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mrbexwrites · 6 months

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Happy STS, Mo! What’s the story that has influenced your writing craft the most? Whether it made some element of storytelling ‘click’ for you, or served as an example of how not to do things, which story has taught you the most?

Hi Sam! Happy STS and NaNo!

This is a difficult question to pin down, as I feel like I've taken a lot of different influences from many different authors. Terry Pratchett is probably the biggest influence due to his social justice take on fantasy, and how well he subverts tropes. (I'm not in any way comparing myself to PTerry, as I can't subvert a trope to save myself! But I like how he uses his characters to observe human absurdities when it comes to how we treat other people, societal norms and institutional systems)

That said, I hate-read Fifty Shades of Grey, and fml, I learned so much in regards of what not to do. (For context, I was a huge nerd and avid reader as a kid. My peers...not so much. I read the Harry Potter series so that I could have something in common to talk to the other kids, who weren't into Animorphs, Point Horror, Edgar Allan Poe, etc etc. So, when Fifty Shades was all the rage, and everyone in my work was reading it, I figured I could join in and finally have something in common to talk to them about.)

That book...*shudders*

I had to do a hard reset of my kindle after I finished it, as I wanted no trace of it near my presence. It was awful.

The writing, dreadful. The storyline, the pacing, the characters...just...I was baffled how that even got published?! And became a bestseller?!

Did an editor even cast an eye over it?

After reading the first chapter, I wanted to buy E.L James a thesaurus and post it to her.

I wanted to punch the main character in face. Everyone was so flat and lacking in personality.

If I read the phase 'my inner cheerleader' , or 'inner goddess' one more time, I was going to rip my eyeballs so that I had no choice but to stop reading.

It was awful, and I learned several valuable lessons from reading it. The biggest one being that being a 'bestseller' is no mark of quality, publishing is a numbers games, and if that monstrosity could get published, then there was hope for me too!!

(I'm not a great writer, in fact, I'd hardly rate myself as average, but, my god, I'm better than E.L. James! It's a low bar, I know. But we all need thresholds to compare ourselves to!!)

I'd be interested to know what other people's take on this would be- including your own positive and negative influences :)

Thanks again for the ask, and sorry for rambling. Fifty Shades did a lot of psychic damage to my soul!

#STS #Answered asks #Never forgive #never forget

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