I'm 17 and currently taking classes at my local community college. I love writing, I'd write all day if I could. But I hate reading. I suppose it's because the only time I've ever read anything was when I had to for school. I don't want to read about stuff I have no interest in. So, could anyone suggest something I might like to read about? I feel like if I read more, it'll help me become a better writer. I love music. Anything dealing with music I love. I also love art. I love animals. I always find drug addiction topics interesting. Troubled teens. Murder mystery. It'd also be interesting reading a book from the murders' point of view. I'm open to any suggestions!
I hate to say this, but if you hate reading, you're not going to be a writer. You'd be like a musician who hates music, or a painter who hates paintings. It's almost impossible. A writer needs to read.
The thing I always wonder about people who write but do not read is this: do they enjoy reading their own work? An minstrel said. You can't be a writer without reading, and you can't improve your writing without reading. It's logical - not only are you seeing what you are up against, but you are becoming aware of cliches at the start of your reading, and later you develop keen insights into how others think and view the world, and find the emotions in a text, and then later you move onto the more complex things like how someone phrased something in a particular way that is contrary to the norm, and why they did this. All of these things make you a better writer, and there is (thankfully) no way around it. You need to read; read often, and read widely. If you wish to just be a prose fiction writer then read poetry, plays, non-fiction; Philosophy, History, Art criticism, science and politics. Reading not only makes you a better writer, but a better person.
I love music. - High Fidelilty, Nick Hornby I also love art. - Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut I love animals. - Watership Down, Richard Adams Troubled - late - teens - Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger
I think it's possible to be a writer w/out liking most of the stuff out there. If the book you want to read does not exist, write it yourself, you know? Writing is important for studying different writing techniques and how they work and don't work, though.
The only way I could see you actually hating reading, but love writing, would be if you hated a specific genre and wrote your own story/novel set in that genre in hopes of it being better than others. Some authors started out that way, like Terry Brooks. Now, if you actually hate reading everything, go do something else. Writing is not for you.
Agree with most of the rest here, if for no other reason than learning how to (and how not to) write. You'll see how to do some things right, how not to do others, get ideas for your own stories, learn what cliches are, and basically figure out what kind of stories you enjoy enough to write.
If you like art, try reading manga. It's a Japanese form of comic. I like Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa and Blue Exorcist by Kazue Kato
