This week there’s been some buzz in the online book community. Especially in the YA sector where an author who’s been fairly quiet for a while jumped back into the thick of things.

Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight Saga, posted a countdown on her website.

“What’s it counting down to?” you ask.

That’s the question, isn’t it? What in the world is she planning to reveal when the clock hits zero?

I have ideas. In fact, it seems the entire book community has ideas, but it’s all guesswork for now. And I think she timed this thing perfectly. Her readers could use some fun, fandom drama right now.

It had me thinking on my own TWILIGHT experience this week, and how those books, as well as several others, impacted my writing journey. They were novels, of course, but they were also guideposts even if I didn’t realize it at the time.

I bet you have books like this too. Books that nudged you in a certain direction. Books that taught you what you liked and disliked. Stories that whisked you away and others that settled deep in your soul.

When I was very young, the books that first captured my imagination were the Nancy Drew mysteries. And then it was the Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley Twins, followed swiftly by Sweet Valley High.

As much as I appreciate conferences and classes and craft books, when I look back on the stepping stones that led me to the road I’m currently on, it’s the novels that stand out. The ones that were more than stories, that grabbed hold of my face and turned it to see a path I hadn’t noticed before.

I’ll share three of those books with you today:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

I was in college when these books started to hit shelves, so I was up to my ears in academic reading, and not paying one lick of attention to the world of publishing. In those days, I thought I’d be an actress. I hadn’t yet considered a career as an author.

The first time I heard the name “Harry Potter” was at a staff luncheon. I had taken a secretarial job and my first week happened to coincide with a co-worker’s birthday. The whole office made the trip to Applebee’s, and I ended up sitting across from a woman I didn’t know.

She was not a pleasant soul. She spent the entire meal telling everyone who would listen just how much she despised the Harry Potter books. She had some story to tell about a confrontation she’d gotten into over the books, and while I believe everyone has a right to their opinion, I found myself embarrassed for her. She had handled things so poorly. What kind of book could possibly be worth such passionate disdain?

Perhaps it’s a fault in me, but her sour attitude had me curious.

And so I credit the angry Applebee’s lady for leading me to Harry Potter and, really, back to kid lit. I hadn’t read a children’s book in years until that day, and since then I’ve read more from that shelf than any other.

Twilight

The first I heard of TWILIGHT was several years later. I was married by then and my husband and I were pastoring the teens in our church. Overnight, they all became book lovers. The girls, at least. We had to pry their hands off the shiny black covers to get their attention, and again, I found myself curious.

What are these books that have my teens so enthralled?

So, I read them. And I got it. I did. I will admit that despite the creepy boyfriend stuff, and the plot holes, I fell into a chasm peopled by vampires and werewolves and pasty teenagers running around the drippy town of Forks.

And suddenly, it wasn’t just children’s literature I was interested in, I had found an entire rack of shelves I’d never really dug into. Young Adult.

The truth is, whether you’re a TWILIGHT fan or not, Stephenie Meyer has a lot to do with the current state of young adult fiction. She wasn’t the first young adult author. But her stories caught fire in a way that, really, only Harry Potter had. And it was transformative.

I was one of the many authors who read her stuff and thought, “I can do this! I can write books for teens.”

The Hunger Games

I realize I’m hitting on some very commercial, very big-deal books. Books that have altered the industry. But I can’t wrap this post up, without telling you how Suzanne Collins’s THE HUNGER GAMES influenced my writing.

I’m horrible at dates–too much like math–but I read Katniss’s story sometime after I’d finished the first draft of what would become my debut novel, ANGEL EYES.

Throughout my revision process, I could tell something was missing. I didn’t know what and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it, and then someone recommended THE HUNGER GAMES. Not as a book that would help me, but as a book I might genuinely enjoy.

I remember being in the bookstore that day, pushing my kid in the stroller, sipping on a green tea, and catching sight of the book on the shelf. I cracked the spine right there in Barnes and Noble, leaned against the YA shelves, and read the first line.

“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.”

It was so jarring. I had never, ever, not once read a book written in first person, present tense. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. But I was hooked. I read on and by the time I got to the end of the first page, I knew:

This is it. This is what my book is missing. The immediacy, the intimacy of being right inside the narrator’s head as things are happening. I could see how it would change my book, how it could pull everything together.

So, I embarked on a journey. My book was 92,000 words of past tense writing and I thought, “heck, I can make this change in a few weeks.”

Friends, I was wrong. It was a challenging adjustment, and I had to learn how to write from the inside of a moment. It took me a year to do, but I grew. I picked up every first person, present tense book I could find and I devoured them.

See, I’d learned that novels can be excellent teachers. Oh sure, they’re excellent entertainment, diverting escapism. They can be inspirational and encouraging. But for the writer, realized or burgeoning, novels can also be guideposts, pointing you on your way.

Tell me, which books have impacted your writing? How have they guided you to where you are now?

Shannon Dittemore is an author and speaker. Her books include the Angel Eyes trilogy, a supernatural foray into the realm of angels and demons, as well as the fantastical adventure novel Winter, White and Wicked. Its sequel, Rebel, Brave and Brutal is due out January 10, 2023.

Shannon’s stories feature strong female leads grappling with fear and faith as they venture into the wilds of the unknown. She’s often wondered if she’s writing her own quest for bravery again and again.

It’s a choice she values highly. Bravery. And she’s never more inspired than when young people ball up their fist and punch fear in the face.

To that end, Shannon takes great joy in working with young writers, both in person and online at Go Teen Writers, an instructional blog recognized by Writer’s Digest four years running as a “101 Best Websites for Writers” selection.

For more about Shannon and her books, please visit her website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.