To me, writing is like living in a world and showing somebody a snapshot of it. It’s hard to see what just the snapshot looks like to somebody who has never been there. But you can look at somebody else’s picture and say, “I’m not getting a sense of what this place is like because of a, b and c.”

Then you can look at your own picture to see if you made the same mistakes.

certainly these masters of mystery have shaped my own writing, but the weekly (sometimes daily) Bible reading also shaped my prose somewhat- i tend to group things in the way they’re listed in Proverbs, my language bends to the archaic, and there’s a very pronounced authoritative background voice. also read every single fairy tale and colloquial legend i could get my hands on, this history shows itself in the rule of threes as well as a strong right-or-wrong-no-middle-ground theme throughout my books.

interesting how the words that one reads shapes the formation of words inside of one’s head! great article!

By the way, I didn’t grow up with television, so never got quite as addicted as the average viewer. With the steady decline of quality, I’ve been watching less and less, and once the country goes digital, my set will go black except for DVD-watching.

For example, I read the first installment in an incredibly popular young adult series, and though I recognized the writing was less than stellar, I noticed the author had a real gift for leading the reader from scene to scene and chapter and chapter. You were left always wanting to know what was going to happen next. I took those lessons and thought about how I could apply them to my own writing.

I’m with you. I am a classics guy myself. I have read most of Dickens, Hugo, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Balzac, Stendahl, Walter Scott, Thomas Hardy and my beloved Anthony Trollope. I also enjoy early–to-mid 20th century authors: Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Paul Bowles, Robert Musil, P.G Wodehous, George Orwell (recently re-read Burmese Days - just wonderful)

I have a really difficult time rattling off a similar list of contemporary (to me) authors. The books of the latter, I have read in fits and starts, never in a sustained way. Curiously enough I find contemporary female authors more interesting than their male counterparts e.g., Francine Prose, A.S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Alice Munro. Contemporary male authors that I have enjoyed tend to be non-Western born, in particular Haruki Murakami (if you haven’t read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, you absolutely must), Vikram Seth and Vikram Chandra.

The books I like to read that are written by contemporary authors are more factual in nature: almost anything my Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, the political stuff - most recently Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side; most of the major Iraq/President Bush books COBRA II, the Woodward books, etc.

Regards,

Mike

I think it’s important for writers to read, and I think keeping abreast of what is out there in your particular genre is important. I’ve heard of people who won’t read in their genre because they don’t want their writing influenced. Hogwash, I say.

For myself, I can’t hang in there with a book that is boring, slow or is driving me crazy for one reason or another. I remember picking up a Tom Clancy book at one point. (which one, I can’t remember) - the writing was so stilted and arrogant I quit after the first few chapters and never looked back.

I think the more writers you can expose yourself to, the better your writing will be. Character development, flow, style - these are all things that can be looked at from a new perspective if you like the way a particular author handled these things.

So, there’s my 2 cents!

George

My escape was reading. I loved school and anything that involved a book. I actually had images of taking a big bite out of a juicy, red apple every time I read a book. It made me happy, satisfied my soul and took away my pain.

I could fall into a world that shut out everything that hurt and distressed me faded away.

The first book I remember becoming engrossed in was about Harriet Tubman of The Underground Railroad. I was a young child in the early 1960’s in the Deep South. I was acquainted with racism shall we say. The book had a profound impact on my life and shaped much of my attitudes as an adult regard race in the South.

I enjoyed biographies as I got older and leaned toward military generals. Why, I cannot explain, but Ike was one of my favorites……..the philanderer that he was. Perhaps I was beginning to find my way to my military officer husband.

I still love biographies, but have enjoyed my share of classic literature as well. I spent many summers during my college years on the floor of the library reading D.H. Lawrence, Emily Bronte and Nathanial Hawthorne.

One of my favorite authors for many years was a bit more contemporary……..Ernest Hemingway. He taught me about pernod.

I would have to say my love for poetry however has likely shaped and defined my personality more than anything else. The power of the written word never ceases to amaze me and I’m always baffled that someone could be impervious to it.

I love your blog.