Who are the Authors that Inspire You?

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Who are the Authors that Inspire You?

1LShelby
May 18, 2020, 11:45 am

...And what is it exactly is it about them that you find so inspiring?

2paradoxosalpha
Edited: May 18, 2020, 12:32 pm

My newest book (Erotopharmakohymnia Onorio--out in paperback just this last weekend) is very literally inspired by a host of previous authors, from antiquity to modernity:
Apuleius
Prudentius
Pearl Poet
Francesco Colonna
Francois Rabelais
Johann Valentin Andreae
William Blake
Aleister Crowley
James Branch Cabell
Robert A. Heinlein
Alex Comfort (particularly his Tetrarch)
Robert Irwin

These authors all wrote stories that are enigmatically poised on the boundaries between imagination and memory, confession and fraud, dream and waking, tradition and invention. In many cases, I have harvested tropes directly from my predecessors, but in the service of indulging my own (hopefully) distinctive vision in this puzzling and teasing conceptual space. One particular element that is evident in nearly all of these earlier authors, and which features largely in my recent work is the narrative representation of ceremonies which are themselves fictionalized translations of actual practices.

One of my favorite contemporary authors is John Crowley. In the memorable "author's note" prefaced to his Aegypt, he writes: "More even than most books are, this is a book made out of other books. The author wishes to acknowledge his profound debt to those authors whose books he has chiefly plundered, and to offer his apologies for the uses to which he has put their work," with a list of those authors. I was tempted to offer a similar bit of ancestor worship in my book, but I was worried that it would end up being longer than my actual text!

3Alloria
May 26, 2020, 7:18 pm

At what point does it become 'I enjoy this author's works' to 'this author inspires' me? Because there are plenty of authors I like, and read, and therefore influence what I write (Patricia C. Wrede, Marissa Meyer, Diana Wynne Jones), but I'm not sure if I would classify any of them having a great deep inspiring affect.

4LShelby
Jun 4, 2020, 1:37 pm

>3 Alloria:
Very good question.

If you know you are deliberately referencing other authors, like paradoxosalpha describes, then obviously that counts.

But does that mean that nothing else counts?

(Interestingly I have always really enjoyed reading Diana Wynne Jones, but I don't really think I would consider her an author who influenced my writing. Patricia C. Wrede's influence on my writing, on the other hand is far more substantial than mere inspiration.)

When I started deliberately writing down stories on my own time and for my own benefit at around age 12, my first two stories were technically fanfic: one set in the Star Wars universe, and one set on Anne McCaffrey's Pern. After that I stopped doing fanfic and I really haven't done it again since. But my next howevermany stories were mostly stories that I identified as being in the general style or mode of certain favorite authors. An Edgar Rice Burroughs story, a Noel Streatfield story, etc.

(Burroughs and Streatfield: Now there's a combination of authors that probably doesn't show up on many "Author's that influenced me" lists!)

As I wrote more and more my inspirations became less clear. Stories were less obviously in the mode of this author or that author.

BUT

If you look at what I write, I'm not really writing different stuff than before, I'm just not separating out those elements I admired into their own separate imitative stories anymore. There is still a Burroughs element and a Streatfield element, you are just a little more likely to find those influences appearing in the same book. There is also, obviously, less of each author going into each book.

So I think that it would be unfair to say that I'm no longer inspired by those authors. Or even that the inspiration is "less deep". Just less obvious, and less deliberate.

Besides, if we get too picky about who qualifies and who doesn't, we'll have a lot less to say on this subject. :)

So my taste for writing planetary romance is probably largely Burrough's fault, and Streatfield's books about the technical sides of performing and the arts and about family interactions may have informed many of my characters, Sally Watson's romantic historical YA adventures were clearly an early influence in subject matter and style, and later Georgette Heyer's comedy-of-manners historical romances also. I was inspired by the social structures of Pern being effected by the physical aspects of the environment (dragons and thread) , and Alan Dean Foster's "Nor Chrystal Tears" which was my first book that I read written from the pov of an alien, which really fascinated me.

I'm sure I can come up with more if I keep thinking about it. :)

>2 paradoxosalpha: "These authors all wrote stories that are enigmatically poised on the boundaries between imagination and memory, confession and fraud, dream and waking, tradition and invention."

Since most of the authors you mentioned are unfamiliar to me, this statement was more informative than the list of authors. ::rueful::

I can see the connection between what you say these authors bring to the table, and what you have said about your own writing. That's cool!