When approaching a potential short story of interest, I often find myself searching for seemingly inconsequential characters, for those who doubt their place in the world and view themselves, and the world, with disinterested apathy. I search for those stories which cast an even darker shadow upon their protagonist; stories of societal or personal unrest which take the character into the realm of psychological disturbance and turmoil, only to leave the reader with a distant feeling of unease as the final pages bring the story to a shuddering halt. I like to see the character perched on the edge of destruction, only to reel back as if in the eleventh hour. It is not this dreary nature, however, that I find enticing. Rather, it is the journey the protagonist embarks on, the constant search for internal and external peace that draws me in. I find that while their lives begin to unwind, and they attempt to piece it back together, very human attributes begin to appear. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe checks all these boxes off for me. Poe introduces us to a nameless character—we do not know his purpose, we do not know his relationship to the old man with the “Evil Eye,” we know nothing of him except that he is simply nervous. “Very, very dreadfully nervous” to be precise. The man asserts his sanity, creating an ambiguity surrounding the man’s moral and mental character as he plots the old man’s murder outside of his door each night.

Stories like this dwell in that certain gray area that permeates life, entering neither into territories of good or bad, sweet or evil, and perhaps, begin to reveal truths about us, and how, we too, exist neither wholly innocent or guilty. The protagonist kills the vulture-eyed man, not of malice, but rather to liberate himself–and the old man–from that malevolent eye. To the protagonist, murder is an act of deliverance.

I also enjoy a loud protagonist, one who, while unsure of their role in a life unraveling, fight their way upstream, refusing to be trumped with ease. That battle between laying belly up for the antagonists, even if it is themselves, and fighting for who and what they are, separates the ordinary from the spectacular for me. The man in “The Tell-Tale Heart” struggles for his nebulous grip on reality, reasserting his sanity as his paranoia heightens with each invisible whisper of the old man’s still-beating heart that grows into a resounding insistence that he is guilty. My favorite characters find their end bloodied and bruised with busted knuckles and a raw throat, having fought for their existence—whether mentally or physically—until they either expire or succeed. I like to read of characters who live, characters who have experienced the breadth of human emotion, the variance of life. This window into a tumultuous mind that settles itself on actions of violence justified by the superstitions of a madman soon overcome with the guilt of murder draws an image of what it is like to be fully human, which, I suppose, is what I am looking for when I read. I like novels to remind me that humanity is neither perfect nor entirely flawed, but rather, something that perpetuates itself in gray areas. I wish to read about stories and people who extrapolate the complicated nature of life and humanity; I find such stories in the unlikeliest of heroes in the most onerous of places, in those who must fight for what they want, and who persist until their last breaths. The answers in this life are not simple. I do not wish to read of characters who think it so.

How does Jean Valjean take his coffee? Does Dante prefer cappuccino to a macchiato? These are the questions that keep me up night, and thanks to Literary Starbucks, I can finally find my answers.

“Drinks are Up for Your Favorite Authors and Characters,” reads the site’s tagline. Spinning off the popularity of coffee house culture in the modern literary scene, this blog re-imagines some of literature’s greatest figures and places them in the context of a modern day Starbucks. Three college students came up with the idea this September, and describe the impetus for the project on their website. “One day we thought, what would all of history’s famous authors and characters order if they lived in modern times and went to Starbucks? The rest is history.”

The blog quickly garnered positive response, with floods of new readers making requests for their own literary favorites. Authors from Milton to J.K. Rowling have had their turn with the Literary Starbucks barista. In the month and a half since it’s inception, the blog has received attention from various media outlets, and just recently reached 25,000 followers.

The popularity of Literary Starbucks makes me wonder what it is about anachronism that draws people in. An anachronism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is anything that exists out of its proper context of time. In many cases, it’s an error on behalf of the author. This definition doesn’t account for intentional anachronism, and the comical juxtaposition that so appeals to the modern reader. There’s something compelling about seeing the canon of the past clash with the present.

The popularity of literary reboots and remixes can attest to this: just take a look at the success of Seth Grahame-Smith’s zombified Regency Era in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Mallory Ortberg’s new Texts from Jane Eyre and Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters. Grahame-Smith’s proper English zombies have become so popular that a film adaptation is in the works, and they will be shuffling to big screens in sometime in 2015. Meanwhile, Ortberg’s new book is sure to draw flocks of new readers to her website, The Toast, where she habitually juxtaposes the old and new with a charming irreverence. Ortberg cites Scarlett O’Hara with a cell phone as the inspiration for her book, but no literary or historical figure is immune to her anachronistic gaze.

