Most writers I talk to have one—that book that changed the way they write forever. For some it is a classic. For others, it is a book about writing. For some it might be how a favorite author handled their stories book after book.
Mine is Jane Eyre. I read the novel when I was nineteen, and it was the first time I didn’t feel 'safe' in a story. I won't give any spoilers here, but the more I read, the more fearful I became that book might not end the way I wanted it to, the way I desperately needed it to.
While tearing through the pages, I also realized that the unsafe feeling kept me addicted to the story and that no matter how the book ended, I had just found my favorite novel.
Gone with the Wind also changed my writing. Scarlet is a heroine to be reckoned with. A completely self-centred, selfish person who deserved everything that happened to her during the course of the novel. And yet at the ending, I'm practically crying for her.
Okay, so what book changed your writing?
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Saturday, February 24, 2007
"The Book"
I love Jane Eyre....I read it two years ago in my sophmore English class...it was wonderful
ReplyDeleteRedeeming Love by Francine Rivers. It was gritty, realistic, showed real, damaged people struggling to do the right thing and pointed the way to God. I literally hugged it when I finished it and knew after that I could write to entertain and glorify God.
ReplyDeleteI'd also say Jane Eyre, which I just recently read because the characters weren't beautiful or have anything overly unique about them and yet still it was the most heart tugging love story ever.
Also, Peace Like a River. Fabulously pointed to God's truths without being preachy.
Charles Martin's When Crickets Cry. The writing was so beautiful, the story so well done and thought provoking, it made me consider I might not be a suspense writer at heart after all.
I could go on and on.
I can't point to ONE book. My desire to write was sparked by Caroline Keene and her Nancy Drew books, then by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I remember thinking as a child that if little Laura who I loved in the stories grew up to write such popular books, perhaps I could too. I'm in the middle of Peace like a River and see what you mean, Gina! Wonderful. I've read Jane Erye twice now and know I'll go back for more one day. I'm insired by so many...
ReplyDeleteI 'm tossing my hat into the ring with Francine RIvers, too. But with a different book. "And the Shofar Blew" taught me POV like nothing else.
ReplyDelete"Anna Karinina" didn't die during childbirth like I thought she would. That was the ending I expected, not throwing herself under a train 500 pages later. Not sure I liked the book, but it was compelling.
ReplyDeleteYSIC,
Ann
Thr3e by Ted Dekker and James Scott Bell's craft book, Plot And Structure.
ReplyDeleteLes Miserables, by Victor Hugo
ReplyDeleteFrank Peretti's Darkness novels had a profound effect on me. They were some of the first Christian novels I ever read.
ReplyDeleteLOVE Jane Eyre (just curious, did you see the most recent Masterpiece Theater adaptation?)! Two books that changed forever how I view Christian fiction and opened my eyes to the possibilities within the field: A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers and Vienna Prelude by the Thoenes.
ReplyDeleteOkay, this isn’t THE book, but it’s the most recent (children’s) story that has excited me.
ReplyDeleteThe Star of Kazan, by Eva Ibbotson.
I didn’t think they published that kind of book anymore. It encouraged me to no end.
THE books are many … because I read them as a child/YA, they didn’t change the way I wrote, they molded the way I write.
Lots of Montgomery (Emily, Valancy, Pat, Anne), L’Engle’s Ring of Endless Light, Tuck Everlasting, Little Women, Narnia, The Secret Garden, The Mennyms, Ballet Shoes, Half Magic … my most vivid memory of a book that planted itself in me is Nesbit’s Enchanted Castle. I was ten or eleven, and I just stared at the cover after turning the last page. Absolutely magical.
Noel
Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery... Valancy is such a realistic girl, just hit 30, living under a domineering mother, wants more out of life, and finally desperately goes for it when she thinks she's about to die... She was easy to identify with and perfectly characterized throughout the novel.
ReplyDeleteMost of Francine Rivers' books... she's got great characterization - very real characters, as mentioned already. They make mistakes, struggle, hurt, laugh, succeed.
Dickens, the Brontes and other nineteenth century writers who encourage me to write with a deeper message to my stories... entertain, yet also teach the reader - give them something to think about when they finish the book and something to come back to again in the book.
Jane Austen, for her great dialogue and ironic narrator... the movies just aren't the same because you lose that wonderful narrative voice. If I had a unique voice like that... :)
Thr3e by Ted Dekker told me I wanted to write suspense. Velocity by Dean Koontz told me I wanted to touch that suspense up with some horror influences.
ReplyDelete