Welcome to 40 Days of 3 Questions!
For the next few weeks, meet here every morning with a notebook or document to answer three questions about writing, about your status quo as a writer, or about the writing life. You can answer briefly and go about your day, or you can use this as a warm up exercise before your regular writing schedule. Whatever works for you, works for me.
Day 30 Questions:
- What book most influenced you as a reader?
- Does that book influence you are a writer?
- How and why?
You may post answers in comments or keep your thoughts private–your choice!
And here is today’s pretty picture:
Ramona DeFelice Long 
#1 Where Are the Children by Mary Higgins Clark. I was in high school, writing fanfiction (although we didn’t have that term for it yet) for my classmates. Westerns and sci-fi mostly. And then I read this book and everything changed, from my reading preferences to my writing genre (so, the answer to #2 is YES). Granted, it was a couple of decades later before I got serious about writing fiction for publication, but when I did, it was crime stories. Attempts at other genres fell flat. I want to have my readers turning the pages with their hearts pumping much the same way mine was while reading that book.
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Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler. Why? It is one of the few books I’ve read where faith and real life are characterized without saccharine sentimentality. It can be done. My own writing is in a big slump. I think I’ll re-read this book. 😬
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Compromising Positions by Susan Isaacs. I thought I hadn’t lived anything or any place interesting enough ( except to me) to write about. No quaint English village; glamorous European city full of spies; historic Oxford; the mysterious MIddle East. And then she wrote an absorbing, successful and funny mystery about what I then thought was the most boring place on earth, suburban Long Island. It was a revelation and an inspiration.
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1.) What book most influenced you as a reader? Little Woman by Louisa May Alcott.
2.) Does that book influence you are a writer? It inspires me to create vivid, realistic, fully developed characters.
3.) How and why? I work hard to make my characters grow and change through the series so that I stay interested in them — and hopefully so do readers.
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What book most influenced you as a reader? Would be a close tie between STILLWATCH by Mary Higgins Clark and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS by Agatha Christie.
Does that book influence you are a writer? Yes. I knew I wanted to write that kind of book. I’ve tried other things and always think “I should have a body somewhere” while I’m writing.
How and why? I wanted to create a puzzle–and ratchet up the heart rate while I was doing it. I remember being terrified reading STILLWATCH, but I couldn’t put it down at the same time.
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What book most influenced you as a reader? I was most influenced by two authors, Anne Tyler and Sue Miller, both of whom I began reading years ago. I don’t want to pick one among their offspring.
Does that book influence you are a writer? The authors do.
How and why? Their characters are so well developed and real to me. I want to create people as complete as theirs. The characters make the stories which couldn’t exist without these particular characters (at least in my mind).
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Two books had a tremendous influence on both my personal and writing life. The first was Emerald, an old Hollywood mystery, by Phyllis Whitney and the other was The Good Earth, a story of life in China, by Pearl Buck. Though both books seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, the core of their stories are the same; family. These books have influenced not only how and what I write, but how I see life. Both books opened my eyes to the fact that no matter your living situation, family life isn’t so very different anywhere. When I write my stories, no matter the genre, they are about relationships and how one event can cause a wide array of emotions and reactions. I think that is true for nearly every book ever written.
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