Anne Rices Influence

“I claim Dickens as a mentor. He's my teacher. He's one of my driving forces.” - Anne Rice

Who said it

Anne Rice is a best-selling American novelist, whose work dealt mainly in Gothic and religious concepts. Rice is best-known worldwide as the author of the series of novels called the “Vampire Chronicles”, which related the story of vampires across generations. To date, two of her novels were given movie adaptations, namely the “Interview with the Vampire” and “The Queen of the Damned”. This helped further Rice’s popularity among the general public. Not that she really needed it. She has already sold 100 million books worldwide, making her one of the most well-read modern novelist of our time.

What the quote means

As most writers look to other writers for inspiration and as role models and mentors, Anne Rice is no exception. This is not strange as Rice’s style is considered to be descriptive and filled with details, not unlike the style of her idol, Charles Dickens. As writing about vampires and different generations require some skillful descriptions, Rice was not served bad by choosing Dickens as her model. One should read classic Dickens novels like David Copperfield and Oliver Twist to see for one’s self Dickens’ mastery of description. And Rice is not alien to literary classics as she had finished a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at the San Francisco State University. By choosing a classic writer as her role model, as this quote says, it seems not unlikely that she will become a classic writer herself.