Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was by far one of the most influential books I’ve read as a writer. It was written completely differently than most books I read, incorporating elements that I personally would have never thought of. The first thing I got from the book is how incredible a unique narrative structure can make the book. It’s fascinating to read something other than the normal, first or third person point of view. My textual support is not from the book itself, but from a review written by novel critic Alex Clark, who said “Flynn's coup de grace is to provide us with not one but two unreliable narrators. Just as Amy is sugar-coating the past, so Nick is being economical with the truth of the present day; we know he's lying to the police because he tells us so, but he doesn't tell us what he's hiding, or why.” I believe this constant confusion and guessing is what made me as a reader question everything I read, adding even further to the excitement of the story. I also learned the dramatic impact that plot twists can have on the story. Gone Girl is comprised of multiple plot twists, culminating in a lasting plot twist of sorts that leaves you with unanswered questions. While I like the idea of using a plot twist in my writing, I’ve often struggled with how to make that “WHOA!” moment for the reader, and I certainly drew ideas from Flynn’s style of writing. It’s important to drop hints and details, so when the plot twist is revealed, they are able to piece things together for themselves, leaving them with that “I should have seen that coming!” feeling. The last thing I learned from Gone Girl is the importance of inner monologues of characters. For Amy’s character in particular, her inner monologues were what characterized her the most, as her actions were cryptic, to say the least, but her thoughts helped piece together aspects of her personality and motives that you wouldn’t have gotten from simply the plot. An example of this is when she’s describing her marriage and says, “I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we'd say, Yeah, he's a Cool Guy.” Amy’s inner thoughts gave her part of the story a completely different tone and added to the plot immensely.
The first thing I got from the book is how incredible a unique narrative structure can make the book. It’s fascinating to read something other than the normal, first or third person point of view. My textual support is not from the book itself, but from a review written by novel critic Alex Clark, who said “Flynn's coup de grace is to provide us with not one but two unreliable narrators. Just as Amy is sugar-coating the past, so Nick is being economical with the truth of the present day; we know he's lying to the police because he tells us so, but he doesn't tell us what he's hiding, or why.” I believe this constant confusion and guessing is what made me as a reader question everything I read, adding even further to the excitement of the story.
I also learned the dramatic impact that plot twists can have on the story. Gone Girl is comprised of multiple plot twists, culminating in a lasting plot twist of sorts that leaves you with unanswered questions. While I like the idea of using a plot twist in my writing, I’ve often struggled with how to make that “WHOA!” moment for the reader, and I certainly drew ideas from Flynn’s style of writing. It’s important to drop hints and details, so when the plot twist is revealed, they are able to piece things together for themselves, leaving them with that “I should have seen that coming!” feeling.
The last thing I learned from Gone Girl is the importance of inner monologues of characters. For Amy’s character in particular, her inner monologues were what characterized her the most, as her actions were cryptic, to say the least, but her thoughts helped piece together aspects of her personality and motives that you wouldn’t have gotten from simply the plot. An example of this is when she’s describing her marriage and says, “I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we'd say, Yeah, he's a Cool Guy.” Amy’s inner thoughts gave her part of the story a completely different tone and added to the plot immensely.