Books or Stories That Inspire You To Write

[SimonDoom]

I'm nearing the end of Graham Greene's The Power And The Glory, a novel about a very flawed Mexican priest who is on the run from authorities during revolutionary Mexico. I've read other Greene books before, but this is my first time with this one.

What a powerful book. Greene has an amazing way with words, and with drawing characters. The book is not at all erotic, but the prose is so good that when I'm done reading it for a while I want to get back to writing. It inspires me. Reading Greene reminds me of the power that words have, and also of the sheer fun of finding creative ways to put words together to tell a story.

If you haven't read Greene, I recommend him. He's one of the giants of mid-20th Century English prose, and his style is literary without being difficult.

Are there any books or stories you've read that have inspired you to write your stories, or to resume writing after some time away?

 

[KeithD]

My Dirk Hessian book, Blitzed, on the WWII bombing of London, was directly inspired by the depiction of Graham Greene's experience in London at the time as covered in the three-book biography on him by Norman Sherry. And although time has passed since I read that huge biography, I think the Dirk Hessian book about the French Riviera in 1940, Clouds over Antibes, that I'm writing now has been inspired by a combination of Graham Greene's time there and Hemingway's, coming out of the recent Ken Burns documentary on him (and maybe by the jab The Crown made of the Windsors renting a chateau in Antibes and being visited by Winston Churchill).

Quite a few stories of mine are inspired by Lawrence Durrell's writings, especially the Alexandria Quartet. I wrote six novels to the mainstream while renting the house in Bellapais, northern Cyprus, where Durrell lived and wrote some of the quartet.

 

[HeyAll]

Simon Kernick is my favorite writer. I love his straight-forward style and that it's directly to the point. It's great writing, but non-pretentious.

I'm also inspired by news articles. When looking at the news, I'm always on the lookout for anything interesting.

For instance, I saw an article about a detective who went to prison based on a shaky legal foundation. She was a decorated detective and got a raw deal. That inspired me, and I turned it into a mom/son story where the mom wanted to get revenge and her son was a cop, and they worked together against the powerful forces, (Sinner Detective, in my profile).

"The Schoolteacher" by Bruce Morgan is an illustrated erotic comic that inspires me everytime I look at it and read it. The images are fantastic, but the writing is so hot. Look it up online, it's free. I even wrote a story based on it called "Detective's Gangbang, Town Secrets"

 

[lovecraft68]

Blatty's Exorcist, but not for the demonic aspects. The book of course goes much deeper than the movie especially Karras trying to decide if Regan was possessed or mentally ill

There is a lot of real life case histories of schizophrenia, somnambulistic possession, hysteria and other illnesses that people formerly thought were possession and he tries to discount all her symptoms.

For whatever reason it fascinated me, enough to take an abnormal psych course and read up on personality disorders.

In My novel Every Dog has its Day I pay homage to Blatty's work in a scene where the detectives sit down with a criminal psychologist who goes on about the serial killer they're trying to track down and whether or not she's playing a game or seriously disturbed.

 

[SamScribble]

Not so much specific books or stories, but there are writers who have kept me writing for many years. Graham Greene and Lawrence Durrell have already been mentioned. Anthony Burgess, JP Donleavy, and EL Doctorow are on my list. And, having said no specific books, Our Sunshine, Robert Drewe’s fictionalised account of the last days of Ned Kelly, the Irish-Australian ‘outlaw’, is a book that I would like to have written. But Mr Drewe got there before me.

 

[KeithD]

Mary Renault, Thomas Costain, C.P. Snow, Gore Vidal, and for early smut, Frank Yerby.

And, of course, John LeCarre.

 

[yowser]

Thomas Pynchon, particularly 'Against the Day' and 'Mason & Dixon' (although 'Inherent Vice' will need a reread before the Mike Hammer contest comes around) created dense, arresting tales, with extraordinarily vivid descriptions and prose that challenged the reader.

Mark Twain was the American story-teller par excellence, capturing regional dialect and displaying the full range of human foibles and virtues.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If you haven't read Greene, I recommend him. He's one of the giants of mid-20th Century English prose, and his style is literary without being difficult.

Agreed, but maybe have a puppy or a kitten around to pet when you finish. Greene likes his downer endings.

