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

[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!