Experiences A book that changed how you RP/write?

Hey peeps!

I wanted to know if you guys had a book that changed the way you roleplayed or wrote. It can be something silly as bringing you an expression that you now adore, a piece that made you want to Roleplay a theme you'd normally steer clear from or even a book that completely changed your writing style...and why.

I'll start with a French book, Saga from Tonino Benacquista. It's a novel that completely changed how I view writing, and that made me realize I wanted to write for a hobby (hello roleplaying and fanfictions!) instead of writing for a job.

And an English one, Turtles all the way down from John Green, a book that really allowed me to understand how to put anxiety into words, and how to write characters affected by it.

Can't wait to see what books affected you guys ! And how you used it in your roleplays.

Books by J.R.R.Tolkien influenced my love for fantasy and worldbuilding and Discworld series by Terry Pratchett definitely influenced my dabbing into comical narrative and creating surreal settings and parody characters.
At least I see those two writers as the ones that had the most impact on my style of writing.

Then things like Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dream of the Red Chamber (all classic Chinese novels) were probably the things that fueled my interest in oriental settings, history and mythology which I often base my roleplays upon to this day.

None of these I read recently, so these books were really what shaped my style over the years.

Of the recent ones, I'm not sure I can remember any that would have this much impact on my style. I certainly can notice some cool things authors did in their books and try to incorporate it in my writing but I can't really attribute that to once single book, more like reading books in general.

Honestly the Hunger Games series gave me a love for dystopian genres, along with the wonderful writing of Suzanne Collins I would say I learned a lot from those books. I read them years ago but it's still one of the best things I've ever read.

Also, you already said this but Turtles All The Way Down.. good lord that book, I swear it understood me. It showed me how emotional and personal writing can be without even knowing your audience. It's a beautiful work in so many ways

Great question! To answer it properly I really feel like I should mention several books. In my teens and early twenties, both The Dark Elf Trilogy by Salvatore, and the Shadowrun novel 2XS by Findley played all the right notes for me. The latter book is fairly obscure, but I kind of like it that way.

Then I was on to Warhammer 40k & 30k novels, and a handful of those books (Helsreach, The Flight of the Eisenstein, and Soul Hunter) still greatly influence me. And later came series like ASoIaF and the Witcher, as well as David Gemmell's Drenai books.

Tamora Pierce. More specifically her Emelan Series. They taught me a lot about world building and starting with every day aspects of life and weaving magic into it.

My most foundational writing influences are Terry Pratchett, Stephen King, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

The book that changed my writing the most dramatically as an adult was Blindsight.

I wanted to go into more details but my brain is like mush, so I'm just going to say that I feel like a lot of different books have influenced me over the years but the most influential one(s) is Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn.

the ones who walk away from the omelas, the miraculous journey of edward tulane, and the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

Honestly? 1984. It changed how I see and write villains, and O'Brien has remained one of my favorites villains for this fact.

Stephen King is a huge influence on my writing in general, because I enjoy the way he gets into the minds of his characters. Sometimes it is a bit repetitive, mostly in the Dark Tower series where it seems he rehashes a lot, but other than that, I quite enjoy his style.

Ooooh...
- JRR Tolkien made me fall in love with writing and boundless imagined worlds
- Stephen King greatly influenced how I approach character conflict (primarily inner conflict but also in examining external antagonists)
- Oscar Wilde’s ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’ unlocked some weird door in my brain that shifted how I write
- Thomas Harris and his Hannibal series cemented and influenced how I write and see complex villainous characters (primarily when it comes to moral shades of gray and a villain’s inner thought life) in addition to just being very influential over various aspects of my life and writing in general.

These four are by and away my most significant writing influences and I adore all four of them wholeheartedly

Homestuck.

Look, I know you're all judging me. And frankly, I deserve it. But there's something glorious in Hussie's tone of voice while narrating that I can't quite put my finger on, and I've aspired to that level of bullshit ever since.

Let's see...

J. R. R. Tolkien is definitely the one responsible for my love for both fantasy and world-building. That man was on a whole other level, having made one of the most thoroughly built fantasy worlds I have ever seen, the man made his own language for God's sake. Lord of the Rings was the book that made me love reading, fantasy, and writing all at once. He is why I don't shy away from creating my own fantasy races, words, and making whole new settings and countries/kingdoms built from the ground up with extensive histories and cultures behind them. It just makes me want to cry tears of joy whenever I get to really build a culture, religion, race, anything from the ground up because it is so much fun.

Guy Gavriel Kay is who is helping my prose the most. If you ever have a chance to read something by him then do so, because his prose is absolutely gorgeous. He has rhythm down, a great balance between description, dialogue, exposition, and story progression, he makes all his characters feel real from the get go and gives them all believable flaws and personalities. He also gives each culture a deep and rich beliefs and ideologies which they follow that makes for a very interesting read and even study on the human condition.

Stephen King was definitely a big influence, as I have always loved his writing style and characters, ever since I first started reading his books he has been a huge influence on my writing in general as well my roleplay life.

Finally Andrej Sawpowski with the Witcher Saga, which probably with Guy Gavriel Kay is the basis for how I make and like most of my plots. I find I like plots with either the main players all have a reason for doing what they do and the cut of good and evil is not always so clear, as even if someone is in the wrong they still may have a good reason for doing it, and then I also love the microscopic cogs in the catastrophic plan type, where a lot of my characters have their own arc, but overall they do not heavily effect the world they are in. Like in the Witcher books, the entire time you are reading there is this war going on in the background that none of the main characters can actually do anything about, not even Ciri even though she is the child of destiny But the whole child of destiny part is very different in the books than it is in the games, i.e. Ciri was just supposed to be the mother of the person who was supposed to lead the elves away from the white frost (because the white frost was basically climate change in the books instead of an actual enemy) gotta admit, I like the books plot point better than the game's

I can't really say there's any specific ones. I read a lot and if I like a book's style of writing then I'll experiment with it in my own writing.

the lovely bones and the time traveler's wife are both what got me into reading in general. i used to be one of those people who hated books, but those two books...they just opened my eyes so much.
--
i also get a lot of my inspiration from my partners. i've picked loads of phrases and techniques. i guess it's kind of an old habit now because when i first joined i was so scared of doing things wrong and i'd ask my partners to start, then i'd kind of just mimic they're writing style, reply lengths, and a lot of other things. i guess to an extent i still kind of do this (especially with reply lengths) but i'm trying to refrain from completely drowning out my own writing style.

Well, I only really got into writing after I read some books by Brandon Sanderson. His prose is kind of plain, but his skill with worldbuilding and creating magic systems is unmatched, and that's what I draw from when I write. My writing style is also somewhat influnced by Brandon's own influence, Robert Jordan.