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Books that have changed you as a writer

BlaqueBirds

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Are there any books you have read that have changed you as a writer?

Maybe changed your writing style or made you a better writer??
 

funnywithfierce

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51zj88g7MGL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 

OlliexAngel

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What changes would you say occurred and why?

The sci-fi aspect that includes a Black female main character. It was the first book I read that did that and inspired me to write my own novel adding fantasy elements into it with a Black female lead.
 

Geeky

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Heavy - Kiese Laymon
The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
Men We Reaped - Jesmyn Ward
No Disrespect - Sister Souljah
 

meroe

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The feast of all saints : Anne rice

Mist of Avalon: the writer turned out to be an evil b!tch so I won't write her name :sick:





These books made me appreciate and into characters driven plot
 

PiscesMoonGirl

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The feast of all saints : Anne rice

Mist of Avalon: the writer turned out to be an evil b!tch so I won't write her name :sick:





These books made me appreciate and into characters driven plot

Oh wow! I was going to cite Mists of Avalon too! I won't mention the author's name either (Mercedes Lackey has a counter take on the whole scandal, just FYI; she knew the Avalon author).

My books
Mists of Avalon - King Arthur's tale retold from the WOMEN'S point of view; blew my mind and showed me just how powerful one small change could be.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - fell in love with this in high school; I typically strive to make my style like his - atmospheric and ambiguous * shrugs * It's a thing. I also loved his focus on morality, conscience and choice. Oprah rhapsodizes about the theme of timshel (Hebrew for "thou mayest") in John Steinbeck's East of Eden, but actually I think it's Hawthorne who best captures that.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - before reading this I thought all first person novels were narrowvision dreck; she totally smacked that out of me, lol

Sally Hemings by Barbara Chase-Riboud - vastly underrated novel that should have been adpated to film long ago. It's beautifully written and exquisitely captures what we can only suppose to be the dilemma of Sally's existence.

Kindred (novel) but also the short story Bloodchild both by Octavia Butler - both blew my mind. Bloodchild especially. That short story earned her the Hugo and Nebula Awards I think. It's absolutely devastating. She tells an earthshaking story in deceptively simple and sparse prose (not my own prose style at all, yet it works).

After that I think my influences more or less come from non-fiction (like the Isis Papers by Frances Cress-Welsing and Echoes of the Old Dark Land by Dr. Charles S. Finch III, African Presence in Early Europe edited by Ivan Van Sertima, Black Athena by Martin Bernal, etc.)
 

holy water

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Heartburn by Nora Ephron and Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. Both of these books taught me the key to good writing is simple sentences and telling the truth.
 

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