The popularity of anachronism isn’t so much a literary phenomena as much as it is a cultural one. The creators of this media will admit that their success comes at least in part from the gimmick. Still, it’s interesting to consider why the gimmick works. (Maybe in this modern age, readers have become so desensitized to the accessibility of media that long-beloved characters no longer evoke any sympathy or understanding. Maybe readers have become cynical and lazy, and this recycling of media signals the death knell for literature.) Of course it doesn’t. This has been going on for centuries. Shakespeare’s Roman plays were performed in modern Elizabethan/Jacobean dress, for example, and I won’t even attempt to navigate the rabbit hole that is anachronism in Renaissance art. Even in cases of accidental anachronism, the inclusion of contemporary details forged a connection with the audience which might not have existed otherwie.

Anachronism might even inspire otherwise uninterested readers to take a second look at a classic. I remember feeling mostly apathetic toward Shakespeare during high school, until I discovered Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “Romeo + Juliet.” Perhaps it was the late 90’s aesthetic, or the gun-swords, or Leonardo DiCaprio, but something about this adaptation clicked with me. When Abraham asked, “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” I found myself actually caring about the answer. After that, whenever I struggled to connect with one of Shakespeare’s characters, I could try to imagine them in a modern context, and that would give me an angle into the play.

Intentionally anachronistic works aren’t going to win prizes for originality any time soon, but they still occupy a worthwhile niche in the literary market. At worst, they’re gimmicks, but at their best, they can be gateways. Our fondness for blending past and present is a good sign. It means we’re still curious and constantly looking for new ways to process literature, and to find reflections of ourselves in the classics. If that means Milton starts ordering Frappuccino from Starbucks, so be it.

Do you think that modern adaptations have value that cannot be achieved by the original version? Have you ever connected with a modern adaptation? Is intentional anachronism valuable, or is it the junk food of the literary world?

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.” This often-quoted line from Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is a simple statement, but nonetheless profound in its acknowledgement of the literary tradition. Reading widely and well arms the author with knowledge of context and craft that can elevate a piece from good to great. Brain Pickings published an informative chart illustrating the “Circles of Influence” that produced some of today’s most popular artists. Sometimes it’s easy to trace a writer back to formative influences: H.P. Lovecraft begets Stephen King, for example. Other times, an author’s literary lineage comes as a surprise. Lord Byron certainly wouldn’t make it on my list of Lemony Snicket’s main influences. Distinguishing influence becomes even trickier when artists collaborate, and it can become impossible to discern who impacted who.

The source of this problem resides in the mechanism behind the circles of influence. Literary influence isn’t always the conscious process King describes. It isn’t always a writer equipping tools. Brain Pickings describes the process of intellectual exchange more as “the cross-pollination of disciplines across science, art, literature, film and music.” Sometimes, it’s more of an unconscious influence, one as pervasive and natural as pollination. What you read influences what (and how) you write.

You are what you read. It’s a variation on an old cliché, but like most clichés, its merit lies in a truism. We now know that reading can change how your brain works, so the logical progression follows that reading can also change your writing. I remember my visceral horror when one of my writing mentors described the phenomena in the wake of Twilight in the YA lit boom. Increasingly, her students wrote about characters “chuckling darkly” with “piercing eyes.” Stephenie Meyer had trickled into the shared consciousness of adolescents everywhere. Being an omnivorous reader, the subject matter didn’t scare me as much as the concept. I hated the idea that I didn’t control my own writing, as I have never been one to subscribe to the concept of the literary muse. Of course, I welcomed influences, but I wanted to be consciously aware of them. I wanted to choose and cultivate, not plant a mystery seed and watch, breath bated, as it grew.

For a brief period, I embarked on a literary detox. No more beach reads. No more books written for younger audiences. I waited until I was sufficiently satisfied that nothing remained but my own voice. Then I stocked up on some of the literary greats. Soon I noticed the way authors leaked into my own writing. I read some Faulkner novel that I could not really understand (but pretended to understand because I was too proud to admit otherwise) and I decided to write. Upon placing my fingertips to keyboard and typing I started spinning out lengthy and labyrinthine sentences the meanings of which I also probably could not understand but there on the screen they glowed profoundly. I also took it upon myself to read Jane Eyre, after which, my diction shifted to a positively comical mix of modern and Victorian. My thoughts veered into profoundly existential territory for a freshman in high school. I felt like a mime and a fraud. Not once did I consider that maybe I took myself too seriously, and that maybe this was a universal problem I experienced. Fortunately, my stint of detox only lasted until the publication of the next YA box office hit. I realize now that it was all a part of the process of finding my voice.

So what about you? Have you ever noticed the circle of influence impacting your voice? Is this something to be celebrated, or are more literary detoxes in order?