Has fiction ever changed your life?

[Rhoda Nightingale]

First of all--great question!

To answer it, yes, I've been profoundly affected by a few works fiction. Mostly by movie adaptations for some reason, but I always get around to reading the original works.

The first one (and I'm eye-rolling at myself for admitting this after seeing Uncle Jim's response) is Lord of the Rings. And actually, I'm going with the film version of Fellowship specifically because it was my first important reintroduction to that universe. I say "reintroduction" because I watched an animated adaptation of The Hobbit ages and ages ago, but along with a handful of other things I watched ages and ages ago, I forgot about it for many years and half-convinced myself it had been a dream or something. The reason the first movie affected me so strongly was because of the place I was in my life when I first saw it: I was in my first year of college and away from home for the first time, September 11th had just happened, and my grandmother died--all in the same semester--and then this movie came out. It may seem like a small thing, but it gave me something to hold onto when I felt like everything in my real life was falling apart. Also, because I have such a hard time opening up to people and making friends, it gave me and all the other awkward fantasy geeks something to talk about and bond over, and that helped me feel less lonely during the rest of that year--and the rest of my time in school, too. I've only read the entire trilogy the one time, but it still means a lot to me.

The second, going in a completely different direction, is Koji Suzuki's Ring trilogy, the books that inspired the J-horror movie and subsequent Gore Verbinski remake. Again, my first experience of this was the movie, and it scared me more than any other movie I've ever seen in my life--still true, by the way, and I had to sleep with the lights on for months. (I wish I was exaggerating, but no--not at all.) At the time, I was still closeted as a horror fan, and I'm still not sure what possessed me to watch it in the first place. However, the story stayed in my head and under my skin, until I read all three books, watched the American version of the movie again, and then the original J-horror version. It's not just that I love the prose and the way the characters developed over the course of three wildly different novels, but the way it changed from horrific to hopeful. Seeing that transition made me realize the kind of stories I wanted to tell and the kind of writer I wanted to be. That, and I actually owned up to be a horror geek.

Third, there's Batman. In every single way, but most especially Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. Bats has been my favorite superhero for many, many years, but before I actually started collecting comics seriously I didn't appreciate just what a unique and nuanced character Bruce Wayne really is. (For the record, my fave is Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum graphic novel.) However, what hit me even harder was Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in the second movie. I'm actually not going to tell you why that performance means so much to me, because it's a little too personal for me a share in a format like this. Suffice it to say I truly believe I would not be the person I am now, on the path that I'm on, without it.