This morning I had to quickly write an extended paragraph on the influences of events in Langston Hughes's life in his literary works during my first period History class for my second period English class. I do not recommend this. I found it funny, though, that not even an hour before I was listening to John Green spout quotes. The reason for this mental hilarity was that as I wrote of Hughes's influences I had just looked at one of my own.
Other authors influence my work in different ways.
John Green's books made me want to make my own characters more realistic than before because his are so real. I could put myself in the characters place at times and not feel as though I would be reading off a script if I said what was written for them.
Stephen King makes me want to broaden my characters. I have found authors where the character is them and them alone. I want my characters to be different and feel alive, not some carbon (not really but you get the point) copy of me. Kings characters are different with each book. He is a happily married male with children and has writing books where the main character is a childless divorced woman. Broad characters make for better reading.
Robert Frost just made me contemplate everything and add and subtract and multiply my details without using math terms as I did here. I can give a message in my short stories and poetry without outrightly saying it. And I think that's beautiful.
I think that the way I write do to seeing others, and the way others write do to seeing other others, is beautiful.
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