Concept: Michael Crichton. All books should start with a killer concept--the central premise of the story, or what your story is about. Michael Crichton is the master here: scientists create dinosaurs that get out of control, a swarm of micro-robots get out of control, a new species of intelligent gorilla is found in the Congo which is killing explorers.
Theme: Ayn Rand. The theme is the big message of the book. This one is so hard to pull off, most popular fiction doesn't even have a theme because the author doesn't know what to say. Ayn Rand definitely had something to say, and she said it in her novels. She was not only a master of demonstrating her themes with her plots and characters, she also had great themes: individualism vs. collectivism, the central importance of man's mind in human existence, the destructive nature of communism.
Character: Stephen King. King is a great writer who has a knack for suspense, plot, setting and writing voice. But where he really stands out is character. He lets us into the character's head and makes us care about him or her. He has created some unforgettable characters: Carrie, Frannie in The Stand, Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, Gordie in The Body, and John Coffey in The Green Mile, just to name a few.
Plot: A Simple Plan by Scott Smith. Here I'm giving the nod to a single book rather than the author because Smith's follow up, The Ruins, had a lousy plot (although the movie version fixed a lot of the problems). What I really liked about A Simple Plan was how the suspense and tension were consistently increased throughout the book in a natural way. The book followed the time-tested structure of set-up, response, attack and resolution and executed brilliantly on it. Each new plot point followed seamlessly from what happened before and even though things got crazy, out-of-control at the end, it was all plausible and believable.
Writing Voice: David Gordon. This is a tough one because writing voice is very subjective and a writer shouldn't try to copy another's voice; he must develop his own. Having said that, besides Stephen King, the other writer whose prose I'd love to be able to copy is David Gordon. He only has one book so far, The Serialist, and a second on the way in July 2013, but I really enjoyed his writing in the first book. Here's an example from The Serialist:
[My mother] wasn’t dead to start with. She was still quite lively in fact, still in the same Queens two-bedroom where I grew up and where, sadly or perhaps happily, I live again now. Sadly because it is a constant reminder of my life’s extremely limited progress, ten feet from the smaller bedroom to the larger. Happily because of the soup dumplings. The Jewish-Italian-Irish neighborhood where I grew up, and which was on its way back then to becoming mainly Hispanic, had taken a wild left turn somewhere and ended up almost completely Asian. Hence the soup dumplings.
And what are they exactly? Don’t I mean dumplings in soup? No, my friend. Let’s say you order six crab and pork. A few minutes later, they appear, steamed, plump as little Buddhas, sitting on lettuce in their tender skins. But don’t bite. Lift one carefully in your spoon and gently nibble its tip. Out dribbles hot soup. That’s right. I shit you not. Soup inside the dumpling. It’s a kind of miracle, a chaste, doughy nipple dispensing warm broth, the sort of thing that makes life worth living and gives you the strength to hang on, if only for one more novel.
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