Culture of Influence
By Sophie Masson | March 19, 2008 |
Some writers pride themselves on saying they never read other people’s books, at least not people working in the same genre as they are, saying they don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s work. I find this a truly bizarre and barbaric notion. How can a writer not be a reader too? How can you possibly try to quarantine yourself from ‘influence’–which is really a creatively incubating culture, and not some kind of contagious bacteria destroying originality? I’m not talking of plagiarism here, which is the out and out theft of other people’s work, but about the enrichment of a writer’s mental furniture, the deepening of their emotional range, the texturing of their intellectual potential. Whether that be classic authors or more modern ones, knowing what other people have written, thinking about it, engaging with it, makes all the difference to the strength and power of your own writing. An author without ”influence”–if such a mythical beast can truly exist– would write merely hollow, navel-gazing books which would most likely fail to click with readers.
I can’t begin to estimate just how important other writers’ influence has been, and is, to me. From the very beginning, when as a non-English speaking migrant child newly arrived in Australia, I was introduced to English-language children’s books, I was off and away on an extraordinary journey through the world of literature. I devoured books as fast as I could get them off the library shelves. I read in both English and in my native language, French, racing through CS Lewis, Herge (Tintin books), Tove Jannsson, Leon Garfield, Alexandre Dumas, Roger Lancelyn Green, Jean de Brunhoff (Babar), Patricia Wrightson, Philippa Pearce, Louise May Alcott, Jules Verne, Enid Blyton, and lots lots lots more. From early on, I wanted to emulate my favourite writers, and wrote little comic strips a la Tintin, fairy stories, school stories, all sorts of bits and pieces, totally influenced by what I read. Later, when, as a teenager, I got into poetry and plays, I also tried my hand at writing in the styles and forms of those poets and playwrights I loved best: Shakespeare, Yeats, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Tennessee Williams, William Blake, Robert Browning, and so on and on. I counted sonnet lines and tried my hand at shoe-horning verse into ancient bardic forms, tried to write snappy dialogue and tragic scenes. It was all highly influenced, highly coloured by what I’d read. But not only was I enriching my mental furniture by reading, I don’t think I could have found a better way of practising to become a writer. Challenging and extending myself, not staying within the narrow world of home-school-home that I lived in as a kid but roaming the wide worlds of my, and other people’s imaginations.
People will often tell aspiring writers, ‘Write about what you know.’ To me, that should not mean staying within the bounds of your own experience; it means staying true to your emotional core, whilst being ready to tackle all kinds of structures, forms, plots, ideas. Don’t be afraid to use the reading that you have done as much as the things that you know about from personal experience: for that reading has expanded and enriched what you know, so your writing will be all the sronger for it. Voice, which is really where a writer’s originality lies, comes out of that mix of individuality and influence.
Writing about other people’s work can be an interesting way of understanding that influence, too. Recently, I’ve been a contributor, amongst many other writers for young people, to some exciting books of essays about important and popular writers for young people: writers whose books have inspired and enthused me, both as a child and now. Writing about the work of authors such as CS Lewis, Philip Pullman and Rick Riordan, I came to an understanding of not just what had first attracted me to their novels, but also about their own strong, rich literary influences, and how engaging with their books had expanded me not only as a reader but as a writer. Not only did writing these pieces show me things I had hardly even begun to think about, consciously, it also showed me how other writers also included in the essay anthologies, saw these important and influential writers. Truly a creatively incubating culture of influence!
Note: The anthologies on Philip Pullman (The World of the Golden Compass, edited by Scott Westerfield); CS Lewis (Through the Wardrobe, edited by Herbie Brennan) and Rick Riordan (Demigods and Monsters, edited by Rick Riordan himself) are published by Ben Bella Books, USA, and are Borders exclusive titles. The World of the Golden Compass was released late last year; Through the Wardrobe is being released this month; Demigods and Monsters will be released later this year.
ETA: Order information for THROUGH THE WARDROBE is now available. Click HERE to order!
Born in Indonesia of French parents, and brought up in France and Australia, Sophie Masson is the award-winning author of over 70 books for children, young adults and adults. Her latest books include Sydney under Attack (children’s historical novel, Scholastic Australia, 2022) A Hundred Words for Butterfly (adult novella, ES-Press, 2022) and Cock-a-doodle-doo (children’s picture book, (illustrated by Kathy Creamer, little Pink Dog Books, 2022). In 2019, Sophie received an AM (Member, General Division) award in the Order of Australia honours list.
