fictional_fans | The Stories That Shaped You

What are the works of fiction you'd consider particularly influential in forming your tastes?

I've been wondering this because I've been rereading a fic I loved when I was fifteen, and I've realised it contains a lot of themes I've sought out or included in my writing ever since. The self-loathing protagonist has an intense, unhealthy, antagonistic, sexually tinged relationship with a duplicate of himself who may or may not be imaginary; there are so many things I love in that one sentence!

Animorphs, Life on Mars and Silent Hill 2 were also big influences on me. Characters bonding under intense adversity, characters in situations where it's hard to know what's real and what isn't, characters struggling to cope with the things they've done: all things I love in fiction, and all things that can be traced back to these canons I experienced at a formative age.

So those are the things that shaped my taste in fiction; what are yours?

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From:

polarissruler

With me, I guess there were three big groups of things that influenced me.

The first was when I was still a kid and was just learning to read. One of my favorite poems (even now) was "For You, My Children Dear". I've reread it recently and realized how much my writing has in common with the vivid descriptions and the soft manner of speaking. It, along with "The Sea Princess And Her Grandpa" formed the way I write most of the things.

The second one was when I was just getting into fandoms, fanfics, and so on. Back then I was binging on YA novels every possible second. Probably "Mortal Instruments" and "Infernal Devices" left the biggest mark on me. They were one of the YA novels I read and that's how I found my love for angsty, dark, and handsome boys. Even now, I rarely write about characters that don't have some great, dark secrets in their lives.

And the third part is the things I'm reading now. Once again, I focus on poetry - this time "Fleur du Mal" by Charles Baudelaire. His focus on the ugly, the dark, the macabre was very unique. I'm trying to write poetry and I find that my style ends somewhat close to his.

(Also, when did this end up like those reports I write for literature classes?)

From:

rionaleonhart

Characters with great, dark secrets in their lives are the best sort!

It's really interesting to me that your writing style was so heavily influenced by poetry. I've definitely come across some fic authors who I'd say have a very poetic style. My style was heavily influenced by Animorphs, so it tends to be very plain and direct.

From:

polarissruler

Plain and direct is also great - some of the best things I've read had a very laconic style that led to incredible effect. But yeah, my things are something like poetry and prose mixed together. Sometiems it works, sometimes it doesn't.

And yeah, the characters with dark secrets are great, but I wish I could write happier things more easily.

From:

luckyzukky

oh, definitely winx club and power rangers (neo-saban era, bc i'm too young to remember the others lol). i think both series being about multi-colored heroes in a team who kill monsters influenced what i like in media now, considering i'm a huge fan of magical girl anime and super sentai. they were basically my first fandoms, and my first experience with fandom, and since i was pretty young i think that's why i love fandom as a whole so much lol

Edited Date: 2020-04-22 02:09 pm (UTC)

From:

rionaleonhart

I remember my brother watching Power Rangers! It's never occurred to me before that it could be a gateway to magical girl anime, but I'm absolutely delighted by the thought.

From:

luckyzukky

i think it's because of the team dynamic thing imo. sailor moon was influenced by super sentai (what power rangers adapts from), and that brought the sentai team dynamic and concepts to magical girl anime, and now it's a big influence on the whole genre lol

From:

polarissruler

Hi, fellow Winx fan! Club Winx was also my childhood. But somehow I never made the connection between Club Winx and magical girls.

From:

luckyzukky

winx is great! i stopped watching after season 6 since i was losing interest with the poor writing but i have sooo many fond memories of the show lol

From:

polarissruler

Yes, I'm trying to watch the seventh season now and it's not easy. I might have to stop before I start hating it. My favorite parts are the first two seasons (only they aired on TV here and I watched them until they ended burnt in my memory) and the third one (I love Enchantix so much.)

From:

luckyzukky

oh good luck, i remember i tried watching the 7th season and even for me it was too bad. that's where i lost interest i think, i got tired of hoping it'd be as good as it was in the past lol. the 3rd season is such a classic, but my favorite's always been the 4th season since i grew up watching the nickelodeon dub and they promoted the SHIT out of believix so i fell in love with the season. also it was kinda edgy towards the end and 9 year old me lived for that lol

From:

polarissruler

Yeah, Belivix is also great (although I liked that season more because of the cute magical pets.)

