Last week, I said I'd mention the three writers who influenced me most and provided all of us with their literary gifts. They're easy for me to identify - Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Ernest Hemingway. Of course, I've read (and continue to read) many, many other writers, but this trio made me really want to be a writer!
I love Mark Twain because of his humor, clarity, and deceptively simple language. Plus, the man could flat out tell a story!
I love Charles Dickens for his outrageous ability to create memorable characters - Uriah Heep, Fagin, the Artful Dodger, Mr. Micawber and on and on. Not only do these characters stand out because of their actions, but their names almost always indicate what kind of person they are. Was there ever an author who was better at naming his characters than Dickens!? Not in my opinion.
I love Ernest Hemingway because of his oft-noted ability to write plain, direct sentences that somehow seem to be the deceptively simple surface of an ocean with deep currents of emotion beneath. Yes, he's a particularly masculine writer (as some of his critics have charged), but what's wrong with that? Those critics would give their right arm to write one sentence as well as he did!
So, there you have my main influences. Oh, I forgot to add the one I mentioned in an earlier blog - Alfred Bester. Now, this man is in nowhere the same category as Twain, Dickens or Hemingway as a writer, but for sheer, outrageous science fiction imagination, he still inspires me to this day!
Next week, I'll try to answer the question that every writer gets over and over again: "Where do you get your ideas?"
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