Wrapped up in books in OD

I started reading at a young age. It wasn’t entirely by choice, though I always have enjoyed reading. The main reason I started reading was, in fact, medical.

When I was a child, I had a squint in one eye. The side effect of this was twofold. The first was that I had to wear a pair of horrible thick brown framed glasses. The second was that for two hours every night, for about a year or so, I could take off the glasses in order to wear an eye patch over my strong eye. While wearing the patch, I had to actually do something, not just sit and stare at a television. It was recommended that I do one of three things: jigsaw puzzles, crosswords and word searches or read. I didn’t have the patience for jigsaws (still don’t, if truth be told) nor for crosswords. So I read. (One side effect of this is the speed with which I read. It amazes people when I look at a particularly thick book and tell the truth about how quickly I can read through it.)

Growing up in the 80’s was a particularly bad time for new childrens books. The world was still waiting for Lyra Belaqua and The Boy Who Lived to enthral and encourage young people to read. I made do with most Enid Blyton books, the works of Roald Dahl and Asterix and Tintin introducing me to the concept of what I now know to be graphic novels but thought then to simply be comics. JRR Tolkein was my first introduction to fantasy and the idea that books don’t just have to be set in this world but can create entire worlds and universes to be enjoyed.

I was a voracious reader. Every Wednesday would see me waiting patiently for the mobile library to turn up. The library at school was another popular haunt. And it absolutely delighted me when one of my primary school teachers had a collection of books that we could take home with us, as long as we signed for it first.

When I moved up to academy, the school library again became a favourite spot. In this library the books were segmented by the year that they were deemed suitable for and it was nothing for me to take out and read material that the powers that be thought was aimed at an older age group.

It would be nothing for me to have more than one book on the go, one in the living room where I would curl up and read while the TV was on in the background and one in the bedroom where I would read before going to bed.

After I left school, I discovered the simple joy of wondering round charity shops and discount bookstores looking for something that attracted my attention. Fiction, non-fiction, almost every genre, if I thought I’d like it then I would buy it. Sometimes it was simply if the title grabbed my attention, as A Handbook for Visitors from Outer Space did, that lead me to buy it, sort of my version of Belle and Sebastians ‘I’ll only buy a book for the way it looks, then I’ll stick it on the shelf again’. Recommendations from friends and reviews in papers were another way for me to discover something new (and sometimes the two combined as with Northern Lights) as was the ever popular ‘if you liked that book then try…’ gambit (best discovery with that was The Rule Of Four which was recommended for people who read The DaVinci Code but turned out to be much better).

Sometimes recommendations will surprise me. The Time Travellers Wife was recommended to me and I wanted to read it due to the sci-fi element. That part is, as it turns out, the lesser of the reasons I love that book so much. One of the best pleasures I have in life is recommending books to someone, but it is always tinged with a bit of envy as they’ll have the joy of falling in love with the book in question for the first time ever whereas I only have the delight in re-discovering why I love the book at all.

This essay is supposed to be about what books have an influence on me as a writer. So why, you may be wondering, have I spent time telling you the above? Well, as I have the belief that humans are more than a mere collection of flesh, bone, muscle and sinews but more made up by our collective of experiences, thoughts, beliefs and decisions both made and not made, so all of the stuff that I’ve read over the years has, in some way or another, an influence on my writing. I cannot see how it can be otherwise.

It also depends on what kind of story I’m writing. A crime story will be influenced more by Stuart MacBride, Mark Billingham and Steig Larsson than Audrey Niffenegger or Sue Townsend. But there are some influences that I feel no matter what.

My writing tends to be short on description; to the point that I have actually been told that it is my style. This comes from two places. The first is the fact that I first approached creative writing from a scriptwriting perspective, where there is not a great deal of space for descriptions. The other is the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hamnett who tended to skimp on description in order to get the story moving.

My love of wordplay can be attributed directly to Douglas Adams, who’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy original trilogy of five remains one of my favourite reading memories from my teenage years. In fact, I actually consider the books to be somewhat a rite of passage for anyone teenager with a love of reading and one which, if the fates deign to smile benevolently upon me and grant me a relationship with my daughter, I look forward to sharing with her.

My literary influences also include scripts. I know that there are some who don’t consider these to actually be literature but Shakespeare is considered a literary giant and not just for his sonnets. I defy anyone to read Leo McGarry’s speech about the nature of addiction for The West Wing episode Bartlet For America or the entire end voice over from Synecdoche, New York and then tell me that they can’t be classed as great writing.

I love playing with people’s expectations, messing about with stereotypes. This isn’t simply putting a twist ending onto a story for the sake of having a twist ending but something more fundamental. This I get from Joss Whedon in general and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in particular. (The whole idea of Buffy was that someone that is supposed to be the perfect victim for vampires and monsters is in fact that thing they should all fear.) Watchmen, and one specific moment in particular, is also an influence in this respect and one I’m glad they did not cut from the film.

Another theme that influences my writing that I get from Joss Whedon is that of identity. I love writing stories that examine exactly what makes us, well, us and putting people and humanity under the spotlight. But Joss Whedon isn’t the only person that influences me when it comes to this subject. Charlie Kaufman is equally interested in examining identity to the extent that his entire career wouldn’t exist if not for that particular theme.

There is one other influence on my writing. Elmore Leonards belief that endings are a bitch.

Will

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