I find that often my writing comes to resemble the work of those writers who I am least naturally inclined to when I read. For example, I would like to write with Proust's naturally flowing verbosity, yet my writing has drawn much more from Hemingway's terseness. I love the fantastical plots of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie, but looking over my brief career I tend to approximate Isaac Babel's stark descriptions of reality (if you've never read him, I posted one of his stories here). My personal maxim on writing is Babel's saying, "No iron spike can drive into the human heart as icily as a period put in the right place." I also seem to have absorbed a great deal from the plays of Samuel Beckett, and often make use of similar storylines that creatively put non-action to use. I also have picked up stylistic quirks from a great variety of authors. I'm especially fond of Kurt Vonnegut's accounting of events (This is what happened, etc.) and recently I've stopped using commas when listing things, like Salman Rushdie. Although I couldn't make it all the way through Gravity's Rainbow, I've kind of appropriated Pynchon's way of inserting popular lyrics into the narrative, like background noise. More often than not when I try to write something like my more favorite writers, the work fails miserably. So, which writers have most influenced your stuff?
My writing tends to evolve over time, absorbing the characteristics and tiny quirks of the most recent author I have read. But there are a few whose peculiar habits I've ingrained to the point that I'm afraid they'll never leave me. Non-fiction writing: Cornel West and Paulo Freire: "tragicomic hope" and abundant use of the phrases "concrete", "historical", and "existential". And, with Freire and West I share a common train of thought and occupational orientation. Fiction writing: Kim Stanley Robinson, James Baldwin, Herman Melville, and Hayao Miyazaki. I love science fiction but most of it formula novels written by authors with a deep hatred for the literary arts. Kim Stanley Robinson merges mainstream science fiction with the inner-exploratory dimension of well-written dramatic fiction. James Baldwin, Herman Melville: 'nuff said. Hayao Miyazaki is scriptwriter and movie director but I still draw an inspiration from his amazing ability to give a magical dimension to everday life.
[FONT=Arial]I (like to) think I've grown out of customizing my voice whenever I read an author's works. When I started out reading, I would literally flip between the simplistic styles found in King and the verbose language of Lovecraft and Poe. Of course every author will be influenced as he (or she) reads more, but it is quite rare for someone to write in such different fashions and be good at both. Since I read a lot of fantasy, my style can be seen as a mix between Tolkien, George RR. Martin, Steven Erikson, and Dan Simmons, with the first two being my biggest hits. Unless I'm writing a YA book, my senses are usually pricked up by simple prose, thus why my choices appear as they do. I am a fan of Tolkien's writing because he doesn't excrete the thesaurus onto the page, yet he still masters description. I am a fan of George Martin because he gets the point across while not skipping over any details. I also look up to Martin because of his pure genius: all fantasy fans should check out A Song of Ice and Fire. It is nothing like Lord of the Rings, but it isn't wrong to say Martin is probably the fantasy author of our time. [/FONT]
i like Hemingway
Robert A Heinlein (my favourite fiction author), Frank Herbert, Terry Pratchett, Anne McCaffery, JRR Tolkien (currently reading), Douglass Adams
Tolstoy, Gorky, Chekov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Hemingway, Wells, Kafka, Sartre and a couple others. But my main influences are by far Tolstoy, Gorky and Dostoyevsky.
Tolstoy, Gorky, Chekov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Hemingway, Wells, Kafka, Sartre and a couple others. But my main influences are by far Tolstoy, Gorky and Dostoyevsky. Intriguing. Do you read them in the Russian? Cause I'll be learning Russian at university in a few weeks, and those guys are pretty much my main reasons for doing so. I can't really imagine being influenced by Kafka, as he was very much a one-of-a-kind writer. But given that you like his stuff, I'd strongly recommend Isaac Babel if you haven't read him yet, as he was sort of an anti-Kafka. His Red Cavalry stories were a major inspiration to me personally.
Intriguing. Do you read them in the Russian? Cause I'll be learning Russian at university in a few weeks, and those guys are pretty much my main reasons for doing so. Nah, I can't read Russian, I've read them in English. When I first started out reading novels a couple years back I picked up a copy of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and was just blown away by it, then War And Peace.... To me he was my main inspiration, and Anna Karenina and War And Peace are still my favorite novels. Then the others followed, of which Gorky and Dostoyevsky came right after so they've been great inspirations and influences as well. Another book worth mentioning here is Gorky's autobiography, which came out in three volumes: Childhood, In The World and My Universities. I can't really imagine being influenced by Kafka, as he was very much a one-of-a-kind writer. But given that you like his stuff, I'd strongly recommend Isaac Babel if you haven't read him yet, as he was sort of an anti-Kafka. His Red Cavalry stories were a major inspiration to me personally. A friend of mine recommended Babel, his Odessa Tales it was I think. But I'll definitely check out Red Cavalry.
i am really influenced by modernists and magical realists. i really like muscular prose like Cormac Mccarthy and Faulkner. Faulkner sometimes really bores me but i like the way he wrote some sentences. i really dislike talking about influences because i feel like a huge pretentious douche, but i am pretty much somewhat of a modernist/post-modernist - i like to write about alienated people who are psychologically detached from society. i read both spanish and english, and i think american authors have influenced me more stylistically, while latin american authors in terms of content. Nietzche and early Marx have influended me a lot in terms of fiction writing too. Its not like I write about COMMUNIST REVOLUTION or the SUPERMAN, but in terms of the way I look at the world and social relations and how that is translated into my stories.
