Saturday, February 22, 2020

Can You Write Like ________(your favorite author)?

I now have a total of 5 books started...I love everyone of them. Team of Rival by Doris Kearns Goodwin, What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell,  The Know-it-all by A. J. Jacobs (hilarious, good airport book), My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrick Blackman and The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood.  Oh and I have one in Oregon called  The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey that doesn’t belong to me so I couldn’t travel with it.

Everyone of these books are unique and wonderful in their own way. As I was working around my house the other day I was thinking about the words and the way each author puts them together to make their story their very own. I have often wondered if I could write like, say, Ann Tyler or even Fredrick Blackman. (I know that Doris Kearns Goodwin and Malcolm Gladwell are out of me wheel house). But telling a different story, one that is about what you know...could any of us do the emulation that would be worthy of Tyler or Blackman?

Fredrick Blackman is that author that wrote a Man Called Ove and  my grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry. If you haven’t read anything by this author, I am sorry. He is the writer of the perfect story. You will read the book, tell everyone about it and then give it as a gift to a good friend or relative. It is that kind of book

As for Ann Tyler, she always tells about someone I am sure I know....backwards, forwards and upside down. I have read several of her books. My favorite right now is Earthly Possessions. If you cannot see the humor in the main character’s (Charlotte Emory) situation, you surely do not laugh at funerals like I do. This is what Ann Tylers web page had to say about the book:
Charlotte Emory has always lived a quiet, conventional life in Clarion, Maryland. She lives as simply as possible, and one day decides to simplify everything and leave her husband. Her last trip to the bank throws Charlotte's life into an entirely different direction when a restless young man in a nylon jacket takes her hostage during the robbery--and soon the two are heading south into an unknown future, and a most unexpected fate....
Now, the question is “If you read the first page or chapter for example, could you begin a book like it (but different)? Wouldn’t it be fun to try? I think so.

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