11 Books That Have Left Their Mark on My Writing Process
my guiding novels (so far)
As I’ve been learning to write a novel, I’ve been reading fiction much differently. Every book is an opportunity to learn something new. I still read for pleasure, but I’ve been selecting books that have thematic similarities to my own novel over the last few years.
Last week, I talked about how I’m taking a break from my novel before I start working on draft 4, which I have a lot of high hopes for. I hope to outline the shit out of it. I hope to understand my narrative arcs more clearly and solidify a climax. I hope to figure out what to do with this damn sous chef character. But right now, I’m taking time away from it, and it feels really good. I feel creatively energized, and it’s coming out in areas of my job and also in the short story I’m currently drafting. I have more energy for this newsletter, too. And I’ve been reading more.
I thought it would be fun to document the books that have influenced my novel-writing journey so far. These are the novels that had me reaching for sticky tabs, ones that sparked a rush to my writing desk, inspired plot twists, dialogue, and lessons in structure and pacing.
Here is a list of 11 novels, along with some of the quotes I marked while reading:
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
I think this one is the winner for having the most sections tabbed. I’m writing a story that takes place in a restaurant, so naturally, this novel has been a guide for me. Although mine and Stephanie’s stories are very different (this one is about fine dining in New York City, mine is about a country club in Massachusetts), I loved seeing how she set the service industry scene. The overwhelmed, in the weeds, fast paced work environment, mixed with the alcohol and drug fueled bonding of FOH and BOH at the end of every shift. It’s the universal story of restaurant life, so, of course, my novel is going to include a lot of this, too.
After reading Sweetbitter, I returned to all the pages I had marked. On notecards, I wrote out why I marked that scene and how I could utilize parts of it —maybe the structure, the pacing, the kind of dialogue. I made it as specific as I could. This was so helpful during draft three when I was aiming to really nail down the pacing of working in a restaurant —how much chaos to include at one time if I really need food descriptions, and how she managed to differentiate so many characters. I looked at when Tess got her interview and how long it took for her to take her own tables and feel one with the group. These notecards are still on my desk, ready to reference when I need them.
“Ariel loved the freedom of being dining room backwaiter. She waltzed around, picking up a few plates, topping off a few waters, polishing a few knives and nudging them into place on the newly set table with first a look of pinched frustration, and then placidity when it came together. And while this wasn’t true of all backwaiters, Ariel was generally trusted to talk to the guests. If the rest of us so much as said, “Hello” to a table, a scolding was sure to follow.
Brass by Xhenet Aliu
This novel changed my life. I picked it up because it was described as a mother-daughter story set in New England, and the main character worked in a diner. (That’s 3 for 3). But I did not expect to get schooled in narrative voice as intensely as I had. I’ve reread the book twice, but I’ve probably read the first few chapters about ten times.
Xhenet’s sentences are loaded with humor, specificity, and wit. They are exactly the kind of sentences I want to write. I found that if I started my writing sessions with a few gulps of Brass, I could tap into my narrator’s voice much quicker. I'm crediting some of the best scenes in my novel draft to Xhenet’s influence. It felt like she gave me permission to not make my story so heavy, to bring a playfulness and a light heartedness to the prose without losing the drama or the heart of the story. I will reread this many times and pray she writes another novel.
“I swear to Allah, you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. That’s what Bashkim said to me after three weeks, when he finally looked up at me in the kitchen window for the first time. It was 1996, the middle of March, a brutal year when spring was supposed to hit but didn’t, when I’d given up on ever being warm again.
My being beautiful was about as likely as me ever wrapping my fingers around the leather steering wheel of a souped-up six, but for the first time since I’d started working there, clocking in seemed worth the sweatbox polyester uniform and the jingle-change tips. My mother warned me when I took the job to watch out for the Albanians who worked at the Ross, because she heard they treated their women like sacks and that their tempers ran hotter than the deep fryers in the kitchen, while the nice Lithuanian boys I should’ve been dating had the decency to ignore their women altogether and drink themselves silently to death in their garages.”
The Girls by Emma Cline
Emma is a master at interiority. While I will always pick up a book about cults and/or groups of girls, reading this novel also gave me so much insight into how to get closer to my main character. I jotted down a lot of notes about my character’s inner life while reading this book, and most of what I sticky tabbed are moments where Evie is reflecting on her girlhood. I found the narrative distance Emma created very helpful. Until now, I hadn’t thought much about when my first person narrator was telling the story, but I quickly realized how important a thing that is for me to know. I find that I tend to write in the present voice when I draft. Later, when I edit, I change it all to past tense (unless I want the story to stay in the present). During some of my writing sessions, I played around with my main character, telling the story from a faraway past, from a place of telling herself things she should have known or wished she had known during this time waiting tables at the country club. I’m curious about what will stay in my next draft.
“Her makeup looked terrible, but it was more of a symbol, I suppose. I could see she was nervous with my eyes on her. I understood the worry. When I was that age, I was uncertain of howe to move, whether I was walking too fast, whether others could see the discomfort and stiffness in me. As if everyone was constantly gauging my performance and finding it lacking.”
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
I mentioned in another post how much I love coming of age stories about girls and how I’d been on a big friendship story kick lately. Lorrie Moore’s classic is another book I’ll keep going back to for narrative voice inspiration. But it also unlocked something about my main character. I had written a flashback that involved a best friend from my main character’s youth. I loved the scene so much but was scared that my love for it would make me want to keep it there, even if it didn’t make sense. I kept thinking about that friend and ended up writing more about her. She was there with my main character during integral moments in her life, moments that, so far, warranted a flashback. A lot of this friend was discovered reading Lorrie’s book about the summer of 15-year-old Berie and her best friend, Sils, working at a theme park.
