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

[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.

[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.

[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".