From:

minoanmiss

Lord of the Rings. My recurring obsessions with light imagery, star imagery, poetry, and eucatastrophe are all connected to LOTR.

Kipling and Renault's works (even if they would have hated each other, heh) instilled my taste for historical fiction and other fiction where the different setting and the different thought patterns of a different time are well described.

Heinlein above all in science fiction (much to my embarrassment sometimes, because sometimes his hormones really took ovr his writing). The way he wrote about relationships, and included sex and reproduction in his works, really resonated with young me(as did his flailing attempts at multiculturalism). I'm lucky that the first of his books I read is still my favorite, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

From:

rionaleonhart

Heinlein above all in science fiction (much to my embarrassment sometimes, because sometimes his hormones really took ovr his writing).

Ha! I've definitely enjoyed some things where the writer is just wildly indulging themselves.

I wasn't familiar with the term eucatastrophe! Thank you for teaching me something new.

From:

minoanmiss

blushes You are most welcome.

From:

doranwen

LOTR solidarity! I don't think it influenced my writing as much - unless you count the LOTR fanfic I've written that I've had people tell me I did the style well (still amazes me, I'm always terrified of getting it wrong) - but it definitely influenced the reading I liked to do. :D

From:

pensnest

Georgette Heyer! I acquired a predilection for polysyllables at an impressionable age (my teens) and it is with me still.

From:

rionaleonhart

It's strange to realise that a particular person's work had a very clear influence on something as fundamental as the way you write or speak. What would our writing look like if I'd never read Animorphs, or if you'd never read Heyer? It's hard to imagine.

From:

pensnest

How true! If I'd imprinted on Hemingway I would have so much less joy in my writing!

From:

cofax7

Andre Norton novels; Lord of the Rings; and Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. So: plot, female characters, adventure, world-building, prose, witty dialogue, and longass slow-building romances.

From:

rionaleonhart

An excellent set of likes!

I have to ask: what's the story behind your icon? I spent a moment trying to work out whether it meant you liked or disliked Andre Norton before I realised you had 'Andre Norton novels' on your list of influences.

From:

cofax7

I think there was a conversation about the way that women SF writers keep getting left out of the history, and a bunch of us were talking about how long Norton was writing SF.

From:

alias_sqbr

I'm never sure whether something influenced my tastes, or just happened to be the first example I encountered of a thing I was already predisposed to like. Like, I have always loved period works about repressed girls with homoerotic passionate feelings, and the earliest example I can remember is Anne of Green Gables, but I think I'm into that dynamic because I grew up as a repressed queer afab person, and if I hadn't read Anne of Green Gables there'd have been Jane Eyre etc.

I can think of plenty of things which influence my creations though. I imprinted as a child on the surreal 70s English humour of Monty Python, The Goon Show etc and it still shows up in my writing.

My mother had a bunch of Ivan Bilibin illustrated fairytales and those definitely influenced me as an artist. I've always had a soft spot for Russian fairytales, too, so I guess it did influence my tastes a little.

From:

rionaleonhart

That's a good point! I love deeply repressed, socially awkward characters, but I don't think that love came from Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy VIII; I just think Squall Leonhart was the first character I discovered that I could relate to as a repressed, socially awkward teenager. It's definitely easier to pin down definite examples of influences on your creations.

From:

beatrice_otter

David Weber's Honor Harrington series was my favorite as a teen. Despite all the many deficiencies in the writing (oh God, the infodumping!), it was the first time I'd ever realized that "she" could be a default pronoun.

From:

rionaleonhart

Despite all the many deficiencies in the writing (oh God, the infodumping!)

Ha! I definitely have canons where I go 'yes, objectively I can see this is a flawed mess, but I love it so much I don't care.'

From:

dragoness_e

I think one of the biggest literary influences in my life was The Lord of the Rings; it shaped both my tastes and my morality.

Robert E. Howard and Leigh Brackett's stories did a lot to shape my taste for colorful adventures with compelling characters.

I also read a lot of utter crap (hack writing, cardboard characters) growing up, and the main influence they had on me was to eventually turn me off of stories like that. The older I get, the more character-driven I prefer my stories to be. I've also forgotten most of those mediocre stories because, well, they were forgettable.

From:

rionaleonhart

Going by the answers both here and on my own journal, you're the fourth person to mention The Lord of the Rings as a strong influence; it evidently really spoke to a lot of people. It's also interesting to hear about the things that influenced your tastes by driving you away from similar works.