My influences: Kafka Bukowski Burroughs Murakami Ezra Pound Dylan Thomas T.S. Eliot
I'm greatly influenced by Terry Pratchett, something which I actually struggle with when writing as the tendancy to add in the small comments and quips that add so much to his books into my writing, which not only would they not suit but I'm as good at doing it as him Bernard Cornwell is a huge presence in my writing, as he writes not just action scenes but all passages in a very confident manner, as he knows his characters so well that you never question that a character is acting exactly as he would. I'm (slowly) reading through the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, which I'm certain impacts on my fantasy writing, and probably on it in general. I'm very influenced by films, to be honest. If a film is good at crafting believable characters, delivering a good action scene that contributes to the story instead of being there for the sake of it, if talented actors are given a great script to work with, I am of course influenced by them, and I want to re-watch and re-watch to learn how that do what they do. In my non-fiction writing I tend to be a touch... well not sarcastic or glib, but frank, maybe a bit satirical if I think I can get away with it. This probably isn't influenced by anyone, although the lecture and writing style of Doug Stokes (who I'm fortunate enough to have take some of my modules at university) is in a bit of the same manner.
I'm influenced to a degree by Hemmingway but mostly my stories and thoughts are based on historical periods (WWII) which being a major interest of mine I can write very detailed stories around them. ususally I like to capture the mood of a piece by using particular descriptive words.
Hmm, I like a really wide variety of writers- recently Augusten Burroughs, and also Oscar Wilde, Tom Holt, Douglas Adams, China Mieville, Robert Browning, Jane Austen (yes...), Jhumpa Laheri, Arundhati Roy, bell hooks and Mary Shelley.
Jane Austen (yes...). Ban.
My main influences (those that I tend to write alike) would be Stephen Kings "folkyness" with a bit of Hemingway-esk thrown in. My favorite trend is, of course, modernism and I feel that my writing reflects that.
I can't stand flowery prose, over-description, and all that shit. Also, Terry Pratchett's quips and comments annoy me no end. They're okay, but his books end up as a series of sparsely connected, contrived witticisms sometimes. I love writing with an experimental and whimsical feel. Strange sentence structure, unusual characters, abnormal writing in general. The best ending to a book I have read, for example, was Clive Barker's Weaveworld - And so this story, having no beginning, will have no end. Beautiful. I like unashamed, unaffected prose. Cormac Mcarthy does that well, unafraid of repetition and other literary faux pas... Like there's a scene where his protagonist stares into the mirror and thinks "That is not sleeping. That is not sleeping." It jars, but it works. Stuff like The Outsider is good too, Camus is good. -Alex
My influences range from Pablo Neruda to former Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler, for both have written some great poetry. After hearing certain singer-songwriters, their lyrics taken as poetry have been influential for me. Amongst those would be some of Phil Ochs' later recordings and Elliott Smith.
My writing resembles the obsessively concise manner of Fromm and Marx, and the terse, cynical character of Thrussel. I also find that I write things as if I were quipping about news, since I spend most of my literary time reading that kind of work.
My most prominent influence is Kurt Vonnegut. I find myself using syntax very similar to his in many a stories. I'm also influenced greatly by Irvine Welsh and George Orwell.
I really like Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Umberto Eco... Haruki Murakami is also a favourite - particularly Kafka On The Shore. I also love most things by William Blake. I'd say my own writing style is somewhere between Murakami and Rushdie but with quite a dark, Film Noir edge like a Tim Burton movie or something.
Alcohol.
Leonard Cohen Mao Zedong Osamu Dazai Umm, I like some Jewish poetry too, and japanese short stories
Shane Claiborne George Orwell Malcolm X David Levithan Orwell and Levithan are the only people to write fiction I like and Levithan's Wide Awake was perfect when I first came out; the story of a gay student caught up in political activism was exactly what I needed to read.
Definitely Hemingway.
Tolstoy, Gorky, Chekov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Hemingway, Wells, Kafka, Sartre and a couple others. But my main influences are by far Tolstoy, Gorky and Dostoyevsky. I'd like to add Orwell and Trotsky to that list. Orwell was a master story-teller, and Trotsky, while his works were mostly political in nature, had a beautiful writing style. Oh, and as for Hemingway, I was kinda disappointed by his A Farewell To Arms. It was written in a pretty boring style and I didn't get into the story at all. Compared to Orwell's Homage To Catalonia it was pretty bad, in my opinion.
I'm doing a comic book at the moment, and it has quite strong influences from a few texts and authors. Jhonen Vasquezesque art and the style/tone of the comic is sort of like Akira meets Watchmen meets V For Vendetta meets Ghost in the Shell meets Sherlock Holmes. Also marijuana helps me get a lot of my ideas .
I get ideas from the various people I'm obsessed with (don't ask), the other one thousand and something books I've read and completely random things that happen during the day. This often helps when you're trying to make something realistic.
Mostly The koran, Lovecraft, Poe, and Tolkien.
Oh, and as for Hemingway, I was kinda disappointed by his A Farewell To Arms. It was written in a pretty boring style and I didn't get into the story at all. Compared to Orwell's Homage To Catalonia it was pretty bad, in my opinion. Really? While I haven't read Homage to Catalonia, I did enjoy A Farewell To Arms. To each his own I guess, but I got to say I was disappointed that Rinaldi (my favorite character in that book) didn't play a larger role. Anyways, my influences are as follows: Major: Lord Byron Percy Shelly Ernest Hemingway Robert Frost Victor Hugo Dante Minor: T.S Eliot Walt Whitman Poe George Orwell Homer Jules Verne
I see a lot of Hemmingway on here. I was never really able to get into him. Personally, i like Victor hugo a lot. His imagry and character development is excellent. Also Dr. Thompson. he is amazing. Dostoevsky of course. He is probably the greatest author of all time.
