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Which authors inspire you?

Hypoxia said:
BUT -- If one is creating for (entertaining) an audience, then one provides what the audience wants, or one soon has no audience. Little kids like hearing the same story over-n-over. Older kids like hearing the same song over-n-over. Yet older folk may like reading the same stuff over-n-over. IOW, "rehashed pablum" is the stock-in-trade of entertainment.

We may write creatively. Our creations may or may not shift audience tastes. Our creations may also sink like stones. We must decide for ourselves why we bother to create.
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Your audience is diverse, though it may look like an exponential decay curve - where the majority has a taste for A, and reinforces production of A, but the long tail of the curve is comprised of a small number with diversified tastes for B, ', C, etc. So you write and let fly a story and it starts on a journey of natural selection. Someone mentioned Vernor Vinge earlier, and he's just an example I happen to know - he wrote about something very different (the singularity) to a very small receptive audience initially, but that audience has gotten larger over time as the innitial audience talked about and "educated" others. So tastes shift over time, though slowly, as biology shifts over time.

Edit add-on: if writers don't produce diverse stories from diverse POVs, written with diverse styles, all for our own enjoyment initially, then "we" can't hope to change any tastes out there. Vive la difference!
 
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Hypoxia said:
We may write creatively. Our creations may or may not shift audience tastes. Our creations may also sink like stones. We must decide for ourselves why we bother to create.
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Aynmair said:
So you write and let fly a story and it starts on a journey of natural selection. Someone mentioned Vernor Vinge earlier, and he's just an example I happen to know - he wrote about something very different (the singularity) to a very small receptive audience initially, but that audience has gotten larger over time as the innitial audience talked about and "educated" others. So tastes shift over time, though slowly, as biology shifts over time.
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I'm the one who add Vernor Vinge (VIN-gee) to the list. And yes, his invention of the Singularity has rippled through modern culture. Vinge also invented (or predicted) online culture, back before there was an 'online'.

Yes, exceptional and influential authors exist, as do exceptional athletes, musicians, etc. But there ain't too many of them -- that's why they're exceptional. We have peak performers. And we have the rest of us. We can just hope our audiences appreciate us. From an old Randy Newman song (Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear):

"They'll love us, won't they?
They feed us, don't they?"

If our audience feeds us enough of what we long for - money, votes, sex, whatever - then we're happy. Or at least sustained. And if we ever see our names on lists of inspirational authors, we can celebrate, right?
 
Mine run quite a gamut, and I know I will leave out many, for I have read widely. Most that I will list are not necessarily for their creative genius, or literary supremacy, but because they can tell a story.

Starting with kid's books, because that is where it all started:
Robb White
Henry Gregor Felson
John R. Tunis
William Campbell Gault
Franklin R. Dixon
Alistair MacLean

Graduating to more mature reading:
Elswyth Thane
Paul Gallico
W.E.B. Griffin (The Corps series and the Brotherhood of War series His other series leave me cold)
Og Mandino
Tom Clancy
Louis L'Amour
Dale Brown
Harold Coyle
Brian Callison
Jeffrey Archer
Jan Karon (One of the few authors who can make me actually laugh out loud with a story.)
Steven Ambrose
Vince Flynn (in small doses)
Dorothy Uhnak
Dale Carnegie

There are a host of others, but these are the ones off of the top of my head. Along with these would also be historical writers, particularly of military history. Not so much for the storytelling, but for love of learning.
 
John McPhee for sheer grace of prose
Kurt Vonnegut for his tragicomical view of the world
Mary Stewart for her reinvention of the Arthurian cycle
William Blake for his ecstatic verse
Jane Austin for her insights into human frailty.

And many more. But these would be at the top of any of my lists.
 
Authors that impress me --

The accumulated list of inspiring authors is impressive but I would like to add several others:

Steven Jay Gould

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Dick Francis
 
Often, the biggest influences are the earliest...

