This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Have you ever been so inspired by an author’s work that you wish you could tell them exactly how much they have impacted your life? In our new series, Literary Love Letters, we will be doing just that – sharing open love letters to inspiring authors. Today, I’ll Take New York author Miranda Dickinson writes to Terry Pratchett.
Dear Terry,
Since I started writing, there has been one writer who has inspired me above all others. It’s you. So please accept this letter as a token of my unending literary love…
There are many reasons I love you. Here are just a few:
I love the way your silliness opens doors of great truth and profundity. You make me laugh and leave me thinking. While others dismiss your daftness, I know you use it as a razor-sharp tool to cut through to the crux of the subject. You hold up a very wonky mirror and reveal how much wonkier real life is…
I love that the journeys of your characters are fantastical yet strikingly familiar, all at once. I love the vastness of your imagination. It scares me a little, to be honest, but I love that it has no bounds. I love the footnotes and asides, the crazy supporting cast from little gods to wizards, witches to wee free men – and the way you weave it all together in a fantastically nutty world.I love you for your mastery of the story rollercoaster: I'm in awe of how you can move from hilarious to scary to bright to dark in the space of a page and how, as a reader, I'm never quite sure where you're taking me next (but I trust you every step of the way).
I love that you never have and never will be concerned by what other people think you should be doing, be they joyless literary critics, cautious publishers or other authors. You refuse to be boxed, tied down, labelled or categorised. You're unafraid to be who you are, write the stories you want to tell and reinvent yourself – and that inspires me to do the same.
I love you for your many-legged Luggage, your dodgy meat-pie-floater salesmen, your Ooks and SQUEAKS and your vegetarian vampires with a suicidal interest in flash photography. Most of all, I love how you turn SENTENCES WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS INTO THE WHISPERS OF DEATH…
You inspire me to write bigger, bolder, funnier stories and stop worrying about what others think.
In short, it's YOUR FAULT that I'm writing today. Thank you.
Lots of love,
Miranda xx
Who would you like to write a literary love letter to?