Magic and psychics and ley lines and dead Welsh kings and wishes granted and a girl and a boy and possibly another boy who also falls for her. (I'm not far enough in to know for sure)
It's a big series and while not as densely specific in its world-building as Libba Bray's THE DIVINERS, which swallowed me whole in all things 1920's, Maggie's writing draws me in as it always does -- pretty, fragile, artistic in the way her characters view the world.
This is what I've been thinking as I've read -- that I know Stiefvater's style through her artist's eye. That because she is also a working artist in many mediums -- and a wonderfully, brilliantly talented one at that-- her way of seeing the world comes through an artist's sensibility. The way things in her books look, feel, smell, touch, taste -- all of it filters through the way she sees the world herself. Which I know is the case for all of us, but her fictional worlds are just that extra step of lush because she works in other mediums. Her characters see the world with layers of senses and I think it's part of what makes me love her writing so very, very much.
So it's got me thinking about the various authors that I adore and what it is that makes their style specific and unique, even if they write in different genres. And about my own writing and what readers tell me -- and hopefully will continue to tell me-- about what they see in my books.
When we write, we're laying it out there for you-- our ideas about life, love and the universe. Thrilling and frightening, but out there. Bare. Naked. On display.
Pretty brave souls, we writers.
Even if we get to work in our pajamas.
2 comments:
I love Maggie Stiefvater! Read Shiver and loved it to bits!!!
Yes yes Maggie's writing is just gorgeous. I wish I could read the first pages of Shiver for the first time again. It's weird but I still remember exactly where I was (sitting in my car waiting for my piano lesson). It was that powerful. :)
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