Life, The Universe And Everything

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

What do Douglas Adams, David Eddings and David Gemmell have in common?

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Clearly, that question isn’t going to solve the meaning of life, but what they have in common is they all wrote books that, as a teenager, I reread countless times, and they’re all dead.

Douglas Adams died far too young. Never the most prolific of authors, he would surely have written several more novels if his heart hadn’t given way. His books were part of the reason why I was determined to travel. If I couldn’t see the universe, I could see the world. And nearly all of my ideas for stories have been inspired by my travels.

Athough not as sharply as Douglas Adams’s, David Gemmell’s life was also cut short. Now, he was a prolific author, having written over 30 novels. He once said, “No one gets out of this life alive.” He knew  smoking would probably be the death of him, but when he tried to quit, he claimed the quality of his writing nose-dived. He died aged 57, shortly after a quadruple heart bypass. From him, I learnt the value of a fast plot. he once said he doesn’t care about detailed room descriptions - only what happens in the room.

Although David Eddings started writing relatively late in life, he wrote twenty-seven novels before he died aged 76. So while his life wasn’t exactly cut short, it could perhaps be argued that any author’s life is incomplete if they leave behind an unfinished novel, and Eddings was, apparently, working on a novel when he died. He wrote epic fantasies with repetitive plots, but his characters made them work. Although stereotypical, they were immensely likeable, and their banter was frequently hilarious. From him, I learnt the value of creating sympathetic characters who liked each other; after all, if they don’t, how will the reader?

So: what do Douglas Adams, David Gemmell and David Eddings have in common?  They might not have have helped me learn what the question is to the meaning of life, but they all taught me important lessons about writing.

Incidentally, Terry Pratchett, although thankfully still very much alive and writing, makes a neat little addendum to this post. He recently stated that when he dies, he expects, like David Gemmell, to be found slumped over his writing desk. He then wants whoever finds him, before they do anything else, to save his work in progress on the computer.

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