Family Influence

ShapeSphere · May 13, 2007

When you consider what you read and write, how much has your family influenced you?

Perhaps you actually come from a household similar to Stephen King's, the [SIZE=-1]Brontës[/SIZE], or the Amises? (I don't).

Did your relatives encourage your reading and writing? (Mine did and do. I'm lucky). I imagine most parents would be pleased if their child showed an interest in something considered intellectual. What do you think?

My favourite genres are history and SF/fantasy and yet nobody amongst my family is remotely concerned by them. (I guess it was just WWII comics and SF kid's shows on TV that started it all). Maybe one of your relations was the spur for all that you read and write?

I don't think family influence has any impact on quality of writing. Just intrigued by it all. Opinions?

Cheers wise wordsmiths.

janetbellinger · May 13, 2007

My family influenced me. I escaped from unpleasant realities through reading. I literally lived through the characters in my books and their lives.

Cav Guy · May 13, 2007

janetbellinger said:
My family influenced me. I escaped from unpleasant realities through reading. I literally lived through the characters in my books and their lives.

This would come closer to my experience as well. For me reading (and later writing) was an escape from a very jacked-up family. They didn't care about my writing (still don't, actually) and ignored just about everything I did. So the influence they had would be positive (I guess) in a very negative way.

scarletpeaches · May 13, 2007

janetbellinger said:
My family influenced me. I escaped from unpleasant realities through reading. I literally lived through the characters in my books and their lives.

Ditto. My mother used to put a book in my hand to shut me up...not that I was a bothersome kid, she just couldn't be a*sed looking after me, and books kept me occupied.

My gran did the same thing but in a more encouraging way. Her favourite trick when I was a baby was to put a newspaper in my hand and see whether I could tell if it was upside down or not. I couldn't read back then but could still recognise type.

I think I learned to read round about the age of two; simple storybooks but by the age of six or seven I was reading the Brontes and Bram Stoker. My gran always said I took after my uncle Charles who's the only studious person in the family. I wouldn't say I am really; but I'm definitely the only bookworm. I honestly don't know where I get it from...perhaps I used it as an escape. Other people's stories distracted me from my own life.

I was happy to disappear to my room to read books for hours on end and my mother was glad I was out of her way. Everyone's happy.

sunna · May 13, 2007

I don't think my family influenced what I read - I started reading SF/F very young, and nobody else in my family read those genres until my sister showed an interest in them a few years ago. But they definitely did (and do) encourage me to write. I have a lot of creative types in my family (mostly artists and musicians) and they place a high value on creativity of any sort.
And certainly all the oddball personalities I grew up with and the weird things we did, and do, for fun have a pretty big influence on how and what I write now. I find that the relationships between my characters take on a lot of the characteristics of relationships in my family. I'm grateful now even for the uglier stuff, as well as for the encouragement.

ChaosTitan · May 13, 2007

I grew up with a book in my hands, because I was a shy child. Most of the kids in my neighborhood were either much younger or much older, so my sister and I played by ourselves in the summertime. We also read like maniacs. Stacks of books each, every two weeks from the local library.

We had a very stable, loving family. My parents encouraged us to read and to be creative. My dad barely graduated high school and never received secondary education, so he supports every dream that my sister and I achieve to and every goal we set.

My family knows I write, and they know how serious I am about it. If I ever see publication, I think they'll be more excited about it than I (and that's saying something!). I read because I love stories, and I write because I have stories to tell. It's not dramatic, but it is what it is.

wordmonkey · May 13, 2007

I suspect I was more like King, insofar as I was into comic-books. My mom thought these were awful but never really stopped me. When I was nine, I had to have surgery and my Mom went up to school and spoke to the Headmaster/Principal. She asked if they had any work for me to do while I was off school.

She was asked if I was reading anything.

Only comics, she replied, making it clear her opinion of that.

Don't worry, assured the Headmaster. He's reading, and eventually he'll move on to bigger and better things.

Up until I heard this story (many years after the incident) I had always thought that Headmaster something of a loser (don't we all look back on one - or more - teachers from our childhood and think that?). This story changed my opinion entirely. The guy obviously knew what he was talking about, because I did move on to bigger and weightier reading matter. He also knew that reading was reading, and Spider-man is gateway-reading to Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare and Ovid.

Storyteller5 · May 13, 2007

I think the biggest influence my family had was that they all read and there's was a lot of different material around to read - newspapers, magazines, books of all kinds. I could ask for any genre to read and I was given it.

ShapeSphere said:
I imagine most parents would be pleased if their child showed an interest in something considered intellectual. What do you think?

My family is a pretty smart bunch and it's expected that we will read and use those brains. We can be a pretty arrogant bunch about it sometimes although we don't mean to be.

