How do you avoid being influenced?

CaroGirl · May 9, 2006

I read a lot of great novels. However, I find that whatever I'm reading tends to influence my WIP, particularly my novel.

I just read a wonderful book that I loved, which was written in 3rd person limited. It made me want to change my whole novel to 3rd person limited. Now I'm reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which is in 1st person. It makes me want to change the few chapters I have in 3rd person, to 1st person, just because he does it so well.

How do you avoid that trap? I'm not going to stop reading the wonderful novels I read, but I don't want pieces of them to creep into my work too much (btw, I'm not talking about plagiarism here, just stylistic devices).

icerose · May 9, 2006

I don't think you can entirely avoid influence. The biggest thing, I think, is develop your own voice. As for POV, well, no one can claim point of view as their own, otherwise there would be like 4 books.

Get your own voice and everything else will be taken care of. Make sure you have your own characters, with their own stories, and your own plot and story line.

Writers will always be influenced by their surroundings, just make sure it is a positive influence and that you are creating your own from that influence.

citymouse · May 9, 2006

Avoid

CG, I know what you're going through. My solution is, I don't read while I'm writing. Depending on what I'm doing that can be months.
I also beta read and this can influence me too. I can't tell you how many times I've read a line and wished I had done it. The reality is that many, if not all of us, are influenced by others. It's how we learn.
Michael

Shadow_Ferret · May 9, 2006

Actually, I don't avoid it, I use it for inspiration. My current WIP is first person smartalec and while I wrote it I read some Nelson DeMille first person smartalec stuff simply as a kick in the pants for my own writing process.

maestrowork · May 9, 2006

I don't read when I'm writing.

icerose · May 9, 2006

maestrowork said:
I don't read when I'm writing.

I am the same way. I avoid books in the genre and type like a plague when I am writing. I don't like their words creeping in and mingling with my own.

KTC · May 9, 2006

It's impossible to avoid influence. I couldn't stop myself from reading. I read every spare moment.

aadams73 · May 9, 2006

CaroGirl said:
How do you avoid that trap? I'm not going to stop reading the wonderful novels I read, but I don't want pieces of them to creep into my work too much (btw, I'm not talking about plagiarism here, just stylistic devices).

I struggled with this at first, but find it less of a problem now that I'm finding my own voice. Other books inspire me now, but I find them creeping in less and less often.

Perhaps it's just practise?

Celia Cyanide · May 9, 2006

When I'm done with one novel, I make a point of choosing a very different novel to read after it. That usually helps me. I think the whole not reading while you're writing is a good idea, and does help. But lately, I am trying to get into the habit of writing every day, and I have to read some time.

MarkN · May 9, 2006

Read widely, write tons.

The more different novels you read, the less any one of them is likely to influence you, especially if they're very different in style, theme, etc.

More important is to write tons. The more you write, the more you develop your own ideas about how things should be written.

Jamesaritchie · May 9, 2006

CaroGirl said:
I read a lot of great novels. However, I find that whatever I'm reading tends to influence my WIP, particularly my novel.

I just read a wonderful book that I loved, which was written in 3rd person limited. It made me want to change my whole novel to 3rd person limited. Now I'm reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which is in 1st person. It makes me want to change the few chapters I have in 3rd person, to 1st person, just because he does it so well.

How do you avoid that trap? I'm not going to stop reading the wonderful novels I read, but I don't want pieces of them to creep into my work too much (btw, I'm not talking about plagiarism here, just stylistic devices).

What trap? I think one of the main benefits of reading is precisely so you will be influenced by good writing and good writers. You won't copy them, expecially if you read many novels by many writers. I say don't worry about it. Use it.

Jamesaritchie · May 9, 2006

Reading

citymouse said:
CG, I know what you're going through. My solution is, I don't read while I'm writing. Depending on what I'm doing that can be months.
l

The trouble I see with this is that reading is second in importance only to writing, and may even be more important. It's pretty difficult to even be a writer if you don't read constantly. If I didn't read while working on fiction, I wouldn't have read ten novels in the last fifteen years. Going months without reading fiction is no way to write publishable fiction.

janetbellinger · May 9, 2006

CaroGirl said:
I read a lot of great novels. However, I find that whatever I'm reading tends to influence my WIP, particularly my novel.

I just read a wonderful book that I loved, which was written in 3rd person limited. It made me want to change my whole novel to 3rd person limited. Now I'm reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which is in 1st person. It makes me want to change the few chapters I have in 3rd person, to 1st person, just because he does it so well.

How do you avoid that trap? I'm not going to stop reading the wonderful novels I read, but I don't want pieces of them to creep into my work too much (btw, I'm not talking about plagiarism here, just stylistic devices).

