Fowl, Ink and Welsh: The books that influenced my writing

The first book I ever read, cover to cover, entirely on my own, was Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. I was eight or nine, very behind when it came to reading levels at school and worrying my parents to death with my incompetence. I remember, very clearly, being the only one in the class who couldn’t read a single line of The Hungry Caterpillar.

Turns out that I was one of those kids who takes their own sweet time when it comes to learning. I either knew nothing, or I knew it all. I couldn’t swim a stroke and then I could brave the pool on my own. I was zero to a hundred. A hard pass or a valiant success.

That’s how it was with me and reading. I couldn’t read the Hungry Caterpillar, then without batting an eyelid, I picked up Fantastic Mr Fox and finished it in a day.

After that, reading became my foremost love. I used to stay up past my bed time, reading by torchlight with my head under the duvet covers. I carried a book everywhere I went, restaurants, cafes, day trips, the car (I used to be able to read in the car) anywhere I was dragged to, would merit me taking a book along to bury my head in.

My love of writing stemmed from the books that I became obsessed with. With that in mind I thought I would share the books that have had the biggest, and most prominent influence on my writing. These aren’t necessarily my favourite books, nor the ones I particularly cherish, but the those that taught me so much about literature, which is why most of them are children’s books. Although Fantastic Mr Fox has not made the cut, sorry Roald.

Artemis Fowl

Eoin Colfer

For anyone who has kids on the cusp of teenage hood, you have to give them this book to read.

Artemis Fowl was my favourite series for a long time. A boy genius, with a violent and talented bodyguard, discovers that the Earth’s core is populated by a race of super advanced fairies. Full of sci-fi elements, it was, for a long time, just a nerdy obsession of mine but later I realised that Artemis Fowl had actually taught me some valuable literary lessons.

Artemis, the protagonist in a kid’s book about fairies, is an anti-hero. In actual fact he’s a total bastard who wants to exploit the fairies and take their gold but you root for him, you like him, you have twisted and complicated emotions about who he is. Eoin Colfer’s brilliant series taught me that heroes are great but anti-heroes are just that bit better. Nothing is black or white.

The Black Company

Glen Cook

One of the first adult fantasy novels I ever read, The Black Company is on a completely different level to anything else you will ever read when it comes to the genre. It’s stripped back, simplistic in terms of description and world building, but rich in characters. At the end of the day you can have the most original fantasy world with battles, politics and intrigue but it will be nothing without the people.

The Black Company is all about the characters, its a book that shouldn’t work as a fantasy but does. You build an almost instant affinity with the likes of Goblin, Croaker and Silent. I like them, although you actually find out very little about their backgrounds and more about their character. It’s a book a that is skin deep but doesn’t need to go any deeper to have an effect.

For me The Black Company is a forerunner of the emerging grimdark fantasy genre. Its gritty, its harsh and it taught me that, above all else, empathetic characters, whether utter bastards or kind hearted souls, are the key to any good book.

Inkheart

Cornelia Funke

I would hazard a guess that this was the first true fantasy book I ever read. For the unconverted, Cornelia Funke was the biggest author in Germany behind J.K Rowling and her Inkheart trilogy is a fantasy masterpiece for young teens. Mo has the gift of the Silvertongue, whenever he reads aloud from a novel, a character from that world swaps places with someone in his world.

The premise was so simple but brilliant and spanned multiple realities as Mo ends up entering the world of Inkheart itself, an atypical fantasy realm. I was in love with this trilogy, for me it really was Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings and pulled off fantasy elements and themes that some writers could only ever dream of.

I don’t think this book taught me anything per se, just that good books are good books, whether you read them as a kid or an adult. Out of all the novels I have read, from Stephen King epics, to Dickens and Bronte classics, Inkheart sticks out at the forefront as one of my absolute favourites.

Trainspotting

Irvine Welsh

I must thank Alice Dale for this one, she made me watch the film and then I had to read the book. Irvine Welsh is just relentless in his writing, the words zing, the plot fizzes, he burns through his stories and I love the raw aggression of them. I don’t think anything of Trainspotting has made it into my work but Welsh has taught that bestsellers come in all different forms, you don’t have to spin the literary yarn of Shakespeare to make a great book.

Plus I enjoy reading with an internal Scottish accent to fit Welsh’s language. Yir kent beat et, ken likesay? Or something to that effect.

The Heroes

Joe Abercrombie

When I read this it was probably the first fantasy book I had enjoyed in quite some time. I had a gap of non-reading between leaving school and finishing university, mainly because most of my degree consisted of pouring over tomes and historical texts for hours at a time. When I returned to reading for pleasure I was struggling to find adult fantasy that I liked until I stumbled on this one.

Abercrombie writes in this frantic and frenzied style that is totally unashamed. He liked swords and death and political intrigue and his books are full to brimming with all three.

He’s also another pioneer of the anti-hero which is an element I always try to get into my writing. Heroes are good but flawed heroes are much, much better. I would say he is England’s answer to George R.R Martin, but he’s better than that.

This particular novel is set around a three day battle, nothing more, nothing less, and it’s just brilliant. He proved to me that fantasy doesn’t have to fall into the good and evil troupe, it can simply be about a world and the characters’ personal struggles.

The Iliad

Homer (translated by Anthony Verity)

A lot of the inspiration I gleamed for the creation of the gods in A Better Crown comes from The Iliad. I had never understood how much Greek epics were dictated by the Olympiads, that Hector, Achilles and Alexander (or Paris), fight and die at the will of the gods. I liked the idea that really these men were only skilled in battle because the gods shone down on them during the most pivotal points of their life.

The language and the epic nature of the story also had a massive effect as well as the armies, the fighting, the proportions and scale of the conflict. We all know that the story of The Iliad centre around a war between two nations over the love of a woman but, upon reading the story, it seems to something much bigger, an apocalyptic event that threatens to end humanity.

I couldn’t help but love it and I must tip my hat to Anthony Verity, his translation is easy to read and thoroughly entertaining.

The Hobbit

J.R.R Tolkien

I couldn’t leave the big fella off this list. I remember listening to an audio book of The Hobbit when I was eight. It enthralled me so much that I stayed up all night, wide awake in bed, going literally until the crack of dawn so I could hear the entire tale in one go. You can’t beat a good adventure story, and The Hobbit really entices you into the narrative, you want to tread the same paths as the company, follow them on their journey.

I also can’t deny that Gandalf has always fascinated me as a character, to have one figure who seems to be a guardian of the world, an immortal soul that is there to guide and intervene only when necessary, that idea had a big influence on certain aspects of A Better Crown.