# Good stories to learn from/Your biggest influence



## Fopfox (Mar 31, 2016)

What story/novel have you learned the most from?

For me it would be Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun and Book of the Long Sun (Short Sun is great too, but I don't think the narrative risks he takes in it paid off as well as in the others.). They are by far the most well-crafted narratives in science fiction/fantasy. I learned a lot about making an unreliable narrator compelling, but most importantly, and this is a big one, it has almost no exposition and allows the world to build on its own. The main character is writing the story and he does not explain things that would be second nature to someone who lives in the world. As a result, many things in the series are open to interpretation.

I really, really hate it when people use an outsider character for the POV as an excuse to exposit about the setting. It feels cheap but it's so common.

I don't think my stories I publish here live up to what I learned from his work, but I'm making use of it in my (hopefully) professional non-furry work.


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## Moondoggy (Apr 9, 2016)

Anything by Tom Clancy for me, other than that  pull ideas from movies and games trying to mash them together


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