From:

dragoness_e

Someone else mentioned Anne of Green Gables; I'd forgotten how much that entire series was formative in my youth. Talk about memorable characters--I still remember Marilla and Rachel Lynde and Diana, and, of course, Anne.

Certain terrible D&D tie-in novels reminded me of Diana's inability to figure out how to end a story, so she'd just kill all the characters off at the end. I feel that the novel writers in question had the same problem.

Certain flavors of internet trollery reminded me of Anne retorting (when told "Don't mind Rachel, that's just her way") that "If I ran around sticking pins in people, and said, 'Don't mind me, that's just my way', would it be okay?" i.e, being habitually hurtful isn't okay just because it's a habit.

And, of course, Tolkien finally gave me the anti-death penalty rebuttal to Heinlein's pro-death penalty thesis of "they won't be repeat offenders if they're dead".

Edited Date: 2020-04-24 02:24 pm (UTC)

From:

ruuger

All those whumpy procedurals that I watched in the 80's & 90's have certainly been a very big influence on the kind of tropes that I like :D

I suspect that Silk Stalkins especially had quite a big effect on the kind of het (friend)ships I gravitate towards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_1mbAybyno

In less tropey side, Arthur C Clarke is still my platonic ideal of science fiction, and my sense of humour was basically founded on Monty Python.

From:

doranwen

LOTR heavily influenced my love for fantasy as a teen (as well as all those heroism/self-sacrifice + all those major themes). Oddly enough, however, I am less likely to pick up any new fantasy books *now* - but I still love the themes I fell in love with in LOTR. (I think part of it is the new stuff doesn't have the things I love LOTR for - and it tends to have things that turn me off very strongly. So my fantasy reading is mostly nostalgia reading now, the books I loved as a teen. Alma Alexander's Worldweavers series is the one main exception.)

I read tons of YA books while I technically should've been reading children's books (what is age? lol), and I still love YA as a result. On the whole, I'm far more likely to pick up a YA book than an adult one, as far as fiction goes (though I read adult nonfiction all the time).

The film Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain (1995) either started or paralleled my love for female friendships which verge on romantic friendships, and it's still one of my favorite (tiny/nonexistent) fandoms. Watched it as a 12 or 13-year-old and I fell in love with it immediately. I'm pretty sure that is one of the most formative canons I ever saw.

And as far as TV shows go, the earliest ones I can remember watching were a few clips of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and a lot clearer memories of Walker, Texas Ranger. Perhaps the latter is what sparked my love of law enforcement procedurals with some emotional content thrown in, though I think I really fell in love with that from Rizzoli & Isles (and I still don't remember how I discovered R&I! perhaps it was a friend of mine knowing my love for close female friendships - I know I found it right after S1 had finished airing, so it was early on).

From:

fred_mouse

I've been pondering this question for days, and I'm no closer to any idea than I was when I read the question the first time. Like some of the other posters, I read Lord of the Rings (obsessively) as a teen, and a lot of Heinlein in my early 20s; plus a lot of Anne McCaffrey. Plus a whole pile of other authors who have shaped my library, as I've found others of their books.

But shaping my tastes? I just... got nothin.

From:

igenlode

Thinking about it... I grew up on a lot of nineteenth and early twentieth century fiction and historical novels; very much the "Boys' Own" stuff, where friendship and loyalty ultimately counted as much as romance (which is one reason why slash, which eroticises the concept, turns me off so much), where ideals were clear and bright, where lovers stayed true through all temptations, and where sacrifice was tragic and suicide the noble choice. Tolkien (which epitomises quite a lot of the above, I suppose) came pretty early on, but I was really more influenced by the Scarlet Pimpernel, D.K.Broster (though some of her tragedy was a bit too dark for me) and Mary Stewart's "The Crystal Cave". Later on a lot of female-written science-fiction (not a conscious choice, but simply what was available in the local library: Andre Norton first, Ursula K Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Sheri Tepper, C.J. Cherryh, Mary Gentle). I'm not sure I was greatly influenced by that, save that it did, with hindsight, tend to echo the same values; it's more important to stay true to an idea than to follow your own desires.

The taste for writing angst started early on, and I think was inherent rather than affected by circumstances or anything I read -- I always preferred to read happy endings!