You indicate that you used to enjoy reading when you were young, and indicated that life events interfered. And now you struggle to find anything you want to read. To be honest, while I've never stopped reading, older books are more my thing than newer ones. I don't know if it's just an age thing, or if books really have changed (in general.) It's fine if you don't want to read any more. You probably already have the foundation for writing, if you've read some of the classics you mention. You do know how a story 'sounds,' rather than how it's translated to movies, and that's probably enough. However, if you did want to take up reading again, you could try reading some older books that were popular when you were young. Some of those 'childhood' books were damn good. My favourite book of all time (the one I wish I had written myself) is Fred Gipson's Old Yeller. (NOT the neutered Disney version!) The story is short, but has everything going for it. It is, in fact, an adult story, written about a time when the narrator was growing up. Fantastic book. Also reading something like Anne of Green Gables could be a lot of fun for you. Or the Laura Ingalls Wilder series of books based on her childhood in the old west. These are rich stories, and not formulaic books 'for children' in the way the Famous Five or Nancy Drew were. They are as rich in content as Black Beauty or Little Women. You might find yourself enjoying reading again, if you pick some older books to begin with. I still have these older children's 'classic' books on my shelves, along with many others from my younger days, and I still re-read them. Those writers knew how to tell a story in a straightforward manner.
Setting aside inapplicable analogies, the purpose of reading isn't just to spy on the competition or do research, but to expose your brain to well crafted language. Beautiful words, used correctly in sentences that are sometimes complex, yet perfectly clear. People with seemingly natural verbal skills were probably read to often as small children, started reading early on, tested above their grade level for vocabulary and comprehension in elementary school and got high verbal scores on their SATs. Those people are your competition if you want to get published, and if you aren't already among them it is worth your while to soak up as much of the best quality English you can find. And maybe you'll expose yourself to enough to be able to write something naturally good instead of relying on the crutch of other people to correct your inexperience with the written word. And if you lack for time, don't spend it internet forums when you could be absorbing a book.
I'm not missing the point at all. Can reading, and specifically reading fiction, help a writer? Sure, never said it couldn't. Is it necessary to do such reading to be a writer? I don't think so, especially if you've already acquired an adult's vocabulary and SPAG skills. (I tested as having college level English skills in 7th grade, and my alpha-reader wife's SPAG skills are better than mine.) Is it an effective use of a writer's time, compared to other pursuits? I think that may depend on the writer, and for me the answer seems to be no. In all the improvements in my writing I can identify in the past three years of working on my WIP, none came from reading fiction, even though I tried that method (because after all, so many people said it would help --it didn't). The improvements came from reading books on the craft, from critiquing the work of others (as distinct from reading that work), and from having my own work critiqued. At my last of three half-hour one-on-ones with a professional author and editor who reviewed my work, I asked her what I should do to improve further. She told me, and I quote: "Keep doing what you're doing." So I will, and that doesn't include "reading a lot." I know what works for me, in my genre (hard SciFi), and "reading a lot" of fiction isn't part of it. You seem to know what works for you, in your genre (historical?), and it seems to including "reading a lot." I'm not going to argue that you're wrong about what works for you. I'd appreciate it if you'd extend me the same courtesy. Or, if you like, prove me wrong: go to the Workshop, read the works I've posted there, and tell me how, exactly, "reading a lot" would improve it.
That's true, but you also might pick up elements of writing that are no longer in style, if you care about that. I remember enjoying Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities," but his marvelous descriptiveness probably wouldn't help get a SciFi novel published today. I worry that even Cordwainer Smith's work from the 50's and early 60', my favorites and wonderfully written, wouldn't get a request-for-full today.
Well, it could give you an idea as to how people other than yourself arrange thoughts so readers will actually be able to follow what you're laying down. Might smooth out your dialog, too, seeing how someone who's really good at it, does it.
I don't think it would. Franky, I don't think I have a problem with those things very often. And as I've mentioned, I have had a professional editor go over my work, including some that I've refined here. She didn't see the issues you mention. But I did get at least one epiphany on the craft from each session; one that caused me to "re-version," as she called it, a key scene.