Aynmair said:
Many/most writers started writing because they were inspired by authors they read. As you are starting/trying/continuing to write, what authors inspire you in a "I wish I wrote as well as..." way. Who are your models? I don't mean that you try to write like them - I assume that everyone either has or is trying to establish their own style.
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Honestly, I'd have to start from the beginning of the process. The first thing I thought was not what got me into writing, but what got me into _reading_. There is no way I would have begun writing if I hadn't kept reading, and I wouldn't have kept reading if I hadn't started with some fun and interesting stories and books.
So a few of my earliest--and therefore, most influential--authors who made reading fun:

Beatrix Potter, Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, Mercer Mayer

After I'd been reading a while, I started to think about writing. I don't know exactly why, but I think it was mostly because their writing was full of adventure and romance. Also, the level of the writing wasn't too far above my reading level.
So a few of the writers I was reading when I began to try writing:

Rose Estes, the team of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Anne McCaffrey, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl (Yes, again!), Madelein L'Engle, Ray Bradbury

As I kept reading, I began discovering work that I consider great. I haven't tried to imitate these writers, per se, but I have tried to use some of their methods, some of their language, some of their means of developing characters, etc.
So (finally!) a few of the writers I've tried to be like in some way(s):

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Katherine V. Forrest, James Thurber, William Shakespeare (Aim high, right? I love his sonnets!), Nicola Griffith, Shizuru Hayashiya, Milk Morinaga, Amy Tan, O. Henry, Edgar Allen Poe
 
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pacifist91w said:
Honestly, I'd have to start from the beginning of the process. The first thing I thought was not what got me into writing, but what got me into _reading_. There is no way I would have begun writing if I hadn't kept reading, and I wouldn't have kept reading if I hadn't started with some fun and interesting stories and books.
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This was true for me as well. The early influences were to read more, not to write. There also was a period of spinning ongoing stories in my mind too before there was the intent to write them. But it was all a building-block process.
 
pacifist91w said:
Honestly, I'd have to start from the beginning of the process. The first thing I thought was not what got me into writing, but what got me into _reading_. There is no way I would have begun writing if I hadn't kept reading, and I wouldn't have kept reading if I hadn't started with some fun and interesting stories and books.
So a few of my earliest--and therefore, most influential--authors who made reading fun:

Beatrix Potter, Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, Mercer Mayer

After I'd been reading a while, I started to think about writing. I don't know exactly why, but I think it was mostly because their writing was full of adventure and romance. Also, the level of the writing wasn't too far above my reading level.
So a few of the writers I was reading when I began to try writing:

Rose Estes, the team of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Anne McCaffrey, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl (Yes, again!), Madelein L'Engle, Ray Bradbury

As I kept reading, I began discovering work that I consider great. I haven't tried to imitate these writers, per se, but I have tried to use some of their methods, some of their language, some of their means of developing characters, etc.
So (finally!) a few of the writers I've tried to be like in some way(s):

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Katherine V. Forrest, James Thurber, William Shakespeare (Aim high, right? I love his sonnets!), Nicola Griffith, Shizuru Hayashiya, Milk Morinaga, Amy Tan, O. Henry, Edgar Allen Poe
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I agree with and share much of what you've said here. Originally I read children's literature and fairy tales, and of course got wrapped up in the spinning of the tale rather than thinking about the writing itself. I then went through the many school years when I had to write, and although I've always enjoyed writing, even most assigned writing, I didn't really become aware of wishing to write myself until I read and was inspired by some great authors. I didn't want to imitate these exactly (several people have made this point on the thread) but I wanted to develop a style of my own that was readable and would entice others to reading my stuff. As much as anything else, I was attracted to writing when I felt I had some stories I wanted to tell (and no, the stories on Lit aren't the stories I mean here, though they allow for some personal exploration as much as anything else I've written.

As influential as the authors I've read were some teachers, one 3rd grade teacher in particular, who encouraged me to write more.

sr71plt said:
This was true for me as well. The early influences were to read more, not to write. There also was a period of spinning ongoing stories in my mind too before there was the intent to write them. But it was all a building-block process.
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Well put, and succinct.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Salinger. Or did I miss it? I am skimming on my phone, so it's possible.

Have we all tired if the stereotypical Salinger love?
 
Aynmair said:
Many/most writers started writing because they were inspired by authors they read. As you are starting/trying/continuing to write, what authors inspire you in a "I wish I wrote as well as..." way. Who are your models? I don't mean that you try to write like them - I assume that everyone either has or is trying to establish their own style.