My family hasn't read my writing although a few of them know that I do. I've shared the news of my rejection letters for my pb and the completion of my novel, but that's all. My Dad talks about writing sometimes but I don't know what he's writing. I think he writes sometimes about what he's thinking about but he doesn't share it. I think he will be one of my biggest fans when I do get published even though he doesn't read the kind of stuff I write.

Shady Lane · May 13, 2007

My parents are fairly distant...needless to say, they were very very surprised when I told them I'd been offered a contract, since they didn't even know I write.

I'm very close with my sister, though, and she's very active in my writing.

dreamsofnever · May 13, 2007

Oooh, good thread! I truly believe that children who are read to from an early age will have an easier time developing their vocabulary and are more likely to show an interest in reading and writing later in life.

But there are exceptions to every rule.

I can say this-when I was younger, my dad read all sorts of fantasy books to me, from C.S. Lewis to JRR Tolkien, and surprise, surprise, I'm most interested in writing within the fantasy genre.

jenfreedom · May 13, 2007

janetbellinger said:
My family influenced me. I escaped from unpleasant realities through reading. I literally lived through the characters in my books and their lives.

Double, or triple (I guess) ditto -- Looks like you have friends.

My mom was/is completely psychotic. I read all the time to clear my head and get away. She did influence me in other more positive ways though. Crazy or not she loved books and never edited what I read and would suggest harder books (like Irving and Shakespeare when I was maybe nine years old). She also was an amazing writer -- although she did lie in her writing, like she did in real life which is very obnoxious. Her big dream was to be a big ol' published writer of some sort. Which is why I sometimes think I became a writer (part of it anyhow - I do really enjoy writing). She's too nuts and busy hiding out from the police and other folks who are after her to get published. I, on the other hand am sane enough and am also not busy committing crimes so I do get published and hired as a writer.

Here come a big slice of me being mean: Even though I haven't seen my mom in around 10 years I was still crazy happy seeing my name in print for the first time and knowing her name never was. Because I know she wanted it so bad -- it felt a little like payback. Maybe a bit spiteful and dumb but I guess we all have our mean thought moments.

Meanness over; we now return to our previously kind and caring Jennifer...

My sister, who I adore is also a writer but strangely never reads unless she has to. So maybe the writing gene runs in families.

Take care
~ Jennifer

Jamesaritchie · May 13, 2007

Family

My family was and remains the largest influence of my life. I suspect this is true in every case, whether we realize it or not.

scarletpeaches · May 13, 2007

Complete rot. Speak for yourself. Just because something is true for you doesn't make it universally so.

Pagey's_Girl · May 13, 2007

My mom read to me all the time when I was very little. She also likes to tell the story of how I inadvertently gave her a black eye when I was about three or so trying to grab a Little Golden Book out of her hands to read it myself. (Don't know if i could actually read then, but I could before I hit kindergarten. I remember being quite upset that we weren't allowed to check books out of the library until first grade.) Books were the one thing I was totally spoiled with growing up - if I wanted one, I got it, no argument. I was totally into Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and the Three Investigators. And the Wizard of Oz books. SO yeah, I suppose it was just a matter of time until I started writing my own...

Turtle07 · May 13, 2007

If I said my family didn't influence me, I'd be lying.

My older sis got me hooked on books when she made me read my first YA chapter book, Tamora Pierce's Alana: The First Adventure. I'm still glad today that I stumbled across the book in the library and my sis made me read it.

After that, I started to look for writing sites. At first, I lurked around a FanFiction site and discovered there are many talented writer's there. Except they write for fun and use TV, book, etc. characters. That's when I decided to start writing myself.

My mom totally loved the idea that I wanted to write and supported me since I started. She likes me and my sis's to do our own thing and follow our dreams. She respects my privacy when I don't want her to read my stories. (I'm waiting till I actually write something good until I let her read.) And since ever I started writing, she's been helping me improve my writing skills and she even bought me a couple of books on writing. I love it that my family wants me to do what I like and succeed in it.

Shady Lane · May 13, 2007

Oh, right, my sister taught me to read. She was five and I was three, and she had just learned and was very excited, and passed on the knowledge to me.

The way I remember it it took her a few hours, but in reality it was probably a bit more extensive.

Mel · May 13, 2007

When you consider what you read and write, how much has your family influenced you?

None at all.

Novelhistorian · May 13, 2007

I knew from the time I was sixteen that I wanted to be a writer, and my family had much to do with this. Books were always around, always quoted from, and the theater in particular was very important. My parents liked to quote from plays, and the story of how they met in a high school play has been in family lore for more than sixty years. I was often found with a book in my hands, partly as an escape, partly from love of a good story; my father's an excellent raconteur.

That, too, came to matter for me, because I began to see that he was so good a raconteur partly because he didn't have the highest regard for the truth, and if something sounded dramatic, he'd say it even--especially--if reality was much more prosaic. If I ever questioned his account, he'd either turn on me, if the subject were very important, or make a scene, only partly tongue in cheek, that my disbelief of him was cruel. My opinion or feelings about anything rarely counted for much--I was often belittled for them--so I took to writing as a way of finding a voice. I don't think it's any accident that I write history, and that when I venture into fiction, it's historical fiction, carefully researched.