Oh god. I would never sit still and do nothing but listen to an audiobook. I think that would drive me crazy too. I prefer earbuds to background, but I'm usually working, driving, doing chores, etc. The more I read, the more I want to write. The more I want to right, the more time I spend writing. Non-productive? Why are you so combative, dude? I was just curious. I wasn't the only one who read it that way. You gave no indication otherwise. Meaning I'm not. You just can't stop, can you? I said "I can't imagine it being anything but sound advice." I'll stand by it. What you're advocating is not sound. I can't say for certain that every professional disagrees with you on this, but I've never heard one agree. (The value of critique does not devalue reading.) Then stop reading garbage => Read quality, potentially improve the quality of your writing. Not just watching, no, but athletes do spend a lot of time studying each other and learning each other's techniques. So do their coaches. I respect that you don't assign the same value to reading that we do, but why are you always so extreme when you disagree with someone? I think reading is more important than learning to give critiques, but they're both important. To suggest that reading is actually bad for a writer is ridiculous. I don't think you actually believe that. Do you? Or is it just the only way you know to disagree? It feels like the latter. After engaging in multiple debates with you on completely separate issues, it seems as though you're not just into black and white thinking, but extreme all or nothing debate. Taking a stand for an idea, doesn't mean you have to come down against everything else including completely compatible notions. A few weeks ago, you told me that you can't post without getting personal. I'm sorry. That must be very frustrating at times. I admire your passion, but I don't always appreciate the way you express it. And now I have to add this, because you jumped in while I was typing: Some of this is counter to what you said earlier in the feed, but I'll give credit where it's due. This is rational. I don't disagree with this version. Maybe I was wrong. Then again, maybe people wouldn't come at you, guns blazing if you made your points more like this in the first place.
No one, not me and not @cosmic lights, advocated for the absurd position that you could write without ever having read. She said she used to, but didn't feel the need to anymore. I'm pretty much the same way. I get my new experiences not second had from books but first hand through living, through everything from fixing ice makers and playing peek-a-boo with toddlers to long vacations in Israel, Japan, Australia,the Danube, the Rhine, Italy, England, Montana, and soon Greece. And they're my experience, unfiltered by someone else's biases and limitations. So if the only source of disagreement is whether writers should, at some time since their infancy, have read some fiction (and maybe a little bit more than Dr. Seuss and Go, Dog, Go), we're done here. I never said any different, and I don't think anyone else did either.
The reader changes volume and inflection the way they would for an aside on stage. It's not always clear, but a good performer lets you hear the difference. I don't think there's much danger of that happening. I consume audiobooks like a fiend, and I still read things all day. You can't get get through life without it. Well, not as easily anyway. Maybe someday Alexa, Siri, Google and Cortana will read every sign or screen for us, and that might be a little scary, but they absolutely suck at it as of now.
Let's be clear here: if people had simply said "Hey, @cosmic lights, not reading (any more) may work for you, but it doesn't for me," there'd never have been any conflict. Neither she nor I have been telling other people what they must or even should do to be a good writer, and if other people here had exercised the courtesy and the humility to do likewise, this thread wouldn't have been derailed. But no. Instead, here as in elsewhere, @cosmic lights was piled on for her heresy. I'm glad you accept the legitimacy of the point of view I express in my summary, and I salute you for your maturity. I disagree that there's been any inconsistency between it and my previous posts on this subject. But I don't take offense. It's the nature of written communication that the reader never gets from the words exactly what the author intended. Everyone reads everything from a different perspective.
Well, if it boils down to not reading at all, or reading older stuff in order to regain a love of reading, I know what I'd do. Some of these older books are not actually all that out of date in terms of style anyway. Have you tried reading Old Yeller, by the way? It's written in a very matter-of-fact, accessible style, and certainly isn't massively out of date—published in 1956. It's more comparable to Hemingway than it is to Dickens. People still read Hemingway, Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tolkien, you name it ...all written and published about that same time as well. Dickens was writing nearly a hundred years before that. Yes, styles have certainly changed, and he was a particularly florid example of Victorian style ...probably what made him so popular at the time. I don't think too many people want to re-create his style. However, the OP mentioned she liked Black Beauty, Little Women, etc. All products of the same general era as Dickens. So maybe she would enjoy other books from that same period. The year 1956, however, is well within the memory of many people here on this forum—we're still roaming the earth, awaiting the meteor that will destroy our existence. We are the Baby Boomers, who are overpopulating the planet. We are also still buying books, so it might make sense to write books that appeal to us, too? Just a thought.