Are there any books or stories you've read that have inspired you to write your stories, or to resume writing after some time away?

Maugham's collected short stories were a big inspiration for me. (Speaking of spies who became authors.) He's fascinated by character and motivation, but what marks him out for me is his affection for the people he writes about.

Perhaps I was scarred by the HSC English curriculum, but in my experience lit-fic defaults to misanthropy: people suck, and even the good ones will eventually be undone by their flaws. That happens sometimes with Maugham but it doesn't feel obligatory. He can spend an entire story describing a good person and he doesn't slaver for people to be punished for their failings.

I was in the middle of writing when I encountered Šejić's "Sunstone", and I was already pretty close to the style, so it didn't exactly prompt me to start writing or to change my style, but it certainly encouraged me to continue. It has a couple of things in common with Maugham: it has that same... anti-misanthropic bent, where imperfect people still get a shot at happiness, and it is very much of human bondage.

(sorry)

Oddly, one of the ones that's inspired me is a book I haven't read: Otfried Preußler's "Krabat". I fell in love with ASP's concept album based on the story, but of course a concept album only conveys the bare bones, so I ended up interpolating a lot through my own imagination, and now I'm reluctant to read the original because undoubtedly it will conflict with the version that exists in my head. One day I might get around to telling my version - which will be a retelling of a retelling of a novel based on an ancient folk-tale - but Literotica may not be the place for it.

I have one story here that's explicitly inspired by the 1001 Nights - superficially, by the Arabic themes and jinn, but also very much by the concept of people using storytelling to interact with one another. That shows up more obliquely in Red Scarf, where some of the BDSM scenes function as story-within-a-story. You can probably also blame Gaiman's "Sandman" series for this, which also makes heavy use of storytelling within stories and acknowledges the 1001 Nights.

 

[SimonDoom]

Perhaps I was scarred by the HSC English curriculum, but in my experience lit-fic defaults to misanthropy: people suck, and even the good ones will eventually be undone by their flaws. .

You raise an interesting issue -- what is the relationship between pessimism and misanthropy. I think you can be pessimistic without being misanthropic. I like to think that I'm neither, although I enjoy some authors who are one or the other or both. It's been so long since I read Of Human Bondage that I can't recall what you describe about it. I think you're right that too much fiction is pessimistic about what people can do.

There are authors like Cormac McCarthy that I think are brilliant writers, and enjoyable to read for their brilliance, but whose vision is more relentlessly dark and pessimistic than mine. I recall finishing Blood Meridian and thinking, "Holy Shit, how did he survive writing that." But I still draw some inspiration from the way he can spin words.

My view of the human condition is what I describe as "morbid optimism." Shit abounds, and things suck all over the place, and people are often horrible to each other, but things can, and often do, get better, and the chance for redemption is often there. Although I'm often inspired by authors with a darker vision than mine, my stories usually (not always) end on an up note.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You raise an interesting issue -- what is the relationship between pessimism and misanthropy. I think you can be pessimistic without being misanthropic. I like to think that I'm neither, although I enjoy some authors who are one or the other or both. It's been so long since I read Of Human Bondage that I can't recall what you describe about it. I think you're right that too much fiction is pessimistic about what people can do.

FWIW, my comments about Maugham were specifically about his shorts. I've read OHB, but it made less of an impression on me, and I only invoked it for the pun potential.

But I still draw some inspiration from the way he can spin words.

Downbeat stories certainly can be well written and worth learning from. I just think lit-fic often goes overboard with the idea that a good story has to end miserably and happy endings are something to be sneered at.

 

[JanusGoneAwry]

Everything by Neil Gaiman

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

Tekkonkinkreet by Matsumoto Taiyo has had me stirred emotionally for quite a while (Bramblethorn has already gotten the breakdown about how much I loved this story). The main characters Kuro and Shiro (aka Black & White) are two bad-ass little boys who live in an abandoned car in a dystopia called Treasure Town. They take on the yakuza, and nearly lose themselves in the war. In addition to being awesomely drawn, the story is all the feels; the kind of empathetic connection I feel towards Kuro and Shiro—rooting for them, wanting to protect them, ugly-crying for them—has leached into my writing.

https://letsfallasleep.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/bw-city.jpg

 

[Wifetheif]

I'm nearing the end of Graham Greene's The Power And The Glory, a novel about a very flawed Mexican priest who is on the run from authorities during revolutionary Mexico. I've read other Greene books before, but this is my first time with this one.