It horrifies me how many people who write (having read some of their work, I hesitate at the word “writers”) do not read. So many people in my MFA program didn’t ever pick up a book, and now that I teach writing, I find a lot of students who don’t read either.
It really shows in their writing, even at the most basic level: they usually don’t know how things should look on a page, how to punctuate, etc.
Plus, if you don’t read, how do you know if your ideas, or your style, or your tone, are fresh or not?
Agreed, Lyle. Reading is essential if one wants to write. If nothing else, just to steer away from hackneyed plots and phrases.
Great post, Sophie!
Sophie, how exciting to have been a part of those anthologies! (I wasn’t able to find the Herbie Brennan or Rick Riordan works on Borders, but I added a link to the Scott Westerfield anthology on Philip Pullman.)
I usually have to take a break from reading when I’m actively writing; I guess I can’t have too many people parading around in my imagination at once. But I love to read–especially when I’m “stuck.” I might be reading a novel about some bizarre incident in a cornfield and my muse will light up and say, “Now I know just what to do about that scene on the plane!” One has nothing to do with the other, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
Thanks for a great post, and good luck with that anthology work; it sounds fascinating!
As an avid reader and writer, I really enjoyed this post.
Over the course of years, I have varied my reading diet from the classics to the latest ‘lit light’. I believe that it’s important to read both, one for inspiration and education and the other to see where the market is and where it’s going.
Yes, there are some writing books that discourage the reading of fiction while you are at work on your own novel, at the risk of imitating style or worse.
I disagree…first,I believe we learn from reading good or great writers, we learn what works or what doesn’t and can apply those lessons to our own work. Second, because I don’t believe I lose my ‘voice’ while reading another noveliest: 1) because I am comfortable with my voice,and 2) because reading a variety of books seems to preclude picking up one author’s style. And finally, I just can’t imagine going that long without reading another book!
Thought provoking post, thank you!
-Suzanne.
I feel the same way, Sophie. In fact, I posted about this just a few weeks ago. Not nearly as eloquently as you, but still, I had the same thought as I realized (with horror) that I had been so busy writing that I hadn’t read a decent book in ages. Then I picked up “No Country for Old Men” and was totally blown away by Cormac McCarthy’s brilliance.
Loved his story, but I don’t see myself being able to pull off his style, voice, tone, etc. But did he influence me? I sincerely hope so.
Thank you all for the great comments..It’s a real worry, isn’t it, when writers, or people who’d like to be writers, seem to think that writing itself just emerges from a vaccuum–or at least just from one blank slate mind, as if that’s possible. After all, writing isn’t just about self-expression but also in my view being part of the great continuity of story throughout the ages..the rich texture of it. I wonder if people are more anxious about ”influence” in literature than any other branch of the arts–after all, for example, you rarely hear musicians say they are not influenced by anyone and listen to no music other than their own!
That’s a bit like a composer not listening to other composers’ works! It all adds to the richness of the repertoire.
I’m a little late to the conversation here, forgive me! As a college instructor, every semester I grapple with at least one or two students who insist thatmy insistence that they use stuff like grammar and paragraphs is an unfair imposition of my values on them. That’s the ultimate rejection of influence — they don’t even want to be influenced by the language itself! And of course, they all think they’re Jack Kerouac (though they mostly don’t *read* Kerouac, because it might influence them) and bristle at the suggestion that a round of revision might be in order.
I’m not saying this because I need more outlets to complain about “kids today” (though who can resist?). The point is, these students fancy themselves writers. Maybe every generation has a crop of “anti-influence” writers. The upside is, they fall out of the writing gene pool pretty quickly — it’s hard to find an established writer who doesn’t read and who doesn’t strongly recommend reading as the key to good writing. So somewhere between failing writing-intensive college classes and publication, the anti-influentsia either withdraw themselves from the writing world (or are withdraawn) or catch on that maybe reading a book or two might be useful. The downside is the incredible hardship and disappointment these would-be writers set themselves up for. You can’t help but feel a little sorry for them — especially as their hard-headedness means they’re depriving themselves of all the literary world has to offer.