On the Shoulders of Giants

I was chatting someone the other day who had asked for a little help developing something she was working on in her fantasy story. A few minutes into the conversation, I began to list books in the same genre she was writing and suggesting she read a few to get a feel for genre conventions, reader expectations, and just generally get a good foundation to build her ideas on. Her response? “Oh, I don’t want to READ fantasy. I wouldn’t want it to influence my writing.”Stop the presses. Authors be...