Under the influence

Like any good writer, I read. Constantly. Everything. I'm the woman who carries two books in her bag just in case I get stuck somewhere and finish the book I'm reading - I'll always carry a spare.

I'm trying to write like my favorite authors. Lately I've been studying them without even realizing it. I'm reading a sentence then re-reading it, analyzing it and what makes the sentence work. If the sentence seems flawed, I try to figure out how I could rewrite it to make it better. Sometimes this makes for some very slow reading.

Right now, I'm reading Mending Fences by Sherryl Woods. It just came out. I love her books, for the most part. They don't have sterilized characters and the plots are believable, which is something I think about when I'm trying to decide if I would recommend the book to someone else.

But the main thing I look at is the content and context of the book. In Mending Fences, there is a college football star being accused of date rape. Now, for the record, I'm not that far into it; however, it's pretty obvious that Sherryl got the idea at least in part from the Duke rape fiasco. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if done right like this one seems to be (so far), it could make for a very interesting read.

It's like Law and Order, when they do an episode that is "ripped from the headlines." They usually take the basis of a true event and alter it enough to where the original event is detectible, but it has a completely different ending. Like when they did a show about an aging musician who is accused of arranging for his wife to be killed as she waited on the street for him to "go back inside the restaraunt to get his wallet." It was pretty obvious that the story was based on Robert Blake and his wife, but the ending was completely different. That's what made it work.

Also, the book (and now the movie) Jane Austen Book Club is based on the Austen novels, but that's actually the point of the story. Six people (five women, one man) get together to analyze Austen's novels. All from different backgrounds, all in different stages of life, all with their own crap to deal with. And each character's story is based loosely on an Austen book. For example, the woman who is a champion dog breeder and who tries to set up one of the other women with the guy in the book club, is based on the character of Emma. Emma was so concerned about pairing up everyone else she didn't help herself. It's a great way to tell a story about a story.

For the record, I highly recommend the movie and the book... You learn enough about the Austen novels to want to go out and read them all.