Writing Influences
I have had books shoved under my
nose by my mom since I can remember, and so I have encountered many, many
writers that still influence me today. One of those writers is Alice Hoffman,
who I began to obsess over in high school when my stories of choice were fan
fictions about boy bands and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Alice Hoffman writes about magic in
everyday life. The sort of magic that you do not see but that you feel. Little
bits of irony and coincidence that pop up in life; one does not necessarily
take the time to study it or ask why or how. “Seventh Heaven” is my favorite
Hoffman novel. It’s about a small town and follows a single mother and a
teenage boy among other characters in a 1960’s setting.
I love it so much
because even though it is not nonfiction, it does not feel like fiction either.
The characters are believable to the degree that I feel like I am living right
next to them. Hoffman incorporates just enough magic to make their lives
converge and clash against each other, just like in real life. She writes just
as though I am living her words as they roll across the page. I envy this and
so I have tried to mimic her style.
I write about all sorts of subjects.
My last workshop story “Godsend” probably best emulates something Hoffman might
write. She writes about sex and love, death and loss. She writes about AIDS and
teenagers who live in the woods, and about sisters who believe in more than
just the coincidence. “Godsend” relates faith and promise to real life and how
sometimes the desire to have a better life supersedes the “right” thing to do.
My story tackles multiple conflicts just like Hoffman’s stories. It deals with
Donna Jo’s lack of faith, Betsy’s inability to separate her relationship with
her husband from orthodox religion, and it also sheds some light on what Betsy
really wants in life, which is just to feel appreciated through touch.
Hoffman also wrote a story called
“Practical Magic” which most have probably heard about because it was made it
into a movie starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. The movie was good but
certainly not as good as the book, but I digress.
My next writing project is
trying to emulate the magical feel of that story. “Practical magic” is about
two girls who were raised by their weird aunts who make potions and cast spells
for the local women (they live in a small town). All of the women in the family
are cursed to never live their full life with their husband. For example, one
of the girls’ husbands dies after she hears the telltale sound of a cricket
under the floorboards. After he dies she moves back in with her crazy aunts and
ends up having to go rescue her sister from the hands of an abusive boyfriend
who then end up accidentally poisoning to death. This story is way more magical
in the literal sense than any of Hoffman’s other stories, but that’s what I
love about her writing. Sometimes it is extreme with the magical metaphor and
other times it is very subtle and you have to really study all of the events in
order to see what is supernatural about them. I want to write a story that
follows the same vein as “Practical Magic” in that it’s not kitschy but you can
see the magic happening. I like writing about things people do not normally
think about or hear about, or if they do hear about it they do not believe it.
I like testing the limits. I like to “kill my darlings, kill my darlings,” as
Stephen King said. I want to make both my characters and my readers
uncomfortable. I want them to question life and the way they live it. I want
them to be open to new things and people and possibilities and to never count
magic out.