Just keep in mind that you are a different author from the one who wrote the book you are reading. That way you can keep your own novel separate from the one you are reading.

kristie911 · May 9, 2006

maestrowork said:
I don't read when I'm writing.

Me neither.

It's too hard to type and hold the book open at the same time. I keep losing my page.

FergieC · May 9, 2006

I agree that the way you learn is to read and to be influenced. You see someone write using a really great technique and you want to use it; to be able to do it as well as the great writer you're reading. There's nothing wrong with that - being desperate to be able to write as well as the greats is what spurs you on as a writer. If you never saw anything and got knocked out by it and wanted to be able to do it, you'd never make a writer, imo.

But I think, after a while, you develop your own style, your own voice, and your own themes and ideas of what you want. After you manage that, the ways in which you 'copy' the greats becomes more subtle. My first attempts at writing novels are all Frankenstein's monsters, cobbled together from whatever I was reading and loving at the time - in terms of writing, characters, themes and everything really. But as you write more, you do less of that, although I'm still a bit prone to it now and again if I read a really great novel while I'm writing - but when I do that now, it stands out and can be 'disappeared' in the re-write! Hopefully as you get better, that just gets less...

SpookyWriter · May 9, 2006

maestrowork said:
I don't read when I'm writing.

I do that sometimes. But if I don't read for several months then my dreams fade and I have trouble concentrating at work. So I grab a book and spend the weekend reading. But I rarely get (or am) influenced by the other writer. Especially if it's chick-lit... :tongue

Anthony P. Steerpike · May 9, 2006

The six golden rules of writing according to Ernest Gaines: “Read, read, read, and write, write, write.”

icerose · May 9, 2006

I still read, I try to read everyday. What I said is I don't read within the genre I am writing. If I am writing a fantasy, I read thrillers. If I am writing a thriller, I read Fantasy. That type of thing.

RTH · May 9, 2006

Are you being influenced or invaded? If you feel invaded, I'd try reading nonfiction, or else stuff that's as far opposite what you're writing as possible. If you're writing a thriller, read Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, for example...

But I don't think influence is bad -- to the contrary! If you see what someone else is doing, why NOT try it yourself and see how you like it? You'll have to rewrite anyway, so you may as well make that part of the process.

I say go ahead and learn from what other people have done well. Experiment. That's the only way you'll expand your toolkit as a writer. Even if an experiment doesn't work, you've still learned something, right?

Good luck,
RTH

RTH · May 9, 2006

oops, I guess I should read all the threads before I post -- sorry, Icerose.

icerose · May 9, 2006

RTH,

No problem. It's good to know my own personal techniques and solutions are completely off the wall. I have never read any how to write books, I just write. I have read at least a thousand books in my lifetime. I don't consider it nearly enough. When I have a problem I find my own solution. It's good to know that others have also found and use these solutions.

Rather comforting really.

Bufty · May 9, 2006

Icerose, I am curious. If, in addition to general reading, one never reads any books at all on writing techniques - be they 'How to', Reference or otherwise - how does one know that there is a problem in the writing, or find the best way to resolve it?

Anya Smith · May 9, 2006

I roar, and burn the books with my dragon fire.

It happens to me, but only with my favorite authors. I always revert to my own after a page or two of borrowed style.

icerose · May 9, 2006

Bufty said:
Icerose, I am curious. If, in addition to general reading, one never reads any books at all on writing techniques - be they 'How to', Reference or otherwise - how does one know that there is a problem in the writing, or find the best way to resolve it?

I'm not saying don't read those, I simply said I haven't. I love to write so that is what I do. I do have a Little Brown Book from college that I reference to on grammar and punctuation problems, also I search the internet for sources to help me out of any particular binds. There are a few decent grammar and usage guides that I check.

In the knowing section, I read and I write, I have critiquers who point out any problems beyond what I don't catch.

Resolving issues I find, I discuss it with my sister, we bounce it back and forth until I find the solution I was looking for. I will let you know how it works out for me.

CaroGirl · May 9, 2006

I agree with most of you: reading great work can only help my writing. Besides, I can't not read. I read read fiction every day. My main difficulty lately is in choosing a POV. Whichever POV the novel I'm reading is written in, makes me want to try my novel in that POV.

I have my own style, per se, just the POV that I can't seem to nail down. Although, I think switching it to 1st person, the way most of it is right now, will certainly help me maintain 3rd person limited when, or if, I switch it.

Funny, though, I don't seem to have this trouble with my short stories.

ETA: It's also good to know that I'm not the only one who struggles with this issue. Thanks.

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