Drivelling under the influence

Not a post about writing whilst drunk, which isn't something I'd advise. (I mean, best case scenario, you'll come out with a load of crap. But what if it's brilliant? What if you find you can only produce works of wit and poignancy when you're soused? For your liver's sake, it's probably best not to find out if your "Mr Hyde" is a literary genius.) Anyway, no, this is a post about the other authors you read while you're writing. Those influential whisperers who creep into your own prose while you obliviously hit the keys.

I've heard it said that everyone starts their own writing life by aping another author. I certainly did. (Raymond Chandler in my, and many other people's, case.) But after that initial, faltering "parody" stage, we naturally begin to develop our own voices. A bit of pride creeps in once we start to venture off the well-trodden path of imitation. We might, eventually, even fool ourselves that we're beyond outside influences and henceforth develop the silly notion that we're being entirely original.

We're not, of course. Our literary forefathers stand behind us in a line and frown at our hubris.

If you read -- hell, if you receive communication your fellow man at all -- you can't help but be influenced. Whether it's the words themselves or simply the rhythm of language. Something someone said to you or a mannerism you poached for a character in one of your stories. It lends a sentence veracity if it describes something that really was done or said.

But whilst standard advice to all authors is to read a lot, I've discovered the necessity to be discriminating about it. An earlier, unpublished novel I wrote was largely written whilst resentfully hacking through "Atlas Shrugged". (I did this solely because I thought that I ought to. Seldom a good reason for reading anything of that length.) And, without any conscious effort, Randian extended monologues began creeping into my own work. Every so often, one character would climb up on a soapbox and start making themselves disagreeable by haranguing another. The worst part was, I could see that the show/tell ratio was out of whack, but couldn't seem to break out of it whilst I was reading that damned book. In the end, the novel was serviceable enough, if bloated, but I disliked it and it sits on my hard-drive still, waiting to be cut up for spare parts.

So, yes, I think writers ought to read a lot. But only the sort of stuff that helps them.