Many of us have studied Faulkner and Hemingway, Austen and Poe, Dickens and Dumas, but what about more recent writers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? You may not have studied them in school, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them—and without having to write a book report. What fun!
Of course, there is much we can learn from the great masters of the past (it was quite a thrill for me to sit at the desk of Robert Louis Stevenson when I visited his home in Samoa). But how exciting it is to branch out into new territory: new writers, new genres, new worlds! Fantasy worlds never looked so colorful nor science fiction so technologically advanced. There must be at least three romance subgenres to interest every romance reader, and dystopian societies abound.
What’s your weak point? What’s your interest? What fiction-writing skill are you trying to perfect? Pick up a novel, open the cover, and learn!
Following are a few of my favorites that demonstrate strength in various elements of fiction writing:
Characters
Oh, how I love characters! For me, that’s what fiction is all about. And there have been some great ones in modern literature over the past several decades. From brilliant, societally dysfunctional young Scandinavian women to hard-ass American male “equalizers,” the modern literary world is brimming with interesting characters for you to get to know. Here are a few of my favorites and where you can meet them:
Smilla Jaspersen: Smilla’s Sense of Snow (Danish mystery/thriller) by Peter Høeg
Lisbeth Salander: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (first in a Swedish psychological thriller series) by Stieg Larsson
Jack Reacher: Killing Floor (first in the Reacher action-adventure series) by Lee Child
Hawk: Promised Land (first introduced in this fourth novel of the Spenser detective series) by Robert B. Parker
Dialogue
I have to give this one to Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser private detective series and the Jesse Stone police detective series as well as the female private eye Sunny Randall novels. I especially like the dialogue in the early Spenser novels and the Jesse Stone mysteries.
Emotional Penetration
I remember spending an afternoon on the couch reading Danielle Steel’s Fine Things and crying copiously at the end. Yeah, it’s a tearjerker, and I still haven’t forgiven her for that. But that sort of sentimentality is not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about stories that find their way into your heart and wrench it so hard it doesn’t quit hurting for at least three days. Yes, we’re talking Sophie’s Choice (William Styron) and The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien), but another one that really stands out in my mind is A Drink Before the War, by Dennis Lehane. (Years later I’m still trying to get up the nerve to read his Mystic River.)
Horror
If you discount a book with a character representing rain that was read to me as a child, only two books have caused me to have a scary dream. One was a spy novel by Helen MacInnes, and the other was The Shining, by Stephen King. Something about that whirring sound getting closer and closer as the little kid rides his trike down the hotel corridor… Well, let’s just say King is a modern-day master of suspense, and if you’ve only seen the movie but not read the book, take another look. The book is so much better.
Humor
Carl Hiaasen is renowned for his zany novels (Double Whammy is my favorite), and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books, beginning with One for the Money, are a hoot. Interestingly enough, there are two more serious novels I read years ago that I still remember partly because they contained passages that made me laugh out loud: The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler, and Walking Across Egypt, by Clyde Edgerton. Both are excellent books in other ways, but I love them because they made me laugh.
Impressionism
For some very fine and thoughtful writing, read The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam-era Catch-22 (I assume you’ve read that Joseph Heller classic) that employs both stark and mellifluous prose.
Irony
Oh, the irony! What would literature be without it? A lot less interesting, I’d say. And for a good dose of it, read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie. If you can’t decide whether you’d rather read a novel or a short story collection, then Edible Stories: A Novel in Sixteen Parts, by Mark Kurlansky, could be the perfect choice for you. For Native American flavor, I recommend The Bingo Palace, by Louise Erdrich. And if you’re into the operatic scene, there’s Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett, definitely one of my all-time faves.
Metaphor
Jeffrey Archer sprinkled A Matter of Honor with brilliant metaphors—so impressive to me at the time of reading that I kept stopping the story to read them over again. Maybe not the best fiction-writing strategy, especially for an espionage thriller, but if you want to see some good metaphors, go for it!
Milieu
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Need I say more?
Plot
In The Man from St. Petersburg, Ken Follett deftly interweaves a passionate, international love story with a young woman’s coming of age in London during the suffragette era. Plenty of romance, drama, and history here!
Prose
So many good writers, so little time. Oddly enough, one of the writers I keep coming back to who always wows me with his prose is master of the spy genre, John LeCarré.
Real-Time Drama
Tom Wolfe does a fantastic job of second-by-second description—not just once, but twice—in his novel A Man in Full. Have you ever seen the horse-studding process up close and personal? Read this book, and you’ll feel like you have. (Oh, pity the poor teaser horse!) And if you think racing around a freezing warehouse loading pallets on a forklift might be fun, well… Wolfe will have you thinking again.
Romantic Twist
There are love stories, and there are love stories. If you’re thinking of writing a love story that’s just a bit different, here are three of my favorites that can pave the way for you: The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks (a frame story that includes “old” love as well as young love); Iain’s Plaid, by Skye Taylor (everybody loves time travel!) and—okay, I may be a bit prejudiced here—my very own Sailing Away from the Moon (coming of age meets suspense/thriller).
Setting
Eco-thriller Coffin Road, by Peter May, gives us a good feel for the stark isolation of a small island off the coast of Scotland; Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie, has us trembling as his coming-of-age hero crosses a rickety, swinging bridge over a rocky chasm deep in the mountains of China; and Laura Childs delights us with her description of the southern charm of Charleston, South Carolina, in her delectable tea cozy, The English Breakfast Murder. For a more somber setting, try My Dream of You, by Nuala O’Faolain, to discover an Ireland both old and new. And if you’re into graveyards, don’t miss Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger, which will solidly (or not so solidly) ensconce you in London’s Highgate Cemetery.
Storytelling
John Irving includes a wonderful short story in The World According to Garp (although as John Irving novels go, I much prefer The Hotel New Hampshire), and Pat Conroy never ceases to wow me with his stories-within-a-story. I think the stories he tells in Beach Music are the best parts of that novel, and The Prince of Tides, which is right at the top of my list of all-time favorite novels, includes some amazing stories. Nor would you want to miss out on Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, a story about a young Indian boy and a tiger lost at sea that is so fantastic and creative it all but defies description. (Beware the Mexican jungle: Richard Parker lives!)
Villains
Yes, well, when it comes to villains we love to hate, you can’t beat Disney’s Cruella De Vil, based on the 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. But what most endears villains to readers’ hearts is not their vileness but their “humanity.” In other words, it’s that side of the villain that shows some sort of compassion, a side that most of us can identify with and ache for. And that’s why I vote for the “monster,” the “other,” in Dean Koontz’s Watchers, which is still my favorite Koontz book even after all these years. I love golden retrievers, and I love Einstein (who is one) in Watchers, but it’s the poor, manmade, abomination-of-nature villain who grabs my heart. Check it out.
No doubt you have your own favorites. I’d love to hear what they are. In the meantime, why not pick one up and read it again with a more practiced, writer’s eye and make note of what it is about that book that grabs you. Then put some of that magic into your own creative works.
Have at it!
© 2019 Ann Henry, all rights reserved.
Photo: At the desk of Robert Louis Stevenson, Apia, Samoa © 2011 James Henry, all rights reserved.