The Stories That Shaped You

[rionaleonhart]

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?

Comments

[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.

[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.