Me, too. Every copy of Cordwainer Smith's works that I own is lovingly dog-eared. But though I've read it all uncounted times, I will never match that man's genius and humanity. He inspires me, but I am not conceited enough to think I can copy his inimitable style. I know it so well, reading it again doesn't improve me as a writer.But I do love to.
I don’t think that most are arguing there’s some minimum US RDA of reading that you MUST maintain, like a vitamin supplement, or else you will absolutely fall victim to some sort of book anemia. It’s emphatically better for you to keep actively reading, but if you’ve read a few hundred books in your lifetime, then stopped, I’m not going to argue that it’s impossible for you to write anything decent. If you’ve read a dozen, then stopped, then I think the odds are pretty substantially reduced.
I think I chimed in at “somebody was the first one to make music” (my quote is not verbatim), which didn’t even seem to support her own argument. And it sounds like she doesn’t care about being published or even read, so, yeah, she doesn’t need to read. A cook who is the only person who eats their own food doesn’t need to experience food outside their kitchen. But that doesn’t apply to a cook who wants to win cooking contests—or a writer who wants to be published.
Then we're done here, because that's a reasonable position, and I doubt that whatever differences may exist between that and my own opinion on the matter are capable of being proved right or wrong.
You might be underestimating the influence he had on your writing, though. (Key word: might.) If you had never read him at all, what kind of a writer would you be? If you had never read anybody much at all, what kind of writer would you be? I think that's the question here. It's not about copying style. It's about understanding what makes a written story work. (As opposed to a filmed one.) I think we absorb a lot by osmosis, when we are voracious readers. Including grammar, spelling, etc, but more than that ...we feel how stories are supposed to flow. We get the idea of verbal pacing. How pictures get created in our minds, not just our eyes. Good storytelling is not just: 'She had green eyes and red hair, did this, did that, The End.' Of course you can study about how to write, and I do advocate that. There are invisible tricks to the craft that it helps to be aware of when you write. But a basic understanding of what you are trying to create can also be acquired painlessly, by osmosis ...if you're a reader. It's not an accident that most writers, when interviewed, admit to being voracious readers themselves. Very few of them say, "Oh, I never read."
I don't agree with that, but I don't think it's provably right or wrong. I think if you write or cook to please yourself, someone else will also like what you create. Maybe not the billions served at McDonalds or Harlequin, but someone.
Oh, I wouldn't even be the same person if I hadn't read Cordwainer Smith, much less the same writer. And if an agent ever asks for comps, my answer would be "People who enjoy Cordwainer Smith will enjoy this book" -- and I hope that will be true. But that wasn't the dispute. His work is part of my soul; I don't need to "keep reading" it ( much less read 'lesser' works ) to be the writer I intend to be. Your mileage may vary, as they say.
You're making me want to read Cordwainer Smith! Any particular book you would recommend? I think I may have read some of his short stories, but I don't think I've read any of his novels.
I'm sorry that happened, but I don't think it was as extreme as all that. It wasn't directed at me though, so I'm not the one who gets to say. Either way, it wasn't by me. I don't think I should be lumped in or attacked for explaining the good it's done me. My stories are extremely diverse in subject, genre, voice, mood and style. Reading (mostly audiobooking) an array of drastically different prose is even more advantageous to me than it is to most, but all I advocated was that it's popular advice for good reasons, and the only suggestion I had for @cosmic lights was to try audiobooks if she hadn't. Arguably I droned on in more detail than was necessary. It didn't feel that way to me, but I'll admit that brevity is not my strong suit, a fact of which most members are at this point well aware. We'll have to agree to disagree as to whether or not you called reading "bad advice" and gave examples to support the claim, but I think that's a fine compromise.
He has only one novel: Norstrillia. But it's part of a universe of other related stories: you won't really have read Norstrillia until you've read Mother Hittons Little Kittons, The Ballad of Lost C'Mel, and The Dead Lady of Clown Town, which will respectively tell you more about Norstrillians (like Rod McBan, the MC of the novel), Lord Jestocost and the cat-derived girly-girl C'Melanie (major characters in it), and the Holy Insurgency that the Underpeople are "waging." There are other related stories, but those three do a lot to expand Norstrillia. [Edit: and I love them all. ] His daughter runs a website: http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/
And arguably I use fewer words than might be appropriate. Please accept my admiration and respect, @Rzero . There is not an excess of your like in this world.
