Why Writers Need to be Readers

This morning I woke up and thought of all the things I planned to do today. Top of that list were proofreading my recently-rewritten manuscript, working on the crackfic, and reading a friend’s manuscript. Nowhere on that list was a dedicated effort to sit down and finish any of the half-read books scattered about the house, my place in their pages marked with scraps of paper, bills, bookmarks, even post-its.

Then I realized how long it’s been since I actually finished a book, and hung my head in shame – because by not reading more avidly, I’m doing myself an enormous disservice as a writer.

More than studying grammar, more than workshops, more than peer critiques, writers need to read. They need to read often, read widely, and read outside of their circle of comfort; read not just the kind of books they write, but the kind of books they’d never write. Reading offers insight, offers knowledge, offers a view into what works and what doesn’t; it provides inspiration, demonstrates the many proper ways to frame and pace a story, and gives the writer an intuitive eye for good story-crafting that no instructional lecture or essay can deliver.

When you read, you learn. You learn new ways to approach style, pacing, and characterization; you learn new perspectives, new ideas, new theories; hell, you even learn new words, and frankly I enjoy a book where every once in a while I have to stop and grab the dictionary because I didn’t know a word – though you also learn when not to take that too far, to the point of making a story incomprehensible. You learn what’s been done before, what’s been done to death, and what could be exciting if explored even more.

And if you ever stop learning, you stop growing as a writer.

The act of writing itself can serve as something of an isolation chamber. It’s easy to get so locked into the act of writing that you lose all objectivity towards your writing, all sense of how it pertains to the outside world. When your writing loses its connection to the outside world, you lose your connection to the reader. So read, to see views outside your isolation chamber. Read books, read the news, read blogs, read short stories. Read anything that makes you think, makes you question, makes you wonder “What would happen if I…?”

Just read. Find worth and merit in others’ writing, so you can impart worth and merit to your own.

Read, and remember why you wanted to be a writer in the first place.

Posted by on Dec 11, 2009 in Books!, Writing Blather | 3 comments

3 Comments

  1. Natasha
    Dec 15, 2009

    The #1 excuse that we use is that we don’t have the time to read. But we reading is integral to being a writer, so writers have to make the time for it. Of course, we often read a lot more than we realize; try tracking your time on blogs with a tool like Rescue Time and see how many hours you spend on blogs, news sites, and other interactive reading, and you might be pleased with what you’re accomplishing. And we have to balance it with everything else in our lives; Productive Flourishing has a great post about balancing time between creating, consuming and connecting.

    I do most of my reading online, but I make an effort to keep up my book-consuming even when I’m busy. I’m currently at the end of a semester abroad and I’ve managed to read several novels for my lit class and I’m working through Anna Karenin for fun. I plan to be a more ambitious reader next year!

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  2. Kaine
    Dec 18, 2009

    This is something I always have to explain to people, and I’m happy to see you addressing it more eloquently here than I’ve ever been able. I am, I feel, naturally a fairly decent writer. Certainly, my work could benefit from more thought and editing, but, in general, if I need to write, say, an essay on Silvia Plath due the next day, I can gather up all my information and write something that reads well and gets good marks from my teacher without much effort. I don’t have to put a lot of thought into getting the feel I want.
    When people ask me how it is that I managed to ace an AP English class with my procrastination skills as well-honed as they are, the answer is simply that, throughout my childhood, and well to this day, I read a LOT. I have books everywhere, and, especially as a kid, I always had a book (or fifteen) under my arm/in my bag wherever I went. As well as contributing to my lack of motion sickness (for as long as I can remember I’ve had no problems reading in a moving car or on a boat), reading has, for me, done everything you’ve described here; it helps to develop a writer’s instinct, so that I never had to be told that “such and such is a very effective strategy when trying to convey this or that image” – I knew that already, because I knew what stuck in my mind, and what was or was not effective for me in whatever context.
    And yes, it’s certainly necessary to read a wiiiide variety of things, to get a feel for all tones/situations/what-have-you that you might ever have to deal with as a writer, or a speaker, or an educated person. In fact, one of my favourite quotes is attributed to Neil Gaiman (a favourite author of mine :3) and is on my poster of him on my wall: “Read. Read anything. Read the things they say are good for you, and the things they claim are junk. You’ll find what you need to find. Just read.”
    That goes for almost all people, really, but particularly for people who wish to have their own work read; it’ll teach you more than can be readily tested or defined. :]

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  3. Adrien-Luc Sanders
    Dec 19, 2009

    I think Gaiman said it more succinctly and powerfully than I ever could, but…yeah. I always have a book with me, and I read bloody well everything. Even a nonfiction treatise on instances of bacteria thriving in hostile environments rouses ideas. And oddly enough, I read to avoid motion sickness, too; I get queasy and light-headed in the car unless I have a book to occupy my focus.

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