Orlando by Virginia Woolf - her main character living through centuries and changing gender; If On A Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. Both made me go - Wow! You can do that?? And Calvino in particular helps me embrace meta fiction, which I love and am drawn to writing, even though people have said it's too out there / weird / pretentious / difficult etc. You can't write to please everyone, and these books help remind me of the value of being true to yourself.
Omg the CALVINO. I read it cover to cover on a cross-country flight in the US and it was as if the top of my head came off, I loved it so much. That is definitely a top one for me. Plus, it is the most fantastic intro to a book I've ever read. True story: I currently have two copies of it in my house. I love Woolf, but am embarrassed to admit I haven't yet read Orlando... on the list ot goes.
I've only read Orlando and Mrs Dalloway (and the latter only after reading Michael Cunningham's novel and then watching the movie The Hours). Orlando doesn't feel like her other books, she also said she enjoyed writing it in a way that was different from writing her other books. And I watched Sally Potter's movie Orlando before reading the book. It helped!
Great tips, thank you! I’ve read To the Lighthouse, with A Public Space, when they were doing their readalongs, and it was great. I also dip in and out of A Room of One’s Own all the time. I did enjoy The Hours as well… I am a sucker for Philip Glass.
Cashelmara by Susan Howatch. It was marvellous to me how an author could conjure a whole world from the raw material of soul. The encounter formed my wish to one day publish a novel!
I asked for bookS in this question, so you’re not cheating, not to worry. (Unless it was fun to cheat, in which case you absolutely cheated!) Great choices… what did they shift for you?
Story gave me an anchored belief system in what storytelling should look like. McKee is a little genius, I think! I've read Story twice and have multiple notes in the margins which I refer to often.
The Awakening - ugh - Chopin's language and metaphors and symbolism and storytelling inspired me. It made me feel that women could write complex works and still tell a story worth reading. Super interesting fact - Chopin rarely spent time in the editing phase of her works. She wrote without worry that she would need to polish her story. When I read her, I feel like I am sitting on her front porch with some tea and cookies listening to her tell me a story.
Such a good question and discussion. Thanks for asking!
I love knowing what people connect to with books. One of my favorite topics. I can see the reassurance in McKee's Story and the way it lays structure out. It does always make me laugh, though, to think of how he's portrayed by Brian Cox in Adaptation. I always hear "God help you if you use voiceover dialogue!" when I think of that book. 🤣
I didn't know that about Kate Chopin and editing. I read that book years ago and loved it, but you're making me want to hang out with her again with tea and cookies...
What it did was force me to enter in to a world where everything was different, the rhapsodes' world of composition and the process of the written word, without printing. this means there is a change in every breath with their anti-penultimate, penultimate, or ultimate. it is not just translating a word to another word but a different language.
I find writing on oral tradition fascinating — after all, this is where stories began. Returning to this mode of sharing is always a huge eye-opener. Thanks for including this!
I say it all the time, but The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang changed who I was as a writer because it made it abundantly clear that I am a romance writer and not whatever the hell I was trying before (which was any other genre I could think of, but mostly fantasy)
Orlando by Virginia Woolf - her main character living through centuries and changing gender; If On A Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. Both made me go - Wow! You can do that?? And Calvino in particular helps me embrace meta fiction, which I love and am drawn to writing, even though people have said it's too out there / weird / pretentious / difficult etc. You can't write to please everyone, and these books help remind me of the value of being true to yourself.
Omg the CALVINO. I read it cover to cover on a cross-country flight in the US and it was as if the top of my head came off, I loved it so much. That is definitely a top one for me. Plus, it is the most fantastic intro to a book I've ever read. True story: I currently have two copies of it in my house. I love Woolf, but am embarrassed to admit I haven't yet read Orlando... on the list ot goes.
I've only read Orlando and Mrs Dalloway (and the latter only after reading Michael Cunningham's novel and then watching the movie The Hours). Orlando doesn't feel like her other books, she also said she enjoyed writing it in a way that was different from writing her other books. And I watched Sally Potter's movie Orlando before reading the book. It helped!
Great tips, thank you! I’ve read To the Lighthouse, with A Public Space, when they were doing their readalongs, and it was great. I also dip in and out of A Room of One’s Own all the time. I did enjoy The Hours as well… I am a sucker for Philip Glass.
Cashelmara by Susan Howatch. It was marvellous to me how an author could conjure a whole world from the raw material of soul. The encounter formed my wish to one day publish a novel!
Oh my god, I'd forgotten about this book! I must read it again
oh yay! I love a reread of a forgotten favorite.
Wow- that sounds incredible! And agreed, reading a book that creates a world for you does indeed change everything.
I'm sitting in my office rocking back and forth because it's too hard! So I will cheat.
Non-fiction = Story by Robert McKee
Fiction = The Awakening by Kate Chopin
I asked for bookS in this question, so you’re not cheating, not to worry. (Unless it was fun to cheat, in which case you absolutely cheated!) Great choices… what did they shift for you?
Story gave me an anchored belief system in what storytelling should look like. McKee is a little genius, I think! I've read Story twice and have multiple notes in the margins which I refer to often.
The Awakening - ugh - Chopin's language and metaphors and symbolism and storytelling inspired me. It made me feel that women could write complex works and still tell a story worth reading. Super interesting fact - Chopin rarely spent time in the editing phase of her works. She wrote without worry that she would need to polish her story. When I read her, I feel like I am sitting on her front porch with some tea and cookies listening to her tell me a story.
Such a good question and discussion. Thanks for asking!
I love knowing what people connect to with books. One of my favorite topics. I can see the reassurance in McKee's Story and the way it lays structure out. It does always make me laugh, though, to think of how he's portrayed by Brian Cox in Adaptation. I always hear "God help you if you use voiceover dialogue!" when I think of that book. 🤣
I didn't know that about Kate Chopin and editing. I read that book years ago and loved it, but you're making me want to hang out with her again with tea and cookies...
Glad you're enjoying the conversation!
Ἰλιάς (https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL170/1924/volume.xml , https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674995802)
And the papers of Milman Parry a scholar who showed that the portray was the result of an oral tradition later set down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milman_Parry (here: https://archive.org/details/MilmanParryTheMakingOfHomericVerse1971/mode/2up)
What it did was force me to enter in to a world where everything was different, the rhapsodes' world of composition and the process of the written word, without printing. this means there is a change in every breath with their anti-penultimate, penultimate, or ultimate. it is not just translating a word to another word but a different language.
I find writing on oral tradition fascinating — after all, this is where stories began. Returning to this mode of sharing is always a huge eye-opener. Thanks for including this!
I say it all the time, but The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang changed who I was as a writer because it made it abundantly clear that I am a romance writer and not whatever the hell I was trying before (which was any other genre I could think of, but mostly fantasy)
I love those moments when we know clearly what we love writing and who we are as writers. This sounds like such a strong moment. Yes!
I wouldn't be publishing my first book in December without it!
So many congratulations on that!!
A year by the sea - Joan Anderson
First ‘memoir’ I read that spoke to me deeply, way before I could actually comprehend why or what it meant.
It’s a journey book, connected to nature, full of metaphors , serendipity, signs and translations to understand life. Oh and tiny magic.
I was like: yes! It speaks to me. I want to write in that way too!
Tiny magic, yes please! We all need more of that, don’t we?
We doooooo!