calvino, Neil Gaiman, and even Umberto Eco at times.

2. Probably HP Lovecraft. It would be to easy to churn out Lovecraft-pastiche, but too difficult to do so with any pretensions to merit. I've also had to nip potentially Mievesque tendancies in the bud, not least because I just don't have the same instinct for real darkness, and it would seem like a pale insipid rip-off.

[Teresa Edgerton]

One of those questions the answer to which undoubtedly requires far more self-knowledge and soul-searching than I am capable of summoning up at this particular time ... so I'll settle for naming the earliest:

L. Frank Baum

[Thadlerian]

1: Certainly Ursula K. LeGuin. She has a talent for writing long stories in short books, like in Earthsea, but most of all for creating characters that I percieve as realistic. There is a peaceful minimalism over most of her writing that I find inspiring, and which I try to reflect in my own stories.

2: Terry Pratchett. His humour is great, but if I started writing like that, the influence would be very obvious.

[Brys]

Two very different questions, and its changing a lot over time. Being honest, I'd have to say:
1) Steven Erikson. His talent at writing an epic fantasy series which was actually epic really inspired me initially. The focus of the novel I'm writing is military, but slightly closer in style to Erikson than Cook. But it's very difficult to say there's just one influence - if you only read the second part of my novel, which I'm writing at the moment, you'd probably say that my main influences were from New Weird, with Harrison, or Mieville, or Vandermeer or Peake etc, not Erikson, but there's a general underlying influence of Erikson, as the actual existence of this different section suggests.

2) Plenty of potentials I avoid here, but not so much with those whose prose I admire the most - Mervyn Peake, Italo Calvino, China Mieville, M John Harrison, Jeff Vandermeer, Clark Ashton Smith - those kind of authors. But I know I can't write anything like as well as them. So I don't try and limit myself to conciously avoiding writing like them, because that's what I do naturally. I occasionally may write in a similar style, but that'll be because the atmosphere demands it, and even at my best I can't use the same kind of language as them. Those whose prose I still admire, but not quite as much but have also influenced me include Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber and Roger Zelazny - here I do try to make sure that I'm not writing too similarly to them, because it's a danger. Still not regular, but there are a few occasions in which I need to watch out.

Generally, the problem for me is just making a sentence sound good - if it feels right to me, it's not hugely important if it's in the style of another author - it will be. There are so many varieties of style, you're almost certain to fall into one of them, but each author is individual, unless you're deliberately trying to copy another. The problem isn't with style or prose, but with ideas, plots, characters and scenes - that's where you've got to make sure you're original.

[Smezdoodle]

For question one, I'd have to say Melanie Rawn. I'm not very..wide-read, but when I read the Dragon Prince trilogy and the trilogy that came after, I was amazed. The way she does character development was amazing, and it made me think more about how the personalities of characters are important. It probably influenced me the most.

For the second, I'm not really sure. I can't really compare myself to any author at the moment. I guess I'd have to say Robert Jordan, though. It's not really his style, its more his plot ideas. I've seen lots of books that have that general outline, the farmboy destined for greatness and such, fulfilling prophecies. It's easy, at least for me, to end up with that kind of story.

[GOLLUM]

OK to answer my own questions:
1). JRR Tolien. Why you may ask? Well because he was the first major fantasy author I came across apart form Ursula K LeGuin (whom I consider the better writer BTW) and what probably got me started on my inevtibale love affair with EPIC fantasy.

2). Definitely Steven Erikson not that I could ever hope to write like him in terms of plot development if I tried. I do however admire the prose of writers like Janny Wurts, Italo Calvino, Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, China Mieville etc.. and do try to imbue my writing with their influences but more because I happen to enjoy that style of prose and I deliberately write in a similar manner to what I enjoy reading from such authors.

[MoonLover]

1. Tolkien - Not only because of the scope of the more popular works, but also I admire the whole created world and mythology behind them. He was the first author I'd read who had gone to such lengths.

2. Probably Robin Hobb - I would love to create such characters as she has done, and you know, no matter how hard I try and avoid using her themes and style, it still creeps in!

Karen

[tonic]

1) Martin Amis

2) Martin Amis and John Irving

I just think they can tell stories like no other people can tell stories...except maybe the classics like Dostoyevsky or Dickens.

That was for general fiction. I don't think it would change for Fantasy, but if I had to pick Fanatasy authors, I would probably end up pickinng Robin Hobb and George RR Martin.

[Marky Lazer]

Q1) I started writing because of Chuck Palaniuk, but his writing doesn't look anything like mine.

Q2) Not really. I admire Max Barry, because his satire about cooperations is both funny and clever. But I can't make my writing as clever as his, so I don't need to be afraid of being a clone.

[I, Brian]

Moved to Aspiring Writers...

As for the questions - personally, I use Frank Herbert's "Dune" as a template for writing my science fiction work (fantasy has been on hold for years).

The reason being is that Dune is not simply a good novel, it is also a very technically accomplished novel, in my opinion.

When you read "How to write" books, you can plainly see a lot of what they are teaching about can be illustrated by Dune.

One strength that immediately comes to mind is the juxtaposition of internal character conflicts to drive tension - this is especially well done for the first few chapters until the Harkonnens take Arrakis.

[polymorphikos]

For 1, there are so many, but probably Borges. He's the one author who basically showed me the possibilities lying within any genre, and how I might go about trying to incorporate my own personal fascinations into my writing. Probably more a signpost than a template.

As for someone I'd love to copy but daren't, maybe Ian Fleming. But less because I know I'd be obvious in my copying, than because i don't think I could pull it off.

I all honesty I'm very scatter-brained in my influences, though.

[Jeremy]

My major literary influences:
1) Leo Tolstoy, who taught me to use simple, straightforward language
2) Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov was one of very few books that brought tears to my eyes as I read them. I have strived to achieve the same emotional impact in my own novel (but of course falling far short).

[ravenus]

Although my "writings" have never extended beyond stuff circulated amongst close friends I can say I feel some similarity with the style of Indian writers like Vilas Sarang (a brilliant horror writer, sadly OOP and doomed to obscurity) and R.K. Narayan. Having read Murakami, his freeflow conversation style and casual depiction of fantastic events in his characters' lives is also something that lurks in the back of my mind when I try to put my ideas to paper.

[Culhwch]

That's a tough question. For the first it's probably a neck and neck thing between Bernard Cornwell and Neil Gaiman. Two more different writers you probably couldn't find. I love Cornwell's direct style, because that's the way I write, and I take heart from the brutal emotional effect he still manages to get across. And then I love Gaiman's creative prose, his whimsy, which I'd love to have but sadly lack.

In regards to the second, I know when I first started writing I was pretty much a Feist clone. I've beaten that out of myself, but I don't tend to think to myself, 'Hey, this is getting too close to whoever, I'd better change styles...' That just seems counterproductive to me. If it's working, I'll let it work.