Looking for a favorite author

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Writer_for_God

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Hi,
I asked someone who is an editor for a journal some advice on writing, and one of the suggestions he gave is to find my own voice, but also find some favorite authors and try to emulate their style in my own voice. Honestly, though, I cannot really think of any authors who are my favorite. To tell you the truth, my favorite author to read was Pope Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger), and I can’t say I have a favorite fictional author. I read a lot, but do not have really any favorite authors or books. I was hoping for suggestions on good authors to read, study, and emulate the style of, while identifying voice in other’s writings.
Thank you for any authors you would recommend. I guess in the form of a question, if you could read the complete works of any author, who would they be?
Thank you and God bless you all. Amen.
 
I don’t think it would do much good to tell you who my favorite authors are. Do you ever read more than one book by an author? If you do, those are the ones you should look at.
 
Writer_for_God said:
Hi,
I asked someone who is an editor for a journal some advice on writing, and one of the suggestions he gave is to find my own voice, but also find some favorite authors and try to emulate their style in my own voice. Honestly, though, I cannot really think of any authors who are my favorite. To tell you the truth, my favorite author to read was Pope Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger), and I can’t say I have a favorite fictional author. I read a lot, but do not have really any favorite authors or books. I was hoping for suggestions on good authors to read, study, and emulate the style of, while identifying voice in other’s writings.
Thank you for any authors you would recommend. I guess in the form of a question, if you could read the complete works of any author, who would they be?
Thank you and God bless you all. Amen.
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I guess what he was saying is which authors style to enjoy reading. You know, you pick up the book and can’t put it down. For me it would be like Daniel DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe, unabridged. I was completely absorbed by the descriptions of time, place, and details. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. It’s how they tell a story, its what their stories are about, etc.

An author that I have read almost all they have written, is not a fictional writer, Corrie Ten Boom, most famous for her account of WWII Nazi invasion of her homeland in The Hiding Place. Though she spent time in a concentration camp, she later became quite the evangelist.
 
Pax Christi!

My favorite history writer is Barbara Tuchman, best known for A Distant Mirror, although her accounts of World War I are great, too: The Proud Tower and The Guns of August.

God bless.
 
My favorite author is Mitch Albom. I read one of his books in a night. His other books I have usually read in one day. I have one of his newer books on my Kindle that I purchased at a bargain price. I still need to read that one. I haven’t been doing a lot of reading lately. Either I read quite a bit at once or not at all.
 
Michael D. Obrien!!! Especially his book Father Elijah

J.R.R. Tolkien… need I say more?
 
svid2 said:
Pax Christi!

My favorite history writer is Barbara Tuchman, best known for A Distant Mirror, although her accounts of World War I are great, too: The Proud Tower and The Guns of August.
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Not to mention her March of Folly

How about Sharon Kay Penman.
Historical fiction. Her best is When Christ and His Saints Slept
Other than those, Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek and many other books) is by far my favourite writer. Not very Catholic, but very spiritual in his own way. Magnificent storyteller.
 
DaddyGirl said:
I’ve never heard someone give such advice…to try to emulate another writer’s style, and in your own voice? What does that even mean?

The more you write, the more you will find your own style and voice.
My suggestion is to write as much as you can, and read good writers.

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Actually, it’s very good advice for him to try and emulate another writer’s style. The reason I say that is, no matter how hard he tries, he will never succeed in mastering someone else’s voice. If he chooses Hemingway, as I strongly recommend he does, the result will inevitably be original and it will be all his. It simply isn’t possible to copy someone so well that you don’t shine through yourself. In fact, what will happen is he’ll try his very best to copy Ernie and he won’t quite capture it. This will disappoint him at first, but then eventually he may discover that he’s made something worthwhile after all. He’ll grow in this way. Just my two cents.
 
Yes, reading good writers is always helpful, and fun too.
One of my favorites is Dorothy L. Sayers (The Nine Tailors, Gaudy Night).

.
 
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