What a powerful book. Greene has an amazing way with words, and with drawing characters. The book is not at all erotic, but the prose is so good that when I'm done reading it for a while I want to get back to writing. It inspires me. Reading Greene reminds me of the power that words have, and also of the sheer fun of finding creative ways to put words together to tell a story.

If you haven't read Greene, I recommend him. He's one of the giants of mid-20th Century English prose, and his style is literary without being difficult.

Are there any books or stories you've read that have inspired you to write your stories, or to resume writing after some time away?

For me, it was a cringe-worthy nonfiction book called "Angel's Haunted Halo" about baseball scandals by a Canadian no talent named Danny Gallager. It was the book that said to me in no uncertain terms, "If THIS guy can get published so can I!" My prize-winning baseball history followed a few years later. How bad is "Angel's Haunted Halo?" After relating the sad story of Donnie Moore, a pitcher whose life literally fell apart after one bad pitch to the point that he ended up shooting his wife before turning the gun on himself (the wife, fortunately, survived). Gallager then mentions that Moore's daughter was so traumatized by the incident that she no longer dates black men. This is immediately followed by the author stating that he had a black girlfriend in college and then gives her a name shout-out!
I could not believe that an honest to god authentic publisher would allow that to stand. Way to trivialize suicide, attempted murder, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder you jackass!

I started posting to Litcom shortly after my book was published to work on grammar issues like dialogue which I felt I was deficient in. The positive feedback kept me writing and posting and now I have a nice sideline publishing erotic on Amazon. And I owe it all to one guy's egregious writing.

 

[HeyAll]

Blatty's Exorcist, but not for the demonic aspects. The book of course goes much deeper than the movie especially Karras trying to decide if Regan was possessed or mentally ill

There is a lot of real life case histories of schizophrenia, somnambulistic possession, hysteria and other illnesses that people formerly thought were possession and he tries to discount all her symptoms.

For whatever reason it fascinated me, enough to take an abnormal psych course and read up on personality disorders.

In My novel Every Dog has its Day I pay homage to Blatty's work in a scene where the detectives sit down with a criminal psychologist who goes on about the serial killer they're trying to track down and whether or not she's playing a game or seriously disturbed.

I mentioned this is the other thread about audio books, but the guy who wrote The Exorcist does an amazing narration of the book.

The free sample is there, if you haven't heard it already.

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Exor...fcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=5G5B0MZC89FADXP19V5K

 

[RichardWark]

I am not trying to sound too precious here, but Dickens. His best novels, even at their most depressing, are infused wth the joy of writing and storytelling. And although he is rather steeped in Victorian sensibilities, every no and then there is an insight that could have been made yesterday. I recently finished "Our Mutual Friend." What a perfect and low-key final chapter. A wonderful gesture takes place at the end.

I am not a Stephen King fan, but 11/22/63 is a masterpiece! And speaking of endings, he hits it out of the park with this one.

Kent Haruf's "Plainsong" is unforgettable.

"My Antonia" is my favorite American novel.

In terms of erotica, nobody has topped "Fanny Hill" yet.

 

[SamScribble]

I am not trying to sound too precious here, but Dickens. His best novels, even at their most depressing, are infused wth the joy of writing and storytelling.

I have to agree with you about Dickens. I recently re-read Bleak House. It has some wonderful bits of writing.

 

[Payne_Hall]

I don’t know if it counts as inspiring me to write, but a few current influences are Scott Snyder (Death of the Family) and Alan Moore (Watchmen). The reason being that they took up the challenge of taking their superhero worlds (both of which write in pretty comically dark settings) and created something almost horrifically believable. They walked that line of character development and writing stories within stories to turn something wildly fantastic into something as realistic as they could manage in those bounds.

For me it kind of goes with some of the fun in writing certain tags of erotica because it’s a little game to make scenarios that don’t feel contrived or comical. It’s been why I wanted to try incest sometimes, too, actually. I mean I don’t know that I could do well or could make it believable, but, well it feels like a pretty fun game .

