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What Author Do You Wish You Could Write Like?
When you think of all the authors you’ve read, who stands out the most to you as someone you would want to emulate in your own writing? I know we all want to write with our own unique style and bring something new to the world, but most of us have our favorites—those writers who inspire us.
While I have favorite authors across all genres, there are only a few I would like to emulate in style and expression. The one at the top of the list might surprise you. You might think I’d want to write like Ayn Rand or even Tolkien or C. S. Lewis (for those who know me), but the one author I’ve always adored is E. B. White.
White’s simplicity, purity, and sense of wonder captivate me. His style, technical skills, and ideas are in perfect harmony. Every word he chooses rings with a clarity of emotion that pulls you into his world. Reading White is like taking a swim in a cool river on a cloudless summer day.
White once wrote, “All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.”
This is beauty to me, and it’s why I love E. B. White. One of my goals in my writing is to express not only my thoughts, but my heart — to connect with others through my words, to fill the page with passion and wonder. In that sense, White is a kindred spirit.
If you could write like any author, who would it be?
Published in General
And by the way, I’ve never read anything by Stephen King. So go figure.
There are few people whom I would respond to on something like this , but I am fresh back from a month long retreat in the “cave” and I will give you my answer.. the first answer is A.B. Guthrie. he was the first one I read which made me want to be able to describe things inthat way. His THE BIG SKY gave a complete understanding of the mentality of the mountain man and reading the slow progression of Caudil’s creap thru the grass to steal that red horse made me want to do the same ……. AND the best crafter of words I have known is Billy Joe Shaver, the song writer. Laying under Roland Ried’s bull wagon trying to catch a sleep between rodeoes I was entertained one night as the first to ever hear “When the fallen angels fly” … he had just composted it and like 90 percent of all he has written it was about HER…. if you have not heard that course voice without the benefit of any music go thru the the verses as they filter out into the central Texas night, you have not yet reached to touch the common
soul that makes all of us human. I do not wish to show myself to the wordl the way that he is able to but I do admire the courage and ability to do it…. lol.. and I will add that he is both the best AND the worst three fingered bull rider I have ever known and glad that he has the native intelligence not to be inhabited by the 8th grade education that he receiveded … thank goodness for the “school fo hard knocks”
Thomas Sowell. He is able to present complex ideas with amazing clarity.
Using the “I write like…”
First chapter of my current novel (written something like 5 years ago -hey, it’s a hobby, not a job): Hemingway.
Most recent chapter of the current novel (22 chapters, 223 pages later, written over Christmas break): Tolstoy.
I think that means I’m getting better. Still averages out to Hemingway, though.
Jim Murray. Curry Kirkpatrick, back in his Sports Illustrated days. In my formative sports writing days, my colleagues — in tribute to my ambitions, if not my successful mimicry — nicknamed me “Curry Murray.” George Will. Ray Bradbury, for imagination and imagery. Recently, Rachel Joyce (“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”). Pete Dexter, a former colleague and golf partner, for efficiency, precision and a macabre sense of the absurd. James Lileks (not sucking up), whom I discovered having fun at the Washington Post not long after I’d switched from sports writing to features.
Gave “I Write Like” three column samples, got three different results: Cory Doctorow, David Foster Wallace, Margaret Atwood. Good to know I have more than one pitch, I suppose.