For my part, I would include Graham Greene, John Le Carre (the Cold War novels more so than his contemporary ones), Grace Paley (short story writer) and the earlier books of William Gibson, for his very unique style and cyberpunk subject matter. There are others, but these are definitely among my top author heroes.
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John Steinbeck
Willa Cather
Graham Greene
William Shakespeare
Joseph Conrad
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Georgette Heyer
Jane Austin
A.S Byatt
Emily Bronte
Maya Angelou
Ray Bradbury
C.S. Lewis
Lewis Carroll
Saki (H. H. Munro)
Shirley Jackson
Richard Connell
James Hurst ("The Scarlet Ibis')
Henry James
Joe McGinniss
Dr. Richard Feynman
Sean Stewart
Winston Churchill
George Orwell
Noel Coward
George Bernard Shaw
Oscar Wilde
Truman Capote
Harper Lee
Mildred D. Taylor
Madeleine L'Engle
 
Just thought of another one: Australian (I think) author Robert Drewe. I've only ever read one of his books - Our Sunshine - but I must have read it ten times.

And while we are talking about Australian authors: Peter Carey.
 
Aynmair said:
Many/most writers started writing because they were inspired by authors they read. As you are starting/trying/continuing to write, what authors inspire you in a "I wish I wrote as well as..." way. Who are your models? I don't mean that you try to write like them - I assume that everyone either has or is trying to establish their own style.
Click to expand...

I question your basic premise. I suspect that whilst many authors like/ love/ are impressed/ enthralled/captivated/hate/despise etc many authors: inspired I don't think so.

I believe that the urge to write, sometimes the desire, even need comes mostly from within the author's personality. The final product may well be influenced by other authors , but inspired, I have severe doubts.

Are people only influenced/inspired by great writers and never by bad ones? Tom Clancy and Dan Brown for example have both written reams of rubbish but my guess is that they are very influential.

And if one is going to claim inspiration by a great writer mebbe one should spell their name right. There are at least three errors in the lists posted, Jane Austin for example.:)
 
ishtat said:
Are people only influenced/inspired by great writers and never by bad ones? Tom Clancy and Dan Brown for example have both written reams of rubbish but my guess is that they are very influential.
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That's a good point. We sometimes get comments here that the perceived bad writing of an author who is successful in the market has inspired the poster to write something "better" him/herself. Interesting that we haven't had any of these posts to this thread.

I don't think I've been thus inspired by anyone, but I've read some authors who inspired me to stop reading their stuff (speaking of Tom Clancy--and, more recently for me, Rita Mae Brown, who writes great nonfiction and is a delight to listen to in person, which only makes reading her insipid cat and dog mysteries, in the hair-pulling vein of Lillian Jackson Braun, all the more painful for me--and has inspired me not to write to that dumb-down demographic just to keep my horses in feed on Afton Mountain).
 
I was inspired to write my first BDSM story after slogging through "50 Shades". I thought SURELY I could write a better story than that. And I believe I did! ;)
 
more negative inspiration

On a parallel track, I was indeed inspired by bad writing and editing -- but not of fiction. In the early days of microprocessors, certain publishers (S*Y*B*E*X, cough cough) issued 'technical' books that were vast piles of misinformation, plagiarism, repetition (the same half-page diagram FIVE TIMES in one book!) and similar hogwallow. I idled-away many hours proofing my copies and notating corrections. Just for fun, y'know.

Yes, that inspired me! I thought to myself, "Self, you can do better than this!" It helped launch me into tech writing. The rest is history.
 
I was inspired by some of the awful writing on Yahoo Adult groups about fetishes when I first found them.

I knew I could do better. I could and did. I didn't have to do much to improve the standard. I wrote sentences that had verbs in. :D
 
oggbashan said:
I was inspired by some of the awful writing on Yahoo Adult groups about fetishes when I first found them.

I knew I could do better. I could and did. I didn't have to do much to improve the standard. I wrote sentences that had verbs in. :D
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But not objects? :D
 
sheablue said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Salinger. Or did I miss it? I am skimming on my phone, so it's possible.

Have we all tired if the stereotypical Salinger love?
Click to expand...

Hell no, not me. In fact, I just made a phone call this morning, asking a young woman to return my copy of Cather in the Rye. It is one of the few books I reread and I am overdue.

The only problem is when I read it I become Holden Caulfield for a while. I start to love and hate everyone and get all insecure, start calling everyone "flits and phonies."
 
sr71plt said:
But the prepositional phrases didn't necessarily have objects?
Click to expand...

Exactly.

If the story had been translated and re-translated through several languages it might have been more grammatical.

One now long-dead group had several stories originally written in poor German and then put through a translation bot to produce an English version. The German version looked as if it had been written by someone whose native language might have been Chinese.
 
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