“The frogs. Years later, I would read in the paper that frogs were disappearing from the earth, that even in the most pristine of places, scientists were looking and could not find them. It was a warning, said the article. A plague of no frogs. And I thought of those walks up the beach road I’d made any number of times in the sexual evening hum of summer, how called and lovely and desired you felt, how possible, even when you weren’t at all. It was the frogs doing that.”
The Blurry Years by Eleanor Kriseman
I believe I read this for the first time in the midst of my second draft. It's another great novel for voice, but I also love the structure. This poetically written story is divided into short paragraphs that pack a punch with each closing line. At the time, I hadn’t realized I could break my own story up that way. Sometimes, my scenes went on too long, and even I was bored with them. But when I started looking for funny or interesting or heartbreaking ways to end little moments in the scenes, pulling them apart and forming them into short vignettes, I realized that was more my style. It made each chapter feel a little more tangible. I could mold things together easier when I could see it all broken up like that. It felt more like writing a short story, which I had done many times before. Sometimes, all you need is one beautiful, tragic little book like this one to steer you in the right direction.
“Makeup was supposed to be like armor, but was actually just as vulnerable as a bare face. When you wore makeup, you were showing everyone how you wished you really looked. You were admitting that you didn’t look the way you wanted to. Somehow this just made me like Starr more.
I was only twelve. But already I knew I would never make myself that vulnerable. There was a connection between being vulnerable and being oblivious forming in my brain, like there was some direct link between every product Starr applied to her face and every night she went to bed early, unaware that Russ and her best friend from high school were staying up late on the couch, smoking and talking.”
The Girls of Corona Del Mar by Rufi Thorpe
This novel provided an epiphany. Or rather, something I’m excited to try in my fourth draft. Mia is the narrator of this story about two best friends (I told you, I’ve been on a roll with these.) We see her and Lorrie Ann grow up together and later watch them drift apart. What was so interesting about what Rufi did here was that when the girls reunited or when Lorrie Ann was recounting something to Mia, as the readers, we were pulled into full blown scenes as if Mia were there too. She gave us everything Lorrie Ann could be feeling, what she was seeing and hearing, telling us the story for Lorrie Ann. It made the novel so compelling, and I was equally invested in both girls.
In my novel, there are many country club members that my main character interacts with. She learns about them through her own experience or from other waitresses telling her about them. But I’ve been struggling with how not to drown scenes with too much information or choppy dialogue. These are not main characters, but they are still important to the story and in conveying how a county club works. I’m excited to try Rufi’s tactic. Instead of writing little glimpses of these characters through dialogue, I want to try having my main character talk about them with authority. This has been a little hard for me to explain, but I hope I’m making sense. Regardless, I can't recommend this book enough if you haven’t read it. It will break your heart in the best way possible.
“I had been so blinded by the idea of Lorrie Ann that I failed to see who she actually was, I had been just as blinded by I thought I was. I didn’t need any longer to be the bad one, the sexy one, the wicked one. Or even the smart one, the good one, the pretty one. Instead, I was a young mother, and hardly anyone gave two shits what I did or who I was. I was absolutely free.”
In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard
(Thank you for the rec, Brittany!) This novel weirdly doesn’t have any sticky tabs, but that’s not because there wasn’t anything to mark. I think I was just overwhelmed by how much I could mark, or I was just so absorbed in the story that I forgot.
This novel has one hell of an opening scene. I believe I’m starting in the wrong place in my current draft. Or rather, the beginning is too long, and I need to figure out a way to condense it. I need the scene to be more dynamic. After reading this novel, where two best friends are babysitting a family of six and one of the kids starts a fire in the house, I got a crash course on setting a scene, engaging the reader, and keeping them turning pages from the first sentence. Minimal background information is woven in seamlessly, and we learn so much about these girls by how they respond to a crisis. I’ve been thinking of my opening scene in terms of this one a lot, and I’m eager to reread it and see how I can emulate Jo Ann’s energy, pacing, and, hopefully, comedic timing.
“Forget father, forget teachers: our mothers are the ones with the answers, the only people who know something about everything, although it’s true that the answers are never that great and both mothers are incredibly bossy and both have at lease one disturbing trait. For Felcia’s mother, it’s a bad back that can go out on a moment’s notice, freezing her in place; for my mother, it’s a deep manlike voice that frightens people.”
Honorable Mentions
Made for Love by Alissa Nutting: The beauty of fiction is nothing is off limits, and this book reminded me I can be funny and weird and just go nuts if I really want to.
Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin: All this time, I didn’t realize my main character’s mother was a house cleaner! This book inspired this realization.
Godshot by Chelsea Bieker: I feel bad adding this one to the honorable mentions, but it’s really more of a constant book for me. I flip through it often when I have structure or tension questions or when I need a reminder of how to use flashbacks. Or when I reference my Save the Cat Beat sheet and need to think of a story I know by heart to use as an example.
Tell Me I’m an Artist by Chelsea Martin: I tabbed a number of passages that had to do with class, feeling self-conscious about not having as much as everyone else, and dealing with a family that expects a lot from you. All themes in my book and Chelsea’s novel has some banger lines that I’ve used as prompts.
I'm all ears if you have any more book recs for me! What books have helped your novel writing process?
I have so many new books on my TBR! Thanks for this! Sweetbitter is waiting patiently for me to pick it up. I recently read The Girls, but the rest I haven't read!
Sounds like you’re on a writing roll! Congrats!