I’ve been reading pretty much every day for a few years now; some things are related to the stories I post here; others are to expand my own personal knowledge. Right now, I’m reading Philip Pullman’s collection of essays and speeches (Pullman is the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy and his concept of phase space has helped my own tendency to write stories expanding other authors’ works. Another book I’m reading on Consciousness and the brain actually led to an idea that expanded the next part of my Change of Attire. So, I wanted to ask the authors on this site if they read books to help expand their ideas, to help improve their writing, or if anything they have read has made its way into their writing.
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A major turning point in my ability to write dialogue was reading Red, White, and Royal Blue, a popular gay romance novel set in the modern era and involving multiple modes of conversation, from speech to texting to group chats to email. I had mostly read fantasy up to that point, so my grasp of casual banter was limited. My entire dialogue style nowadays owes inspiration to the dialogue in that book. The first story I wrote that really drew from RWRB was Isaac Wilson’s Birthday Party.
Right this moment, I’m reading the Left Hand of Darkness, because it’s written in an epistolary style by an anthropologist studying an alien planet. After having taken an anthropology class, I’m planning to write a story about an anthropologist joining a nonlethal, BDSM-based military to understand the social and cultural (and sexual) dynamics, and I heard the Left Hand of Darkness would be helpful. So far, it seems to be!
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I’m not sure it’s fair to still think of myself as an author but I do.
I’ve always read, and always analyze how what I’m reading is structured and what it focuses on. Probably my biggest inspiration for how I want to write is reading stuff from other writers on here that I like.
Besides that, I go through phases in what I read. Sometimes sci-fi, sometimes fantasy, sometimes gay romance, sometime fiction. I really enjoy audiobooks, but only if the narrator is good. And sometimes an audio book doesn’t really work for for certain things.
The big thing I see a lot in books and movies or tv series that I want to do, but only managed to once in my stories, is have a particular scene I wanted to get to, and then building everything else around getting to that scene. It’s probably the climax but not necessarily. Basically any scene where one character confronts another with their own bullshit in a way that can’t be ignored or waved away.
For me, I only continue to write when it’s hot, so that scene and getting to it have to be hot. I love to watch and read other author’s work that does that, even if it’s not hot.
I totally do. I’ve been reading things to help with emotional writing. The Winter Wolf and Proof of Life are good examples of that. Winter Wolf is a must read.
Thank you for the responses so far. They had me go back over the books I had read and unfortunately there was only 1 fiction book amongst the books I’ve read over the last year and half. There’s fiction amongst the books on my Kindle; one of my favorite vampire lit authors Brian Lumley is there among some over vampire fiction and other pieces. I was going to read Arthurian fiction but the Trump inauguration killed that vibe. But I definitely need to put fiction in the circulation of what I read.