Let's talk about... the writers that got me writing.499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOx5jjpBzgK
Way back when, I got lost in Christopher Paolini's middle school love letter to J. R. R. Tolkien, Eragon (2003). But it would be Paolini's personal story that would inspire my own aspirations--along with countless other young writers--into the future.
Paolini's influence would have me scrutinizing other young authors, searching for the secret wisdom behind a successful debut. I tore through Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' vampire novels, ate up everything penned by S. E. Hinton, destroyed L. S. Knight, and basically binged on anything written by someone under the age of twenty-five. I was obsessed with finding the key to everlasting authorial fame... and never found it, of course.
But the pursuit got me interested in other writers. I sought out a certain texture at first. Brent Weeks, with his rogue fantasy and gritty wit... Brandon Sanderson with his penchant for complicated magic systems and sardonic heroes... Joe Abercrombie with his bleak-minded anti-heroines and his political intrigue...499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZYPGHkjPrq
Then my interests broadened. I found Mark Lawrence, with his underlying existential dread and his hilariously dark, righteous humor... Then Robert Jackson Bennett's complex religious pantheons grabbed my attention, along with his mortal heroes that made those gods kneel... Anne Frasier, with her talent at creating heroes and heroines that far exceed their own expectations and fall for each other's flaws... Diana Gabaldon has her ability to not only transport her characters into alien timelines, but to also transport her readers into romantic and dangerous bygone eras... Neil Gaiman's EVERYTHING (I have a lot of unspoken love for his comics and his novels and his movies)... and Anne Bishop--whom I could never write enough about, ever--beWitched me with her emotional dialog and her so-bad-they're-good anti-heroes. She dazzled me with her worlds filled with dragons and princes and dark prophecies. Bishop, like no other author I've read, has the superpower to elevate melodrama into something more.499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpngXx0PuSG
I have of course read many more authors than those listed (such as Machiavelli, Twain, Grimm, Freud, Haslet, Mayer, Frost, Pratchett, Krosner, Meyer, Tolkien, Stephen King, Joe Hill, Roger Moore, and--FUCK--many, many others to include friends and family that have published as well), but these are the authors that I always run to when I need to ground myself in reason, wonder, mystery, or darkness. These are the authors whose blogs I actually read. These are the writers who I look up to and say, "One day, I will sit at your table and we will break bread together."
In my pursuit to discover how to be a good author, I discovered my love of reading, and I've taken that love into my adulthood. I go through at least two books in a week now, staggering everything so I'm never without a book in my hands at any given moment... but then, that is the secret, isn't it?
For so long, I was trying to find the secret ingredient to a successful authorial debut, when I should have been perusing what it takes to be a successful storyteller. How do you tell a good story? How do you write a good story? How do you reach out and touch another person with words alone? How do you get someone to keep reading your work?
Simple: Read something you love and find out why you love it. Is it that mysterious side character that keeps you flipping pages, hoping to glean more about her? Is it the thought of two best friends facing off against each other because they've found themselves on opposites sides of a moral quandary? Is it the brotherhood exhibited in the story? Is it the cyberpunk setting? The unconventional love arch? Is it the narrator's humorous descriptions or off-kilter exposition? Is it the silly footnotes at odds with the gravitas of the otherwise serious text?
Have you got it?
Does it make you feel something?
That's the secret. That's your key.
Now go write about it.
Cheers --Blondie
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