 

[ElectricBlue]

IAre there any books or stories you've read that have inspired you to write your stories, or to resume writing after some time away?

No writer has inspired me to write erotica... maybe Anais Nin... but I have too many "favourite writers". I suspect if I listed them all, the list would be bigger than many people's libraries - not Ogg's obviously (although I think his is really a bookshop).

John Banville is right up there for superb sentences, Haruki Murakami for weirdness about holes in the ground and cats, and Mervyn Peake for whenever you folk roll out Tolkein as the master of fantasy worlds. None of you have read the Gormenghast books, clearly.

 

[Payne_Hall]

John Banville is right up there for superb sentences, Haruki Murakami for weirdness about holes in the ground and cats, and Mervyn Peake for whenever you folk roll out Tolkein as the master of fantasy worlds. None of you have read the Gormenghast books, clearly.

I’ve never been able to place Gormenghast and LotR in the same category, although I once had a friend get into a playful argument with me about it. Their point was that both are so heavily steeped in their respective prose.

My own argument was that Tolkien felt more of a continuation along the evolutionary line of storytelling that involved the Sword and Planet genre of books (along with the Heavy Metal movie haha), while Peake struck me as a continuation of the evolution that went with more of the older gothic styles. That might be unfair, as I know it’s fantastical, but it’d be like comparing Sanderson’s Cosmere to Mark Lawrence’s Prince of Thorns trilogy.

That second is far darker in tone. It feels like a different category.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I’ve never been able to place Gormenghast and LotR in the same category, although I once had a friend get into a playful argument with me about it. Their point was that both are so heavily steeped in their respective prose.

At least you've read Peake. It's sad that so many folk have never heard of him - a major artist in the twenties and thirties, one of the first war artists to report on Belsen, a radio play writer, and a creative career tragically cut short by premature senility when he was in his mid forties. His wife finished a fourth Gormenghast book, which was found and published by their son after her death.

Fuchsia was one of my first teenage crushes, I think.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

At least you've read Peake. It's sad that so many folk have never heard of him - a major artist in the twenties and thirties, one of the first war artists to report on Belsen, a radio play writer, and a creative career tragically cut short by premature senility when he was in his mid forties. His wife finished a fourth Gormenghast book, which was found and published by their son after her death.

Fuchsia was one of my first teenage crushes, I think.

The BBC did a fabulous adaptation about 15 years ago. I've read a bit of it but the first book was hard to find.

I've often been inspired to write by not-very-good books, on the grounds that I know I could do better.

But also by Nick Hornby, Zadie Smith, and Ben Aaronovitch, who persuaded me that my natural writing style, with geeky details and an obsession with London, could find an audience.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Without a doubt, the author that most inspires me is Zenna Henderson. Her ability to make you cry and then your heart soar in just a couple of sentences is just incredible. Her ability to reach into your soul and make you stand in the shoes of her characters makes them so real.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The BBC did a fabulous adaptation about 15 years ago. I've read a bit of it but the first book was hard to find.

Yes, the Beeb piece was not bad, the fascist interpretation of Steerpike an interesting twist.

The trilogy is a Penguin Classic edition, I regularly see it in bigger bookshops. The Maeve Peake fourth part is available as an e-book - it was only published in the last five years or so. She takes Titus to an island, clearly based on Sark, where he becomes an artist, turning full circle into Mervyn. It's a very personal, loving, tribute to her husband.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hmm... I was a paperback reader. Authors that have influenced me are many and distinguished.

Robert A. Heinlein, Gordon R. Dickson, Mack Reynolds, Christopher Anvil, David Drake, John D. MacDonald, and others. Most are science fiction writers, some not.

Specific stories that might have influenced me, Starship Troopers, Tactics of Mistake, Interstellar Patrol, Hammer's Slammers, and any Travis McGee novel.

 

[GinnyPPC]

For published authors, I like Andy Weir. I enjoyed the attention to detail and how the solution to one problem impacted the next problem. I've not yet figured out how to get that into my writing but someday.

There are also a few author's here on LitE (including one on this thread) that have impacted me greatly as well. They know who they are.