Qiu's works are "frequently cited as classics",[1] and her unapologetically lesbian[2] sensibility has had a profound and lasting influence on LGBT literature in Taiwan.

[4][5] Qiu Miaojin's writing is influenced by the non-narrative structures of avant-garde and experimental film as well as European and Japanese literary modernisms.

[1] Her novels contain camera angles and ekphrasis in response to European art cinema, including allusions to directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Theo Angelopoulos, Derek Jarman, and Jean-Luc Godard.

[citation needed] Its prose appears to "blur distinctions between personal confession and lyric aphorism" according to a review in Rain Taxi.

Moreover, Taiwanese writer Li Kotomi explicitly cites Qiu's Notes of a Crocodile as an inspiration for her 2017 novel Solo Dance.

Hélène Cixous[26] described the Evans Chan film as “fascinating” and “marvelous,” with Qiu evoked as “a moving apparition in search of lost love.”[27]