For your Memorial Day[] reading pleasure, I’ve thought of a few books that really influenced my writing style and view on fiction.
- Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams gift for language is really unparalleled. As a writer, I can only try to approach DNA’s apt visual descriptions and humor. For example, his description of hovering alien spaceships: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” Clever, accurate, and funny all at once, the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy is littered with this sort of thing, making for an amazingly pleasant read. If you’re unfamiliar with his works, start here.
- David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
Someone out there may be groaning now. I don’t care. DFW is another author whose use of language and description blew my mind. He has a knack, as well, for amazing metaphors, but he also uses multiple points-of-view and multiple narrators to great effect. While my work doesn’t strive for the same kind of structural experimentation, Wallace shines a light in the direction I want to go. That, and Infinite Jest is just a plain fun read.
- Kurt Vonnegut - Welcome to the Monkey House
This collection of short stories contains my favorite thing Vonnegut ever wrote: “Harrison Bergeron.” Beyond that, Vonnegut’s fiction blends stark, sharp language, elements of pathos, and a wry sense of humor. His writing is taught, stripped to the essentials, and a good antidote to anyone who feels that they need to load up their writing with endless adjectives, purple prose and other garbage to look “literary.”
- Thomas Pynchon - Gravity’s Rainbow
I know. Sticking this and Infinite Jest in here makes me look like some sort of pretentious twat, but I have a reason: Pynchon’s fiction is really just that good. Brilliant language, wild humor, experiments with form, the regular winks at the observant reader combine to form something terribly capitvating and fun to read. If you’ve never read Pynchon before, I would suggest starting with The Crying of Lot 49
, which is comparatively a pamphlet and still has all the trademark Pynchon quirks.
- Strunk and White - The Elements of Style
If you write, and you have never read this book, then shame on you. The guidelines set down in this little volume will improve anyone’s writing, substantially. In fact, I should give it a re-read, myself. The most useful aspect of Elements of Style is how, once a writer has the rules, they can figure out when is the best time to break them. Hard-line adherence can create dull, cookie-cutter writing, and the book even mentions that one should find one’s own style. This is essential.
