Writer’s Woes: Define “Reading A Lot”

Top 10 actors who died almost every time Soulless Cry #57

Writer’s Woes: Define “Reading A Lot”

Once a month I permit myself to discuss the dark side of being a (self-published) author. In this month’s post rants about…

“You can’t be writer if you don’t read a lot!”

Nothing undermines my confidence as fast and as thoroughly as this adage.

Of all the sagely advice on writing and being a writer, this is the only one that makes me feel like a fraud. Because – and this is a confession I hate to make – I don’t read much. At least not fiction.

I will be the first to admit that I’m a fastidious reader. Few books draw me in deep enough to keep me reading after the first twenty pages. When a story has potential I will keep reading, sometimes up to two-thirds of the book, if the plot needs that long to take off, I cannot be bothered to read to the end.

However, when a book does appeal to me, I need no more than two days to finish it. If I can do it in one sitting, I will. Only drawback is that I do very little else besides, so I cannot pull such stunts too often lest I never finish writing another story of my own.

So I fall short in the “writing = reading” department. Way short. I know that, and I’m terribly ashamed of it.

Why do writers need to read so much? For a great many reasons, actually.

In order to write good stories, a writer needs to expand his/her knowledge of emotions and human behaviour beyond what they know. They need to expand their knowledge of other cultures, habits, legends, faraway places and the world in general. They need to expand their knowledge of the crafts of storytelling, character development and dramatic arcs. And not in the least do they need to expand their vocabulary by (re)learning words that other writers use.

All very valid and sensible reasons.

Still, I rarely read fiction. Instead, I:

devour encyclopaedias, both online and in print;
collect legends and folk tales from around the world and throughout the ages. Two-thirds of my extensive book collection is non-fiction, and half of those are on history and life in different cultures across time and space;
listen to real people telling their stories about the big problems and the small ones. And I take note of how they sound, what they say and what they don’t say;
compare the official news feeds with the responses on social media to discover what excites, alarms and moves different people;
dissect my favourite TV shows and all kinds of movies for storytelling techniques, do’s and don’t’s of character building, genre conventions, tropes, and how to instil credibility in a plot;
have two thesauri at hand when I’m writing, always comparing verbs or adjectives or nouns until I find the right word that particular sentence. In the process, I come across new words to add to my writer’s toolkit.

I rarely read fiction. That is true. There are more ways than one to hone your skills as a writer, and the best one is always: practice. Write, read back and mark the good and the bad qualities. Then write some more.

So do I really need to read more fiction?

Well, yes. I really do. If only for fun!