So yes, I'd say that my family and upbringing have left a clear imprint on my work.

akiwiguy · May 13, 2007

ShapeSphere said:
When you consider what you read and write, how much has your family influenced you?

To the degree that my characters are always dysfunctional loonies. Nah, not really.

Now that I have my own children, well my daughter particularly is a very good writer. I think one of her school reports recently said she has an "unusual" imagination. Hmmmm. We're really close and do laugh a lot and tell strange anecdotes. Not sure if that accounts for anything or not.

Something she pointed out recently, and I swear I never even thought about it, is that I make up my own words that seem quite natural in a sentence. She pointed out one recently, and I can't even remember what it was, and I just said "Well, it just sounded right." She said, "You do that all the time, and I always know exactly what you mean."

Soccer Mom · May 13, 2007

I belong to a family of book freaks. My parents have twelve bookcases in their house last time I counted. My mother put up with my endless chatter and stories. I was blessed with a wonderful family. Then I married a man addicted to reading and my kids are well on their ways to continuing the cycle. We keep Amazon, B&N, Borders, etc.... very busy.

ShapeSphere · May 14, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
My family was and remains the largest influence of my life. I suspect this is true in every case, whether we realize it or not.

Maybe you're right there in an indirect way. I suppose parents who neglect to encourage their child might be the catalyst for that individual to seek out solitary pursuits or adopt a spirit of "I'll show them". I don't think you were saying that though.

I can see from these posts that some parents aren't so praising. That's a shame and it makes me appreciate my parents even more.

Guess I'll have to untie them now and unlock the cell doors.

tjwriter · May 14, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
Complete rot. Speak for yourself. Just because something is true for you doesn't make it universally so.

Are you speaking about Jame's post that I quoted below? Because your first post, also quoted below, that indicates just how much your family played a role in you reading books to escape. I read books to escape as well, though not from my parents. I moved right before I started third grade to a school where I was hated and made fun of. So I stuck my nose in books and got away from it all. That's also how I got over being tortured and teased most days. Something about that experience made me think, "They can all just piss off," and it no longer bothered me.

Family, or lack thereof, has a huge impact on our lives. Positive or negative, biological or adoptive, it's there. From every indication I have ever seen in my life, it's there.

My parents encouraged me to read, but I don't get much of a reaction in any manner when I mention writing now. I guess they don't think too much of it.

Jamesaritchie said:
My family was and remains the largest influence of my life. I suspect this is true in every case, whether we realize it or not.

scarletpeaches said:
Ditto. My mother used to put a book in my hand to shut me up...not that I was a bothersome kid, she just couldn't be a*sed looking after me, and books kept me occupied.

...

I was happy to disappear to my room to read books for hours on end and my mother was glad I was out of her way. Everyone's happy.

scarletpeaches · May 14, 2007

Yes, I said my mother put books in my hand to shut me up - my point was that not everyone's family influences them.

I don't think my mother (or gran) put the love of books in me - it was always there. They just used it to avoid looking after me. My argument was that what is true for James should not be quoted as if it was universally true - not everyone's family has an influence on them. Not everyone has a family.

tjwriter · May 14, 2007

tjwriter said:
Family, or lack thereof, has a huge impact on our lives. Positive or negative, biological or adoptive, it's there. From every indication I have ever seen in my life, it's there.

scarletpeaches said:
Yes, I said my mother put books in my hand to shut me up - my point was that not everyone's family influences them.

I don't think my mother (or gran) put the love of books in me - it was always there. They just used it to avoid looking after me. My argument was that what is true for James should not be quoted as if it was universally true - not everyone's family has an influence on them. Not everyone has a family.

Perhaps we are getting into semantics.

One could argue that your family's lack of support or lack of presence was an influence. As was the fact the books were put there, not for honorable purposes, but they were put there and you did read them. More of a stimulation of something that was always there.

On that note, I'm not touching this part of the topic again. It seems a bit too personal, and I don't know how comfortable you are with that.

scarletpeaches · May 14, 2007

Oh not at all, I put the information out there, it's free for discussion.

It's not so much the family influence discussion I objected to, it was someone saying that was was true for them must be true for everyone, but as you say, that's straying into semantics.

As an aside, once my mother saw "Shutting me up with books," worked, she was quite happy to take me to the library...free entertainment, and it kept me out of her hair when we returned with armfuls of books.

When she married my stepdad, he buttered me up by buying me books as well.

It worked!

Also, I remember at school storytime, whenever Mrs Perry (hated her at the time, but now I thank her for introducing me to so many great novels) started a new story, I nagged to be taken to the library for a copy so I could read ahead.

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